Most spoken languages in the world
What are the world’s most
spoken languages?
1. English (1,132 million speakers)
2. Mandarin Chinese (1,117 million speakers)
3. Hindi (615 million
speakers)
4. Spanish (534 million
speakers)
5. French (280 million
speakers)
6. Arabic (274 million speakers)
7. Bangla/Bengali (265 million speakers)
8. Russian (258 million speakers)
9. Portuguese (234 million speakers)
10. Indonesian (199 million speakers)
11. Urdu (170 million speakers)
12. German (132 million speakers)
Well,
roughly 6,500 languages are spoken in the world today. Each and every one of
them make the world a diverse and beautiful place.
Sadly,
some of these languages are less widely spoken than others.
Read on for the twelve most
spoken languages in the world, in
terms of native speakers, and
everything you need to know about them.
The top
12 most spoken languages in the world
1.
English (1,132 million speakers)
Language
family: Germanic,
a sub-family of Indo-European
Related
to: German,
Dutch, Frisian
Fun
fact: The
English word “goodbye” was originally a contraction of “God be with ye”.
With
over 1,130 million native speakers, English is the most
spoken language in the world.
It’s
also the official language of the sky – all pilots have to speak and identify
themselves in English.
Not
only is Shakespeare widely considered as one of the greatest dramatists of all
time, but over his lifespan he added an incredible amount of about 1,700 words
to the English language by changing nouns into verbs, verbs into nouns,
connecting some words with each other and adding prefixes or suffixes to others.
2. Mandarin Chinese (1,117 million speakers)
Language
family: Sino-Tibetan
Related
to: Cantonese,
Tibetan, Burmese
Fun
fact: Research
suggests that you’ll only need around 2,500 characters to be able to read
almost 98 percent of everyday written Chinese.
In
terms of native speakers alone, Mandarin Chinese is by
far the second most spoken language in the world.
It’s
an official language of mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore and one of the six
official languages of the United Nations. So it’s not surprising that there are
approximately 1.09 million native speakers worldwide.
Mandarin
is a tonal language, which means that the meaning of a word changes based on
the way we pronounce it.
With
a set of about 50,000 characters, it is probably one of the most complex
languages to learn.
But
don’t worry: there are no verb conjugations, no tenses and no gender-specific
nouns either.
Quite
motivating, isn’t it?
Maybe
that’s also why it’s one of the most popular languages to learn today…
3. Hindi (615
million speakers)
Language
family: Indo-Ayran,
a sub-family of Indo-European
Related
to: Bengali,
Punjabi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Nepali
Fun
fact: If
you’re an English speaker, you probably already know some Hindi. Do words like
‘guru’, ‘jungle’, ‘karma’, ‘yoga’, ‘bungalow’, ‘cheetah’ and ‘avatar’ ring a
bell? These words (and many more!) have been borrowed from Hindi.
There
are about 615 million native Hindi speakers, which makes it the third most
spoken language in the world. It’s the official language of India, and is also
spoken in countries such as Nepal, Fiji, Mauritius and Guyana.
Hindi
is highly influenced by Sanskrit and named after the Persian word hind, which means – quite literally – “Land of the
Indus river”.
4. Spanish (534
million speakers)
Language
family: Romance,
a sub-family of Indo-European
Related
to: French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian
Fun
fact: The
first modern novel and the second most translated book after the Bible was
written in Spanish. Which novel? It’s Don Quixote by
Miguel de Cervantes, of course!
Twenty-two countries over four continents have
Spanish as the or one of the official languages, and it’s already the second
most studied language in the world.
Can
you believe that within three generations, 10 percent of the world’s population
will be able to communicate in Spanish?
This
is great news for native
English speakers.
For Spanish appears to be the easiest
foreign language for English speakers to learn! Experts say it takes
only 22-24 weeks to reach what’s called general professional proficiency in the
language.
5.
French (280 million speakers)
Language
family: Romance
Related
to: Spanish,
Italian, Portuguese, Romanian
Fun
fact: About
45 per cent of modern English words are of French origin.
In
spite of what Hollywood movies might tell you, the language of love doesn’t
solely exist on moonlit walks in Paris.
Spoken
across different parts of the world – think everywhere from the rest of France
and parts of Canada to a handful of African countries, including Senegal and
Madagascar – the French language has spread its roots far and wide.
