List of languages by total number of speakers

This is a list of languages by total number of speakers.

For languages by only native speakers, see List of languages by number of native speakers.

It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. Some languages, such as Chinese and Arabic, cover several mutually unintelligible varieties and are sometimes considered single languages and sometimes language families. Conversely, colloquial registers of Hindi and Urdu are almost completely mutually intelligible, and are sometimes classified as one language, Hindustani, instead of two separate languages. Such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum.[1]

There is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a second-language speaker. For example, English has about 370 million native speakers but, depending on the criterion chosen, can be said to have as many as 2 billion speakers.[2]

There are also difficulties in obtaining reliable counts of speakers, which vary over time because of population change and language shift. In some areas, there is no reliable census data, the data is not current, or the census may not record languages spoken, or record them ambiguously. Sometimes speaker populations are exaggerated for political reasons, or speakers of minority languages may be under-reported in favour of a national language.[3]

Top languages by population

Ethnologue (2022, 25th edition)

The following languages are listed as having 40 million or more total speakers in the 2022 edition of Ethnologue.[4] Entries identified by Ethnologue as macrolanguages (such as Arabic, Persian, Malay, Pashto, and Chinese, encompassing all their respective varieties) are not included in this section.

Rank Language Family Branch First language (L1) speakers Second language (L2) speakers Total speakers (L1+L2)
1 English Indo-European Germanic 372.9 million 1.080 billion[5] 1.452 billion
2 Mandarin Chinese
(incl. Standard Chinese, but excl. other varieties)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 929.0 million 198.7 million[6] 1.118 billion
3 Hindi
(excl. Urdu)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 343.9 million 258.3 million[7] 602.2 million
4 Spanish Indo-European Romance 474.7 million 73.6 million[8] 548.3 million
5 French Indo-European Romance 79.9 million 194.2 million[9] 274.1 million
6 Modern Standard Arabic
(excl. dialects)		 Afro-Asiatic Semitic 0[lower-alpha 1] 274.0 million[11] 274.0 million
7 Bengali Indo-European Indo-Aryan 233.7 million 39.0 million[12] 272.7 million
8 Russian Indo-European Balto-Slavic 154.0 million 104.1 million[13] 258.2 million
9 Portuguese Indo-European Romance 232.4 million 25.2 million[14] 257.7 million
10 Urdu
(excl. Hindi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 70.2 million 161.0 million[15] 231.3 million
11 Indonesian
(excl. Malay)		 Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian 43.6 million 155.4 million[16] 199.0 million
12 Standard German Indo-European Germanic 75.6 million 59.1 million[17] 134.6 million
13 Japanese Japonic N/A 125.3 million 0.1 million[18] 125.4 million
14 Nigerian Pidgin English Creole Krio 4.7 million 116.0 million[19] 120.7 million
15 Marathi Indo-European Indo-Aryan 83.1 million 16.0 million[20] 99.1 million
16 Telugu Dravidian South-Central 82.7 million 13.0 million[21] 95.7 million
17 Turkish Turkic Oghuz 82.2 million 5.9 million[22] 88.1 million
18 Tamil Dravidian Southern 78.4 million 8.0 million[23] 86.4 million
19 Yue Chinese
(incl. Cantonese)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 85.2 million 0.4 million[24] 85.6 million
20 Vietnamese Austroasiatic Vietic 84.6 million 0.7 million[25] 85.3 million
21 Tagalog[lower-alpha 2] Austronesian Central Philippine 28.2 million 54.2 million[26] 82.3 million
22 Wu Chinese
(incl. Shanghainese)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 81.7 million 0.1 million[27] 81.8 million
23 Korean Koreanic N/A N/A N/A[28] 81.7 million
24 Iranian Persian
(excl. Dari and Tajik)		 Indo-European Iranian 56.4 million 21.0 million[29] 77.4 million
25 Hausa Afro-Asiatic Chadic 50.8 million 26.3 million[30] 77.1 million
26 Egyptian Spoken Arabic
(excl. other Arabic dialects)		 Afro-Asiatic Semitic N/A N/A[31] 74.8 million
27 Swahili Niger–Congo Bantu 16.1 million 55.4 million[32] 71.4 million
28 Javanese Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian N/A N/A[33] 68.3 million
29 Italian Indo-European Romance 64.8 million 3.1 million[34] 67.9 million
30 Western Punjabi
(excl. Eastern Punjabi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan N/A N/A[35] 66.4 million
31 Gujarati Indo-European Indo-Aryan 57.0 million 5.0 million[36] 62.0 million
32 Thai Kra–Dai Zhuang–Tai 20.7 million 40.0 million[37] 60.7 million
33 Kannada Dravidian Southern 43.6 million 15.0 million[38] 58.6 million
34 Amharic Afroasiatic Semitic 32.4 million 25.1 million[39] 57.5 million
35 Bhojpuri Indo-European Indo-Aryan 52.3 million 0.2 million[40] 52.5 million
36 Eastern Punjabi
(excl. Western Punjabi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 48.1 million 3.6 million[41] 51.7 million
37 Min Nan Chinese
(incl. Hokkien)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 49.3 million 0.4 million[42] 49.7 million
38 Jin Chinese Sino-Tibetan Sinitic N/A N/A[43] 47.1 million
39 Yoruba Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo 43.6 million 2.0 million[44] 45.6 million
40 Hakka Chinese Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 43.8 million 0.2 million[45] 44.1 million
41 Burmese Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman 33.0 million 10.0 million[46] 43.0 million
42 Sudanese Spoken Arabic Afro-Asiatic Semitic 33.3 million 9.0 million[47] 42.3 million
43 Polish Indo-European Balto-Slavic 40.0 million 0.7 million[48] 40.6 million
44 Algerian Spoken Arabic Afro-Asiatic Semitic 34.7 million 5.6 million[49] 40.3 million
45 Lingala Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo 20.3 million 20.0 million 40.3 million

