Q&A: What are the most spoken languages on earth?
mongabay.com
July 25, 2005
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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.
Credits
Rhett Butler Editor
