The 15 Most Spoken Languages
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1. Mandarin Chinese

Native speakers (2010): 955 million
Non-Native speakers: 194 million
Widely spoken in: China, Taiwan, and Singapore

Mandarin Chinese takes the cake as the world’s most spoken language based on its tremendous number of native speakers. As the standard official and literary form of Chinese based on the Beijing dialect and one of the official languages of the United Nations, Mandarin is the second most popular online language, and it continues growing.
2 English

Native speakers (2010): 360 million
Non-native speakers: 603 million
Widely spoken in: the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland), Republic of Ireland, Africa (as a lingua franca, official or educational language in 20 countries), the Americas and the Caribbean (Canada and the United States as well as in 15 Caribbean countries), Asia (India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Sri Lanka), Australia and the Pacific Islands (Australia, New Zealand and over 15 pacific islands)

The wide spread of English around the globe and its presence in some of the world’s most economically influential countries have given English its place as the world’s second most spoken language. It is the most used language on the internet and one of the United Nation’s official languages. It is interesting to note that the number of non-native English speakers nearly doubles the number of native English speakers, making it the world’s most learned and spoken foreign language. The number of native speakers in 2010 has actually decreased since 2007, while the number of non-native speakers continues increasing.
3. Spanish

Native speakers (2015): 427 million
Non-native speakers: 91 million
Widely spoken in: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela, and widely spoken in over 20 more countries

The prominence of Spanish in the Americas and Europe has led Spanish to becoming one of the world’s most spoken languages with over 420 million native speakers and a growing number of non-native speakers. It is also one of the official languages of the United Nations. It’s an official, national, or widely spoken language in 44 countries, including the United States. Believe it or not, the United States has recently been cited as the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, after Mexico.
4. Hindi

Native speakers (2010): 310 million
Non-native speakers: 120 million
Widely spoken in: India, Nepal, Fiji, and Pakistan

The standard and Sanskrit register of the Hindustani language known as Hindi is one of India’s official languages, and its large population of Indian speakers has led Hindi to becoming one of the world’s most spoken languages. According to linguistic standards, Hindi and Urdu are the same language; however, due to some key differences between their writing systems and vocabulary, they will be considered separate for the sake of this list.
5. Arabic

Native speakers (2010): 295 million
Non-native speakers (estimated): 127 million
Widely spoken in: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Palestine and Western Sahara

While it is difficult to narrow down exactly how many Arabic speakers there are in the world today, it’s estimate that there are over 422 million speakers total, 295 million of which are native speakers. As an official language of the United Nations and the liturgical language of over 1.6 billion Muslims, Arabic is without a doubt one of the world’s most spoken languages and has even contributed over 4,000 loan words to the Spanish language.
6. Malay/Indonesian

Standard Malay native speakers (2007): 77 million
Indonesian native speakers: 170 million
Widely spoken in: Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore

Malay is found in the Austronesian language family and is spoken throughout the Malaysian peninsula. While there are about 18 million people who speak Standard Malay, there are over 170 million people who speak Indonesian, which is a close form of Malay.
7. French

Native speakers (2007): 80 million
Non-native speakers (2010): 153 million
Widely spoken in: Europe (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaca, Switzerland), Africa (spoken in over 26 countries, including Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco), the Americas and the Caribbean (Canada, Haiti, French Guiana, Martinique, and Guadeloupe), and in three Pacific Islands

French is the official language of over 29 countries throughout the world and is the second-most widely spoken first language in the European Union. The colonial history of France has helped spread this language throughout the world and, like in the case of English, has led to a situation in which there are more non-native French speakers than native speakers. French is also one of the United Nations’ six official languages.
8. Bengali

Native speakers (2010): 205 million
Non-native speakers: 19 million
Widely spoken in: India and Bangladesh

Bengali is the second most widely spoken language in India and is primarily spoken in the easternmost states of the country, as well as in Bangladesh. There is a strong history of Bengali nationalism that has led to its rich literary tradition and cultural diversity.
9. Portuguese

Native speakers (2010): 215 million
Non-native speakers (2012): 6.3 million
Widely spoken in: Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé

Of the nearly 215 native Portuguese speakers, over 150 million speak Brazilian Portuguese, the most common variation, due to Brazil’s large population. Apart from Portugal and Brazil, Portuguese colonization also led the language to be spoken in several African countries.
10. Russian