CIA, 2020

According to the CIA, the 10 most-spoken languages (L1 + L2) in 2020 were:[50]

Most-spoken languages, CIA, 2020[50]
Rank Language Percentage
of world
population
(2020)
1English16.5%
2Mandarin Chinese14.6%
3Hindi8.3%
4Spanish7.0%
5French3.6%
5Arabic3.6%
7Bengali3.4%
7Russian3.4%
9Portuguese3.3%
10Indonesian2.6%

See also

Notes
  1. Modern Standard Arabic is not an L1.[10]
  2. Tagalog and Filipino are defined as two different languages in the ISO 639 standard. Ethnologue considers that Filipino is a standardized variety of the Tagalog language with no speakers.

References
  1. Paolillo, John C.; Das, Anupam (31 March 2006). "Evaluating language statistics: the Ethnologue and beyond" (PDF). UNESCO Institute of Statistics. pp. 3–5. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  2. Crystal, David (March 2008). "Two thousand million?". English Today. 24: 3–6. doi:10.1017/S0266078408000023. S2CID 145597019.
  3. Crystal, David (1988). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press. pp. 286–287. ISBN 978-0-521-26438-9.
  4. "What are the top 200 most spoken languages?". Ethnologue. 3 October 2018. Retrieved 2021-02-26.
  5. English at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  6. Chinese, Mandarin at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  7. Hindi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  8. Spanish at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  9. French at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  10. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  11. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  12. Bengali at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  13. Russian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  14. Portuguese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  15. Urdu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  16. Indonesian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  17. German, Standard at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  18. Japanese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  19. Nigerian Pidgin at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  20. Marathi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  21. Telugu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  22. Turkish at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  23. Tamil at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  24. Chinese, Yue at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  25. Vietnamese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  26. Tagalog at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  27. Chinese, Wu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  28. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  29. Persian, Iranian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  30. Hausa at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  31. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  32. Swahili at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  33. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  34. Italian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  35. Western Punjabi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  36. Gujarati at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  37. Thai at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  38. Kannada at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  39. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  40. Bhojpuri at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  41. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  42. Chinese, Min Nan at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  43. List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  44. Yoruba at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  45. Hakka Chinese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  46. Burmese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  47. Sudanese Spoken Arabic at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  48. Polish at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  49. Sudanese Spoken Arabic at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
  50. "Most spoken languages in the World". Retrieved 1 Jan 2022.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.