Nepali (Khas-Arya)

Name: Nepali (Khas-Arya): census figures, languages and lineage
Creator: Genetik
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Непальцы

language area per Glottologcensus counts

13,084,457

Nepal, census 2021 (mother tongue)

Indo-European

language family (Glottolog)

In brief

The largest documented number lives in Nepal: 13,084,457 people in the 2021 census.

Main language: Nepali. Glottolog classifies it in the Indo-European family.

Where they live: census figures

Each figure comes from the country's official census. Censuses define belonging differently (self-identification, citizenship, mother tongue, ancestry); the type is given on each row.

Nepal2021 · mother tongue · «Nepali» · [1]

13,084,457

Languages and their lineage

Nepali

Indo-Europeanindo1319
Classical Indo-Europeanclas1257
Indo-Iranianindo1320
Indo-Aryanindo1321
Middle-Modern Indo-Aryanmidd1375
Continental Indo-Aryancont1248
Midlands Indo-Aryanmidl1245
Indo-Aryan Northern zoneindo1310
Eastern Paharieast1436
Nepalinepa1254

People-to-language links: Wikidata (properties P103 and P2936), checked against ISO 639-3 codes. Language classification: Glottolog 5.3.

Peoples of the same language family

Pakistanis Russians Marathi Germans Spaniards Mexicans Ukrainians English Irish Americans Italians Romanians Dutch Belarusians Tajiks Czechs Scots Serbs Bulgarians Slovaks Armenians Cubans Lithuanians Albanians

Sources

National Statistics Office, Government of Nepal. National Population and Housing Census 2021, Chapter 2: Summary results of Caste/ethnicity, Language and Religion. https://www.lahurnip.org/uploads/resource/file/caste-ethnicity-report-nphc-2021.pdf
Hammarström H., Forkel R., Haspelmath M., Bank S. (2026). Glottolog 5.3. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. glottolog.org (CC BY 4.0)