Comparative ranking of Scheduled Language in descending order of speaker’s strength

Language and its percentage to total population
1971			1981*		1991***		2001****
Language          %			Language            %		Language      %		Language       %
1			2		3		4
1	Hindi	36.99	Hindi	38.74	Hindi *2	39.29	Hindi				41.03
2	Bengali	8.17	Bengali	7.71	Bengali	8.30	Bengali				8.11
3	Telugu	8.16	Telugu	7.61	Telugu	7.87	Telugu				7.19
4	Marathi	7.61	Marathi	7.43	Marathi	7.45	Marathi				6.99
5	Tamil	6.88	Urdu	5.25	Tamil	6.32	Tamil				5.91
6	Urdu	5.22	Gujarati	4.97	Urdu	5.18	Urdu				5.01
7	Gujarati	4.72	Kannada	3.86	Gujarati	4.85	Gujarati				4.48
8	Malayalam	4.00	Malayalam	3.86	Kannada	3.91	Kannada				3.69
9	Kannada	3.96	Oriya	3.46	Malayalam	3.62	Malayalam				3.21
10	Oriya	3.62	Punjabi	2.95	Oriya	3.35	Oriya				3.21
11	Punjabi	2.57	Maithili1	1.13	Punjabi	2.79	Punjabi				2.83
12	Assamese	1.63	Santali1	0.65	Assamese	1.56	Assamese				1.28
13	Maithili1	1.12	Kashmiri	0.48	Maithili1	0.93	Maithili 1 @				1.18
14	Santali1	0.69	Sindhi	0.31	Santali1	0.62	Santali 1				0.63
15	Kashmiri	0.46	Konkani2	0.24	Nepali2	0.25	Kashmiri (+)				0.54
16	Sindhi	0.31	Dogri1	0.23	Sindhi	0.25	Nepali2				0.28
17	Konkani2	0.28	Nepali2	0.20	Konkani2	0.21	Sindhi				0.25
18	Nepali2	0.26	Manipuri2	0.14	Bodo1	0.15	Konkani2				0.24
19	Dogri1	0.24	Sanskrit	0.00	Manipuri2	0.15	Dogri 1 (+)				0.22
20	Manipuri2	0.14	Assamese**	**	Sanskrit	0.01	Manipuri2 $				0.14
21	Bodo1	0.10	Bodo1	**	Kashmiri	***	Bodo 1				0.13
22	Sanskrit	0.00	Tamil**

Source: http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement6.aspx