Languages of Nepal

Languages of Nepal, referred to as Nepalese languages in the country's constitution, are the languages having at least an ancient history or origin inside the sovereign territory of Nepal, spoken by Nepalis.

There were 124 mother tongues according to the "National Report on caste/ethnicity, language & religion", National Population and Housing Census 2021 in Nepal.

Nepali accounted as a mother tongue for 44.86% while also being a second additional language for 46.2% of the total population. Most belong to the Indo-Aryan and Sino-Tibetan language families.

The official working language at federal level is Nepali, but the constitution provisions each province to choose one or more additional official working languages. The Language Commission of Nepal in 2021 recommended 14 official languages for different provinces of Nepal.

The mother languages of Nepal, or languages of Nepali origin are sometimes referred to as Nepali languages.

According to the constitution of Nepal: "All languages spoken as the mother tongue in Nepal are the languages of the nation". Many of the languages also have various dialects. For example, the Rai people have about 30 languages. Some of the languages are similar and may be considered dialects. The distinction between dialects and languages is sometimes unclear.

Nepal's languages are mostly either Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan, while only a very few of them are Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian.

Out of 123 languages of Nepal, the 48 Indo-European languages, which are of the Indo-Aryan (Indic) sub-family (excluding English), constitute the largest group in terms of the numeric strength of their speakers, nearly 82.1% of the population. Nepali, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Awadhi, the Tharu languages and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) fall in this group.