Native speakers (2010): 171 million
Non-native speakers: 30 million
Widely spoken in: Russia and countries that occupy the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Byelorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine)

Russian is an official language of the United Nations due to the historical power of the Soviet Union. Estimates of the number of Russian speakers around the world vary, but sources indicate between 200 and 260 million native speakers. This number is, however, slowly decreasing thanks to the breaking up of the Soviet Union and the consequent rising number of speakers of other languages in former Soviet Union countries.
11. German

Native speakers (2010): 89 million
Non-native speakers:52 million
Widely spoken in: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg

As the most populated county in the European Union, the vast majority of the world’s German speakers live in Germany, but other German speakers can be found in nearby European countries such as Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Interestingly, non-native speakers make up nearly two thirds of the world’s German speakers.
12. Japanese

Native speakers (2010): 127 million
Non-native speakers (estimated):12,000
Widely spoken in: Japan

As one of the world’s fifteen most spoken languages, Japanese is the most geographically concentrated language since over 124 million of its total speakers live in Japan and the Okinawa island group. The dense population of these areas contributes to its large number of speakers.
13. Lahnda/Punjabi

Native speakers (2015): 102 million
Widely spoken in: Pakistan and India

Lahnda is the collective name given to the group of languages and dialects primarily spoken in the Punjab region of Pakistan and India also known as Punjabi. It is the only living Indo-European language that is a fully tonal language.
14. Javanese

Native speakers: 84 million
Widely spoken in: Indonesia and Suriname

Javanese is an Austronesian language spoken by over 80 million people in Indonesia and Suriname. As the most populated island on earth, Java is home to more than 124 million people, over half of which speak Javanese as a native language.
15. Telugu

Native speakers: 74 million
Non-native speakers:5 million
Widely spoken in: India

Telugu is India’s third most used language with over 74 million total native speakers and about five million non-native speakers. It is mainly spoken in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it is an official language.
16. Korean

Native speakers: 77 million
Widely used in: The Korean Peninsula

Korean is the official language of the Republic of Korean and the Democratic Republic of Korea, although each nation uses different forms. Apart from being spoken in North and South Korea, there is also a large population of Korean speakers in China. The standard language in both regions is based on the Seoul dialect.
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∆Gracias a Dios... Hablo español.... ∆

It's not a matter of the numerical number of people who speak the language.
What matters is the geographical coverage of such language thereby ensuring diversity and relative importance.
In this case,English takes the crown

.

wat of Yoruba na

elvfab4:
wat of Yoruba na

dream on

Op why is URDU [an Indo-European language] not on this list? Or did I miss it. It is the official language of Pakistan,that gives you a population of over 190 million people alone in Pakistan. Add the 55 million+ speakers in India where you it also enjoys official language status with about 20 other languages or so and you will get over 200 million speakers. That means it even has more speakers than some of the languages on that list.

Op why is URDU [an Indo-European language] not on this list? Or did I miss it. It is the one of the official languages of Pakistan,that gives you a population of over 190 million people alone in Pakistan. Add the 55 million+ speakers in India where you it also enjoys official language status with about 20 other languages or so and you will get over 200 million speakers. That means it even has more speakers than some of the languages on that list..

elvfab4:
wat of Yoruba na

That is not possible. I make bold to say that none of the Niger-Congo languages can make such a list and you know why. There are about 30-50 million speakers at the moment. Can you compare that to the languages on that list over there?

Swahili nko ?

Hausa nko

However in order of influence and economic importance -

English
French
Spanish
Chinese


That's what matters. What are u doing with Hindi? It shouldn't be about the population of the country, that's why you have funny languages in that list

what a load of crap ... what's the population of france,Benin republic, Niger, Cameroon ... then you're saying 80 million natives for French ... go and redo your research dis time leave weed out of it.

InyinyaAgbaOku:
However in order of influence and economic importance -

English
French
Spanish
Chinese


That's what matters. What are u doing with Hindi? It shouldn't be about the population of the country, that's why you have funny languages in that list

Nope! Spanish comes before French. Spanish is widely spoken across the Americas. 90% of South America speak it including Latin America and southern California . Not leaving out Guinea Bissau and of course Spain.

French on the other hand is only spoken in France and most West and Central Africa.

So Spanish has more importance than French

elvfab4:
wat of Yoruba na

Omoluabi I came to protest the list if yoruba is not no1