Wikipedia, the free online go-to source for all information under the sun, comes in many languages. While the English version is the most popular in India, the growth of other languages tells the story of the evolving Indian—curious, vernacular, and digital. A 2020 Plain Facts analysis of 14 languages, ranging from Hindi and Bangla to Assamese and Maithili, had shown rapid growth in reading interest, shaped by culture, history, religion, and sexuality: ‘Shivaji’ was the most read article in Marathi, ‘Guru Granth Sahib’ in Punjabi, and ‘vagina’ in Bhojpuri. Readership growth has slowed since then, but remains better than major foreign languages, a fresh analysis shows.
Note: All data is based on human users (i.e., excludes bots). All 14 languages with more than 10 million native speakers in India (Census 2011), and having their own Wikipedia version, were considered in the analysis. Figures include readership outside India as well, unless otherwise stated.
Reading is cool
Articles on the 14 top Indian-language Wikipedias were read a combined 140 million times in June 2023. Hindi, Bangla and Tamil made up two-thirds of the total readership (this includes readership from overseas). Some languages are rising fast (Maithili, Bhojpuri), while some seem to have plateaued (Malayalam, Punjabi).
Can vernacular rule?
India’s Wikipedia-reading market still has ample space to grow with rising education and low-cost internet. As with the rest of India’s content industry, vernacular-plus-digital will be the driving force on Wikipedia as well. Foreign languages’ reader base can show the way: Japanese, Russian, Persian and Chinese get more readers than all the 14 Indian languages combined. Even Vietnamese and Swedish are ahead of Hindi. But then, readership is declining for several major foreign languages; that’s not the case for India.
The leaderboard
View Full Image
What Indians are reading
Bhojpuri readers have moved on from reading about women’s sexuality: articles that used to be at the top in our 2020 analysis are no longer there. Local cultural, historical and literary icons continue to drive readership: Shivaji is among the top-read articles in Marathi, Guru Nanak in Punjabi, and Kuvempu in Kannada. While articles about local newspapers topped the Malayalam and Telugu lists, the top Hindi article this year has been about the Bollywood film Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan. Religion holds sway, as the top articles of Maithili, Bhojpuri, and Urdu show; ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is a popular article in Hindi.
View Full Image