Bengali ( / b ɛ ŋ ˈ ɡ ɔː l i / ), [4] also known by its endonym Bangla ( UK : / ˈ b ʌ ŋ l ə / ; বাংলা ), is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Bengalis in South Asia . It is the official and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled languages of India , behind Hindi . In 2015, 160 million speakers were reported for Bangladesh, [1] and the 2011 Indian census counted another 100 million. [5] With approximately 260–300 million total speakers worldwide, [6] Bengali is the 6th most spoken language by number of native speakers and 7th most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world. [7] [8] The official and de facto national language of Bangladesh is Modern Standard Bengali (Literary Bengali). [9] [10] [11] It serves as the lingua franca of the nation, with 98% of Bangladeshis being fluent in Bengali as their first language . [12] [13] Within India, Bengali is the official lan