102 CHAPTER THREE TABLE 3-10. DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONS BY MOTHER TONGUE (LANGUAGE) (NBS 1981) Percentage of Nepal's Total Sample N Estimated Population Language Nepali Maithili Bhojpuri Tamang Abadhi Tharu Newari Magar Rai Gurung Limbu Bhote Sherpa Satar Other Subtotal Missing language 18,799 4,372 3,071 1,948 542 1,671 596 1,104 1,081 389 829 378 9 4,810 39,599 288 6,629,375 1,573,837 1,114,533 702,091 196,281 518,774 274,263 377,267 372,423 136,522 289,112 130,893 3,047 1,758,163 14,076,581 96,501 47.1% 11.2 7.9 5.0 1.4 3.7 1.9 2.7 2.6 1.0 2.1 0.9 0.0 12.5 100.0 0.0 100.0 Total 39,887 14,173,082 Source: FR9.002 AN.14 religious -group and caste was made at a household level; in par- ticular, the religion or caste of the head of the household was ob- tained. The distribution by religious group is shown in Table 3-11. As might be expected, more than nine persons in ten (92.3%) reported their religion as Hindu, while the second leading group was the Buddhists at 5.4 percent. The Muslim share of the population of Nepal is small (1.9%), and other religious groups account for little of the population. The distribution by caste is shown in Table 3-12. Nearly half (49.2%) of the population lived in households in which the head was of the Vaishya caste. It has been assumed that all persons in the household, including females marrying into the family, are of the same caste. Brahmin and Kshatri castes account for nearly equal shares of the population at 17.2 and 17.5 percent of the population. The Shudra caste accounts for the lower share at 13.8 percent. Occupation, literacy, and education were obtained for each per- son in the survey. Table 3-13 displays the distribution of the population by occupation categories. As might be expected, more than half (55.1%) reported their occupation as agriculture or household work (males and females, respectively). Nearly one-third
