First, Second, and Third languages by number of speakers in India (2001 Census) Language First language speakers First language speakers as a percentage of total population Second language speakers Third language speakers Total speakers Total speakers as a percentage of total population Hindi 422,048,642 41.03 98,207,180 31,160,696 551,416,518 53.60 English 226,449 0.02 86,125,221 38,993,066 125,344,736 12.18 Bengali 83,369,769 8.10 6,637,222 1,108,088 91,115,079 8.86 Telugu 74,002,856 7.19 9,723,626 1,266,019 84,992,501 8.26 Marathi 71,936,894 6.99 9,546,414 2,701,498 84,184,806 8.18 Tamil 60,793,814 5.91 4,992,253 956,335 66,742,402 6.49 Urdu 51,536,111 5.01 6,535,489 1,007,912 59,079,512 5.74 Kannada 37,924,011 3.69 11,455,287 1,396,428 50,775,726 4.94 Gujarati 46,091,617 4.48 3,476,355 703,989 50,271,961 4.89 Odia 33,017,446 3.21 3,272,151 319,525 36,609,122 3.56 Malayalam 33,066,392 3.21 499,188 195,885 33,761,465 3.28 Sanskrit 14,135 < 0.01 1,234,931 3,742,223 4,991,289 0.49
after hindi which is the most spoken language in india
English