6. Arabic (274 million speakers)
Language
family: Semitic,
a sub-family of Afro-Asiatic
Related
to: Hebrew,
Amharic, Aramaic
Fun
fact: Arabic
has at least 11 words for love, each of them expressing a different stage in
the process of falling in love. Now isn’t that a reason to start
learning?
With
295 million native speakers, Arabic is the sixth most
spoken language in the world, and the only one in our top twelve that is
written from right to left.
It
has also heavily influenced European languages like Spanish and Portuguese:
some words sound exactly the same.
It’s
left its mark on the English language, too. The word coffee, for example, comes
from the Arabic word qahwa.
7. Bangla/Bengali (265 million speakers)
Language
family: Indo-Aryan,
a sub-family of Indo-European
Related
to: Hindu, Punjabi,
Marathi, Kashmiri, Nepali
Fun
fact: While
the Bengali script is relatively unknown in the West, but it’s actually the
fifth most widely used writing system in the world!
Bengali,
known to many English speakers around the world as Bangla, is mostly spoken in Bangladesh and India
and is considered by some to be the second most beautiful language after French.
With
around 205 million native speakers, it’s the seventh most spoken language in
the world.
The
Bengali alphabet is particularly interesting.
Every
consonant has a vowel sound built in, which is quite unusual for Westerners.
It
gets even better: different marks change the default vowel sound of a word and
therefore also the meaning!
8. Russian (258 million speakers)
Language
family: East Slavic, a
sub-family of Indo-European
Related
to: Ukrainian,
Belarusian
Fun
fact: Due to Russia’s
presence in space technology, it is a requirement for foreign astronauts to
know a certain amount of Russian (as if becoming an astronaut wasn’t already
difficult enough!).
One
of the most spread out languages (with around 155 million native speakers
living across the world), the eighth most spoken language in the world is Russian.
While
Russian grammar is renowned to be a little tricky, Russian only has about
200,000 words (English has roughly one million), which is why most of them have
more than one meaning.
9. Portuguese (234 million speakers)
Language
family: Romance,
a sub-branch of Indo-European
Related
to: Spanish, French,
Italian, Romanian
Fun
fact: Until recently, the
letters “k”, “w“ and “y” were not part of the Portuguese alphabet. In 2009, a
new agreement was signed to standardize spelling forms across different
variations.
Portuguese
is rooted in the region of Medieval Galicia (which was partly in the north of
Portugal and partly in the northwest of Spain), but only five percent of the
215 million native Portuguese speakers actually live in Portugal.
You
probably know that it’s the official language of Brazil, but is also has the
sole official status in: Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor,
Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and PrÃncipe.
10. Indonesian (199 million speakers)
Language
family: Austronesian
Related
to: Malay,
Javanese, Sundranese, Madurese etc.
Fun
fact: Along
with Malay, it’s up there in the list of most polite languages in the world’s
Eastern region.
A
standardised variation of Malay, an Austronesian language that’s the official
language of Malaysia, Indonesian is a great example of a widely spoken language
that encompasses a number of distinct dialects across Indonesia.
And
despite Western preconceptions, with a simple structure and easy pronunciation
in its favour, Indonesian is surprisingly easy to learn.
11. Urdu (170 million speakers)
Language
family: Indo-Aryan
Related
to: Hindi,
Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri, Nepali
Fun
fact: Hindi and Urdu
speakers can have a simple conversation just fine – provided they keep
things relatively simple!
The lingua
franca of Pakistan and
very close to Hindi, Urdu has crept up on the most spoken languages list in the
last year or so.
Dubbed by some as the language of love for its intriguing-sounding and beautiful words, the French language may have some competition on its hands…
Dubbed by some as the language of love for its intriguing-sounding and beautiful words, the French language may have some competition on its hands…
12. German (132 million speakers)
Language
family: West
Germanic, a sub-family of Indo-European
Related
to: English,
Frisian, Dutch
Fun
fact: German
is known for its seemingly endless sentences.
Often
referred to as the language of writers and thinkers, German has
just over 100 million native – and just under 32 non-native – speakers
worldwide, and is the most spoken language in the European Union.
It’s
an official language of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and
Luxembourg.
which
is not least because of its ability to create completely new and super specific
words.
That’s
probably why it’s so poetic. Schadenfreude,
for example, literally means ‘damage happiness’ and is used to describe the
happiness or entertainment derived from someone else’s misfortune, injury or
pain.
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