List of languages by total number of speakers
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This is a list of languages by total number of 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 (2021, 24th edition)[]
The following languages are listed as having 40 million or more total speakers in the 2021 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 | 369.9 million | 978.2 million[5] | 1.348 billion |
2 | Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, but excl. other varieties) |
Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 921.2 million | 198.7 million[6] | 1.120 billion |
3 | Hindi (excl. Urdu) |
Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 342.2 million | 258.3 million[7] | 600 million |
4 | Spanish | Indo-European | Romance | 471.4 million | 71.5 million[8] | 543 million |
5 | Standard Arabic (excl. dialects) |
Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | 0[a] | 274 million[9] | 274 million |
6 | Bengali | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 228.7 million | 39.0 million[10] | 268 million |
7 | French | Indo-European | Romance | 79.6 million | 187.4 million[11] | 267 million |
8 | Russian | Indo-European | Balto-Slavic | 153.7 million | 104.3 million[12] | 258 million |
9 | Portuguese | Indo-European | Romance | 232.4 million | 25.2 million[13] | 258 million |
10 | Urdu (excl. Hindi) |
Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 69.0 million | 161.0 million[14] | 230 million |
11 | Indonesian (excl. Malay) |
Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | 43.6 million | 155.4 million[15] | 199 million |
12 | Standard German | Indo-European | Germanic | 76.6 million | 58.5 million[16] | 135 million |
13 | Japanese | Japonic | — | 126.3 million | 121,500[17] | 126 million |
14 | Marathi | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 83.1 million | 16.0 million[18] | 99 million |
15 | Telugu | Dravidian | South-Central | 82.6 million | 13.0 million[19] | 96 million |
16 | Turkish | Turkic | Oghuz | 82.2 million | 5.9 million[20] | 88 million |
17 | Tamil | Dravidian | Southern | 77.5 million | 8.0 million[21] | 85.5 million |
18 | Yue Chinese (incl. Cantonese) |
Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 84.9 million | 402,000[22] | 85 million |
19 | Wu Chinese (incl. Shanghainese) |
Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 81.7 million | 63,000[23] | 82 million |
20 | Korean | Koreanic | — | — | —[24] | 82 million |
21 | Vietnamese | Austroasiatic | Vietic | 76.1 million | 745,000[25] | 77 million |
22 | Hausa | Afro-Asiatic | Chadic | 48.6 million | 26.3 million[26] | 75 million |
23 | Iranian Persian (excl. Dari and Tajik) |
Indo-European | Iranian | 56.3 million | 17.9 million[27] | 74 million |
24 | Egyptian Spoken Arabic (excl. other Arabic dialects) |
Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | — | —[28] | 70 million |
25 | Swahili | Niger–Congo | Bantu | 16.3 million | 52.9 million[29] | 69 million |
26 | Javanese | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | — | —[30] | 68 million |
27 | Italian | Indo-European | Romance | 64.8 million | 3.1 million[31] | 68 million |
28 | Western Punjabi (excl. Eastern Punjabi) |
Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | — | —[32] | 65 million |
29 | Gujarati | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 56.9 million | 5.0 million[33] | 62 million |
30 | Thai | Kra–Dai | Zhuang–Tai | 20.7 million | 40.0 million[34] | 61 million |
31 | Kannada | Dravidian | Southern | 43.6 million | 15.0 million[35] | 59 million |
32 | Amharic | Afroasiatic | Semitic | 32.3 million | 25.1 million[36] | 57 million |
33 | Bhojpuri | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 52.3 million | 160,000[37] | 52.14 million |
34 | Eastern Punjabi (excl. Western Punjabi) |
Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 48.6 million | 3.6 million[38] | 52 million |
35 | Min Nan Chinese (incl. Hokkien) |
Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 48.4 million | 387,000[39] | 49 million |
36 | Nigerian Pidgin | English Creole | — | — | —[40] | 48 million |
37 | Jin Chinese | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | — | —[41] | 47 million |
38 | Filipino (excl. Tagalog) |
Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | —[b] | 45.0 million[43] | 45 million |
39 | Hakka Chinese | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | — | —[44] | 44 million |
40 | Yoruba | Niger–Congo | Atlantic–Congo | — | —[45] | 43 million |
41 | Burmese | Sino-Tibetan | Tibeto-Burman | — | —[46] | 43 million |
42 | Sudanese Spoken Arabic | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | — | —[47] | 42 million |
43 | Polish | Indo-European | Balto-Slavic | — | —[48] | 41 million |
44 | Odia | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | — | —[49] | 40 million |
See also[]
- Lingua franca
- Lists of languages
- List of languages by number of native speakers
- List of languages by the number of countries in which they are recognized as an official language
- Number of languages by country
- World language
- Languages used on the Internet
Notes[]
References[]
- ^ 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.
- ^ Crystal, David (March 2008). "Two thousand million?". English Today. 24: 3–6. doi:10.1017/S0266078408000023. S2CID 145597019.
- ^ Crystal, David (1988). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press. pp. 286–287. ISBN 978-0-521-26438-9.
- ^ "What are the top 200 most spoken languages?". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2021-02-26.
- ^ English at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Chinese, Mandarin at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Hindi at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Spanish at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Bengali at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ French at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Russian at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Portuguese at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Urdu at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Indonesian at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ German, Standard at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Japanese at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Marathi at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Telugu at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Turkish at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Tamil at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Chinese, Yue at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Chinese, Wu at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Vietnamese at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Hausa at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Persian, Iranian at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Swahili at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Italian at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ "Punjabi, Western". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
- ^ Gujarati at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Thai at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Kannada at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Bhojpuri at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Chinese, Min Nan at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Tagalog at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Filipino at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Hakka Chinese at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Yoruba at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Burmese at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Sudanese Spoken Arabic at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Polish at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ Odia at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
External links[]
- Ranked: The 100 Most Spoken Languages Around the World, Visual Capitalist
- Lists of languages