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 or Nepalese or Gorkhali (Nepali: नेपाली जनता) are the permanent citizens of Nepal under Nepali nationality law. The term Nepali strictly refers to nationality, meaning people holding citizenship of Nepal. Conversely, people without Nepalese citizenship but with roots in Nepal (such as Nepalese Australians), who speak Nepali or any of the other 128 Nepali languages but hold foreign citizenship, are referred to as Nepali-language Speaking Foreigners (Nepali: नेपाली भाषी विदेशी). The term Nepali is also not generally used to refer to non-citizen residents, dual citizens, or expatriates.
Nepal is a multicultural and multi-ethnic country. Bagmati Province is the most densely populated province, holding approximately 20.97 percent of Nepal's population.
Nepali (नेपाली, Nepālī, [ˈnepali]), is an Indo-Aryan language, belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family, native to the Himalayan region of South Asia. It is the official and most-widely spoken language of Nepal, where it also serves as a lingua franca. Nepali has official status in the Indian state of Sikkim and in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration semi-autonomous region of West Bengal, where it is the majority language. It is also spoken by about a quarter of Bhutan's population. Nepali also has a significant number of speakers in the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Uttarakhand. In Myanmar it is spoken by the Burmese Gurkhas. The Nepali diaspora in the Middle East, Brunei, Australia and worldwide also use the language. Nepali is spoken by approximately 19 million native speakers and another 14 million as a second language.
Nepali is commonly classified within the Eastern Pahari group of the Northern zone of Indo-Aryan.The language originated from the Sinja Valley, Karnali Province then the capital city of the Khasa Kingdom around the 10th and 14th centuries. It developed proximity to a number of Indo-Aryan languages, most significantly to other Pahari languages. Nepali was originally spoken by the Khas people, an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group native to the Himalayan region of South Asia. The earliest inscription in the Nepali language is believed to be an inscription in Dullu, Dailekh District which was written around the reign of King Bhupal Damupal around the year 981. The institutionalisation of the Nepali language arose during the rule of the Kingdom of Gorkha (later became known as the Kingdom of Nepal) in the 16th century. Over the centuries, different dialects of the Nepali language with distinct influences from Sanskrit, Maithili, Hindi, and Bengali are believed to have emerged across different regions of the current-day Nepal and Uttarakhand, making Nepali the lingua franca.
Maithili (/ˈmaɪtɪli/ MY-til-ee, Maithili: [ˈməi̯tʰɪliː]) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of India and Nepal. It is native to the Mithila region, which encompasses parts of the eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand as well as Nepal's Koshi and Madhesh Provinces. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. It is the second most commonly spoken native Nepalese language constitutionally registered as one of the fourteen provincial official languages of Nepal.
It is spoken by 21.7 million people. Of those, 3.2 million are Nepalese speakers. The language is predominantly written in Devanagari, but the historical Tirhuta and Kaithi scripts retained some use until today.
Ethnic groups in Nepal are delineated using language, ethnic identity or the caste system in Nepal. They are categorized by common culture and endogamy. Endogamy carves out ethnic groups in Nepal.
Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multiracial, multicultural, multi-religious, and multilingual country. The most spoken language is Nepali followed by several other ethnic languages.
The lands of modern-day Nepal are widely regarded to be the birthplace of Buddhism and the Buddha, which eventually spread into India and Sri Lanka, across East and Southeast Asia, and as far west as Kalmykia in Russia. The modern day Kingdom of Nepal was established in 1768 and started a campaign of unifying what would form the modern territories of Nepal. Some former territories had been lost due to the Anglo-Nepalese War and the Sino-Nepalese War. In the Sino-Nepalese war, the conflict ended with both victories and losses with the kingdom ultimately accepting tributary status with the Qing dynasty of China from 1792 to 1865. The Anglo-Nepalese War ended in British victory and resulted in the ceding some Nepalese territory in the Treaty of Sugauli. In a historical vote for the election of the constituent assembly, the Nepalese parliament voted to abolish the monarchy in June 2006. Nepal became a federal republic on 28 May 2008 and was formally renamed the 'Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal' ending the 200-year-old reign of the Shah monarchs. From 8-13 Sep 2025, a widespread riot was caused by economic corruption and the banning of social media.