Methodology · Punjabi as a Mother Tongue: Rajasthan's Districts, Census 2011

How this list is compiled

Measured

This method is shared by the 14 lists in the The Mother Tongues of Rajasthan series. See the series.

WHAT THIS IS. One list for each mother tongue that at least 0.5% of Rajasthan's people returned at the 2011 census — 14 of them — each ranking the state's districts by how many people returned it. The figures are Census of India table C-16, Population by mother tongue, for Rajasthan, as the Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner publishes it. WHAT A FIGURE IS. The number of people C-16 counts under a mother tongue in a district: the mother tongue returned for each person, not a measure of how well anyone speaks it. The names are the census's own, as its table prints them; this register ranks by them and reclassifies nothing. Bilingualism is tabulated separately, in C-17, and is not used here. ONE REGION, TWO NAMES. Much of western and northern Rajasthan returned "Rajasthani" rather than "Marwari". In Jodhpur district 29,57,844 people returned Rajasthani and 3,27,157 returned Marwari; in Barmer the balance ran the other way, 15,91,907 Marwari to 8,57,389 Rajasthani. A district's absence from one list may mean its people returned another name for the same speech, or that the speech is not spoken there; the table cannot say which. Read the lists together. HOW THE CENSUS GROUPS THEM. C-16 files each mother tongue under a language: Rajasthani, Hindi, Marwari, Mewari, Hara/Harauti, Dhundhari, Brajbhasha, Malvi and Mewati under HINDI; Wagdi under BHILI/BHILODI; Punjabi and Bagri under PUNJABI; Urdu under URDU; Sindhi under SINDHI. That grouping is the census's and is reported as printed. This publication does not move a mother tongue from one language to another. One name is returned in two separate parts of the state: "Bagri", by 4,77,229 people in Ganganagar and 2,16,580 in Hanumangarh in the north, and by 2,98,019 in Dungarpur in the south. The census files it under one language throughout; this register repeats that, and says nothing about whether the speech is the same. WHICH MOTHER TONGUES HAVE A LIST. Every mother tongue returned by at least 0.5% of Rajasthan's population of 6,85,48,437 — at least 3,42,743 people. The rule decides, not an editor. The five largest it leaves out, each with the district where it is the largest share of the population: Sadan/Sadri (2,11,102; 6.9% of Udaipur), Sondwari (2,02,258; 14.2% of Jhalawar), Bengali (81,564; 0.5% of Baran), Garasia (67,312; 6.4% of Sirohi), Gujarati (66,849; 0.8% of Sirohi). They are in the census table, and on no list here. WHICH DISTRICTS APPEAR. A district appears on a list where at least 1,000 of its people returned that mother tongue. Below that the list would become a table of small remainders. WHOSE BOUNDARIES. The 33 districts of 2011. Rajasthan has redrawn its districts since 2023 and several of today's were carved out of these. Each figure describes its district as it stood in 2011 and is attached to the page of the district that carries the same name today. The same table also publishes sub-district figures, from which some of today's districts could be rebuilt; this register does not do that yet, so no figure is attributed to a district created after 2011. THE SHARE BESIDE EACH FIGURE. The one figure this register computes rather than copies: the count divided by the district's population in the same table — the sum of every mother tongue C-16 records there, which is the district's census population. ORDER. By number of people, largest first. Districts with equal figures are ordered by name, which carries no judgement. THE SOURCE. Census of India 2011, table C-16, Rajasthan, published as a spreadsheet at https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/10220/download/13332/DDW-C16-STMT-MDDS-0800.XLSX and read on 24 Sept 2026. Every count on these lists is a cell of that table, and none is estimated; the share beside it is this register's arithmetic on the same table. Each district's figures are also on its own page, cited to the row they came from.

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