Stalin’s Tamil war: Last Census showed language thrived in South, TN ranked among lowest in multilingualism

In Tamil Nadu, 88.37% of its total population speaks Tamil, the state’s official language. The 2011 Census includes several Dravidian tribal languages under the overall Tamil umbrella.

The vast majority of India’s Tamil speakers – 6.38 crore or 92.4% in the 2011 Census – are residents of Tamil Nadu. Outside Tamil Nadu, the top five states and Union Territories with the most Tamil speakers in that Census were Karnataka at 21.1 lakh, Puducherry at 11.01 lakh, Andhra Pradesh (which included Telangana in the 2011 Census) at 7.14 lakh, Maharashtra at 5.1 lakh, and Kerala at 5.03 lakh – all states mostly concentrated in the south. No other state has more than a lakh Tamil speakers, with the total outside Tamil Nadu and these six states adding up to 3.36 lakh in the 2011 Census.

The northern states with the most Tamil speakers were Delhi at 82,719, Gujarat at 40,072, and Madhya Pradesh at 20,544.

Altogether, there were 52.73 lakh Tamil speakers outside Tamil Nadu, accounting for 7.6% of all Tamil speakers in India. This was also second among the South Indian languages, with Telugu leading with 1.05 crore speakers outside Andhra Pradesh . There were 30.55 lakh Kannada speakers outside Karnataka, and 24.26 lakh Malayalam speakers outside Kerala.

Among the 6.9 crore Tamil speakers as per the 2011 Census, 66.56 lakh or 9.6% identified the language as their “first subsidiary language”. The most common mother tongues for these bilingual speakers were Telugu at 34 lakh, Kannada at 11.9 lakh, Urdu at 8.79 lakh, Malayalam at 7.25 lakh at, Gujarati at 1.99 lakh, and Hindi at 1.59 lakh.

Among the 8.99 lakh people who were trilingual and spoke Tamil as their “second subsidiary language”, the most common mother tongues were Telugu and Kannada. The most common language combinations with Tamil for trilinguals were Telugu-Kannada at 1.6 lakh, Malayalam-English at 1.33 lakh, Kannada-Telugu at 1.2 lakh, Telugu-English at 1.03 lakh, and Kannada-English at 55,936.

Among those who counted Tamil as their mother tongue and were bilingual, the most common second languages were English at 1.24 crore, Telugu at 18.49 lakh, Kannada at 15.5 lakh, Hindi at 10.32 lakh, and Malayalam at 3.8 lakh.

For trilinguals with Tamil as their mother tongue, the most common second- and third-language combinations were English-Hindi at 8.59 lakh, English-Kannada at 4.26 lakh, English-Telugu at 2.27 lakh, Kannada-Telugu at 2.02 lakh, and English-Malayalam at 1.33 lakh.

Incidentally, Tamil Nadu had among the lowest rates of multilingualism in India – 2.04 crore or 28.3% of the state’s population that was bilingual, and 24.47 lakh or 3.39% trilingual.