Indo-European · ISO 639-3 nep · ne
Nepali Language नेपाली
Nepali is an Indo-European language spoken by about 20 million people in 3 countries. It is an official language of Nepal. It is written in the Devanagari and Latin scripts.
Where Nepali is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Nepali
About the Nepali language
Nepali (नेपाली) is spoken by about 20 million people. It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Indo-Iranian group within the Indo-Iranian branch.
Where is Nepali spoken?
Nepali is used in 3 countries. The largest communities live in Nepal (14 million), India (7.9 million) and Bhutan (150,372).
Share of the population that speaks Nepali: Nepal 44% (14 million), India 0.6% (7.9 million) and Bhutan 17% (150,372).
Nepali is an official language in 1 country: Nepal. It also has regional official status in India.
Writing system and status
Nepali is written in the Devanagari and Latin scripts.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Panjabi, Western Panjabi, Marathi and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 ne, ISO 639-3 nep.
Frequently asked questions about Nepali
How many people speak Nepali?
Where is Nepali spoken?
In which countries is Nepali an official language?
What language family does Nepali belong to?
What is Nepali called in Nepali?
Is Nepali an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.