The Maithili Alphabet

Maithili (मैथिली; ISO 639-3: mai) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by approximately 34 million people in the Mithila region of Bihar, India, and the Terai belt of Nepal. It belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan subgroup, most closely related to Bhojpuri, Angika, and Bajjika — the Bihari language group.

Maithili is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Indian Constitution (added in 2003). It has a rich literary tradition dating to the 14th century — the poet Vidyapati (c. 1352–1448) is the towering figure of Maithili literature, composing devotional songs in honour of Shiva and Vishnu that are still sung at festivals in Mithila and Nepal today.

Maithili is today primarily written in the Devanagari script (देवनागरी) — the same left-to-right abugida used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, and Sanskrit. Devanagari has 33 consonants and 11 independent vowels.

Maithili also has its own ancient script called Tirhuta (also known as Mithilakshar) — a medieval Brahmic script that was the traditional script of the Mithila region. Tirhuta was used for religious texts, manuscripts, and formal Maithili writing for centuries. It was added to Unicode in 2014. While Devanagari is now the standard script for modern Maithili, efforts are underway to preserve and promote the Tirhuta script as part of Maithili cultural heritage.

Maithili is spoken primarily in the Mithila region of Bihar, India — particularly in the districts of Darbhanga, Madhubani, Saharsa, Sitamarhi, Supaul, and Muzaffarpur. Significant Maithili-speaking communities are also found in the Terai belt of Nepal (particularly in Morang and Sunsari districts) and in diaspora communities worldwide.

The Mithila region — named after the ancient kingdom of Mithila — is associated with the legendary king Janaka, father of Sita in the Ramayana. The region is famous for its Madhubani painting tradition, which often depicts Maithili folk deities and stories. Maithili is thus deeply intertwined with the artistic and cultural heritage of the Mithila region.

Maithili is spoken by approximately 34 million people as a native language. The 2011 Indian census recorded approximately 13.5 million people listing Maithili as their mother tongue in India, but the actual number of speakers (including those who may report Hindi or Nepali as their language) is significantly higher.

In Nepal, Maithili is the second most widely spoken language after Nepali, with approximately 12% of the population (around 3 million people) speaking Maithili as their first language. Together, India and Nepal account for the majority of the world's Maithili speakers, making it one of the larger Indo-Aryan languages by speaker count.

Maithili is not the same as Hindi. While both use the Devanagari script and belong to the Indo-Aryan family, Maithili is a distinct language with its own grammar, vocabulary, and literary tradition. Maithili has different verb forms, postpositions, and many unique words not found in Hindi.

Maithili is sometimes grouped under the umbrella term "Bihari languages" along with Bhojpuri and Magahi, but this classification is linguistically imprecise — Maithili has its own ISO 639-3 code (mai) and its own distinct features. In 2003, Maithili was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, formally recognising it as a language distinct from Hindi. Maithili linguists emphasise that it is a separate language with a continuous literary tradition predating modern Hindi.