Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see Distribution of languages in the world.

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. For example, Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages, but each includes several mutually unintelligible varieties, and so they are sometimes considered language families instead. Conversely, colloquial registers of Hindi and Urdu are almost completely mutually intelligible, and are sometimes classified as one language, Hindustani. 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 450 million native speakers but, depending on the criterion chosen, can be said to have as many as two 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 underreported in favor of a national language.[3]

Ethnologue (2023)

The following languages are listed as having 45 million or more total speakers in the 26th edition of Ethnologue published in 2023.[4] Entries identified by Ethnologue as macrolanguages (such as Arabic, Persian, Malay, Pashto, Sindhi, and Chinese, encompassing all their respective varieties) are not included in this section.

Most spoken languages, Ethnologue, 2023
Language Family Branch First-language
(L1) speakers		 Second-language
(L2) speakers		 Total speakers
(L1+L2)
English
(excl. creole languages)		 Indo-European Germanic 380 million 1.077 billion[5] 1.456 billion
Mandarin Chinese
(incl. Standard Chinese, but excl. other varieties)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 939 million 199 million[6] 1.138 billion
Hindi
(excl. Urdu)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 345 million 266 million[7] 609 million
Spanish
(excl. creole languages)		 Indo-European Romance 485 million 74 million[8] 559 million
French
(excl. creole languages)		 Indo-European Romance 81 million 229 million[9] 310 million
Modern Standard Arabic
(excl. dialects)		 Afro-Asiatic Semitic 0[lower-alpha 1] 274 million[11] 274 million
Bengali Indo-European Indo-Aryan 234 million 39 million[12] 273 million
Portuguese Indo-European Romance 236 million 27 million [13] 264 million
Russian Indo-European Balto-Slavic 147 million 108 million[14] 255 million
Urdu
(excl. Hindi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 71 million 161 million[15] 232 million
Indonesian
(excl. other Malay)		 Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian 44 million 155 million[16] 199 million
Standard German Indo-European Germanic 75 million 58 million[17] 133 million
Japanese Japonic — 123 million 0.2 million[18] 123 million
Nigerian Pidgin English Creole Krio 5 million 116 million[19] 121 million
Egyptian Arabic
(excl. other Arabic dialects)		 Afro-Asiatic Semitic 77 million 25 million[20] 102 million
Marathi Indo-European Indo-Aryan 83 million 16 million[21] 99 million
Telugu Dravidian South-Central 83 million 13 million[22] 96 million
Turkish Turkic Oghuz 84 million 6 million[23] 90 million
Tamil Dravidian Southern 79 million 8 million[24] 87 million
Yue Chinese
(incl. Cantonese)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 86 million 1 million[25] 87 million
Vietnamese Austroasiatic Vietic 85 million 1 million[26] 86 million
Wu Chinese
(incl. Shanghainese)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 83 million 0.1 million[27] 83 million
Tagalog[lower-alpha 2] Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian 29 million 54 million[28] 83 million
Korean Koreanic — 82 million —
[29]		 82 million
Iranian Persian
(excl. other Persian dialects)		 Indo-European Iranian 57 million 21 million[30] 79 million
Hausa Afro-Asiatic Chadic 52 million 27 million[31] 79 million
Swahili Niger–Congo Bantu 16 million 55 million[32] 72 million
Javanese Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian — —
[33]		 68 million
Italian Indo-European Romance 65 million 3 million[34] 68 million
Western Punjabi
(excl. Eastern Punjabi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan — —
[35]		 67 million
Gujarati Indo-European Indo-Aryan 57 million 5 million[36] 62 million
Thai Kra–Dai Zhuang–Tai 21 million 40 million[37] 61 million
Kannada Dravidian Southern 44 million 15 million[38] 59 million
Amharic Afro-Asiatic Semitic 32 million 25 million[39] 58 million
Bhojpuri Indo-European Indo-Aryan 52 million 0.2 million[40] 52 million
Eastern Punjabi
(excl. Western Punjabi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 48 million 4 million[41] 52 million
Min Nan Chinese
(incl. Hokkien)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 50 million 0.4 million[42] 50 million
Jin Chinese Sino-Tibetan Sinitic — —
[43]		 48 million
Levantine Arabic
(excl. other Arabic dialects)		 Afro-Asiatic Semitic 47 million 0.4 million[44] 48 million
Yoruba Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo 44 million 2 million[45] 46 million

CIA World Factbook (2022)

The World Factbook, produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), estimates the ten most spoken languages (L1 + L2) in 2022 as follows:[46]

Most spoken languages, CIA, 2022[46]
Language Percentage
of world
population
(2022)
English18.8%
Mandarin Chinese13.8%
Hindi7.5%
Spanish6.9%
French3.4%
Arabic3.4%
Bengali3.4%
Russian3.2%
Portuguese3.2%
Urdu2.9%

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is not an L1. Arabic speakers first learn their respective local dialect. MSA is acquired through formal education.[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. 2023. Retrieved 2023-08-25.
  5. ↑ English at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  6. ↑ Chinese, Mandarin at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  7. ↑ Hindi at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  8. ↑ Spanish at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  9. ↑ French at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  10. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  11. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  12. ↑ Bengali at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  13. ↑ Portuguese at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  14. ↑ Russian at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  15. ↑ Urdu at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  16. ↑ Indonesian at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  17. ↑ German, Standard at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  18. ↑ Japanese at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  19. ↑ Nigerian Pidgin at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  20. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  21. ↑ Marathi at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  22. ↑ Telugu at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  23. ↑ Turkish at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  24. ↑ Tamil at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  25. ↑ Chinese, Yue at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  26. ↑ Vietnamese at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  27. ↑ Chinese, Wu at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  28. ↑ Tagalog at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  29. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  30. ↑ Persian, Iranian at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  31. ↑ Hausa at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  32. ↑ Swahili at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  33. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  34. ↑ Italian at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  35. ↑ Western Punjabi at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  36. ↑ Gujarati at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  37. ↑ Thai at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  38. ↑ Kannada at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  39. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  40. ↑ Bhojpuri at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  41. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  42. ↑ Chinese, Min Nan at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  43. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  44. ↑ List of languages by total number of speakers at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  45. ↑ Yoruba at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  46. 1 2 "Most spoken languages in the World". The World Factbook. CIA. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
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