New Delhi, June 27: According to data on language released on Tuesday as part of Census 2011, the percentage of Indian population with Hindi as their mother tongue has increased to 43.63 per cent as compared to 41.03 per cent in 2001. As per a Times of India report, Bengali remains the second most spoken language, while Marathi is there in the third place, replacing Telugu.

Sanskrit is the least spoken in the country and was listed below Bodo, Manipuri, Konkani and Dogri languages in terms of the number of speakers. Reportedly around 2.6 lakh people listed English as their first spoken language in the 2011 census, of which 1.06 lakh were in Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu came in the second place with people having English as their mother tongue, while Karnataka was a close third.

The ranking for the Urdu language has slipped one spot down, as it occupied the seventh place. Gujarati replaced Urdu in the sixth rank.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 27, 2018 12:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).