Maithili (;
Maithili) is an
Indo-Aryan language spoken in
Nepal and northern
India by 34.7 million people as of 2000, of which 2.8 million were resident in Nepal. It is written in the
Devanagari script. In the past, Maithili was written primarily in
Mithilakshar. Less commonly, it was written with a Maithili variant of
Kaithi, a script used to transcribe other neighboring languages such as
Bhojpuri,
Magahi, and
Awadhi.