Q&A: What are the most spoken languages on earth?
mongabay.com
July 25, 2005
According to figures from UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the most widely spoken language on earth is Mandarin which is spoken as a first language by nearly a billion people. Second on the list is English with around 358 million, followed by Spanish. French is spoken as a first language by a mere 81 million, good for number eleven on the list.
Language
First language speakers
Total speakers including second language users
Range estimate
Midpoint number
Range estimate
Midpoint number
Chinese (Mandarin)
800-1100
950
856-1120
988
English
315-400
358
455-508
482
Spanish
266-400
333
320-472
396
Hindi
250-385
318
333-487
410
Arabic
180-210
195
207-260
233
Bangla (Bengali)
180-190
185
189-250
220
Russian
160-180
170
277-320
299
Portuguese
160-180
170
188-200
94
Japanese
120-125
123
120-133
127
German
98-100
99
107-125
116
French
72-90
81
125-265
195
All figures are in millions of people
Earlier this month UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, launched a call for submissions to its new 'Register of Good Practices in Language Preservation' as part of its campaign to safeguard languages in danger of extinction. UNESCO estimates that
Over 50% of the world's 6000 languages are endangered.
96% of the world's 6000 languages are spoken by 4% of the world's population.
90% of the world's languages are not represented on the Internet.
One language disappears on average every two weeks.
More estimates
Language
Estimated native speakers
Estimated speakers, native and spoken as a second language
Mandarin Chinese
873
1051
Spanish
322
500
English
380
600
Arabic
206 to 422
Hindi
181 to 366
Portuguese
177
223
Bengali
171 to 207
207
Russian
145 to 167
255
Japanese
122 to 128
130
German
95 to 101
170
Javanese
76
75.6
Wu
77
Telugu
70 to 76
86
Marathi
68
71
Vietnamese
67 to 70
86
Korean
67 to 78
78
Tamil
62
72
French
65 to 113
350
Italian
61 to 62
62
(Western) Punjabi
61 to 89
104
Urdu
60
104
Cantonese
55 to 66
100
Turkish
50 to 74
89
Min Nan
46 to 59
to to
Gujarati
46.1
46.1
Polish
43 to 44
44
Ukrainian
39 to 47
47
Persian
39 to 61
110
Malayalam
35 to 38
48
Kannada
35
64
Azerbaijani
31
39
Oriya
32
Hakka
30 to 34
to to
Burmese
22 to 32
42
Thai
20 to 46
60
Amharic
27
34
Sundanese
27
Romanian
26.3
30
Kurdish
31.4
Dutch
20 to 25
Pashto
26.8
30
Hausa
24.2
40
Indonesian
17.1
140
Oromo
17.2 to 24
26
Tagalog
17 to 22
85
Uzbek
20
Sindhi
20
1
Yoruba
19
21
Somali
9.8 to 16
10 to 16.5
Lao
3.2
19
Cebuano
15 to 18.5
30
Malay
18
21
Igbo
18
Serbo-Croatian
11
17
Malagasy
10.5
17
Nepali
16
31 to 40
Assamese
15
Shona
14 to 15
16 to 17
Khmer
8 to 14
15
Zhuang
14
Madurese
14
Hungarian
14
Sinhalese
13
15
Fula
11.4
13
Tamazight
3.5
13
Haitian Creole
7.8
12
Czech
Greek
12
17 to 18
Kazakh
8
12
Quechua
8.3
10.4
Zulu
9 to 9.6
25
Estimates derived from Wikipedia, which is based on figures from Ethnologue and Microsoft Encarta.
MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
