Determining what are the most spoken languages in the world is a more difficult task than you might imagine. We can say with some confidence that Mandarin, English, Spanish and Arabic will make an appearance (and roughly in what order), but there are some surprises, too! Would you have guessed that Bengali is in the top 10 most spoken languages?
One small caveat: Assigning hard data, in the form of “X million native speakers,” to any of these languages is practically impossible. What constitutes a language or a dialect is hotly contested stuff. More troubling is the fact that what we refer to simply as “Chinese” is actually a whole family of languages conveniently lumped into a single category. “Hindi” is also used as a catchall term to cover numerous dialects and sub-dialects. We haven’t even yet acknowledged the unreliability of data sources, collected at different times by different institutions. The numbers below are taken compiled by Ethnologue, which is widely considered the most complete language data source currently in existence.
But then again, who doesn’t love a good list? So we’ve compiled two versions for you.
Top 10 Languages By Number Of Native Speakers
When tallied according to number of native speakers only, these are the most spoken languages in the world.
1. Chinese — 1.3 Billion Native Speakers
Numbers vary widely — Ethnologue puts the number of native speakers at 1.3 billion native speakers, roughly 900 million of whom speak Mandarin — but there’s no doubt it’s the most spoken language in the world. If you wish to learn a language that one in six people in the world speak, this is the one for you. Seeing as Chinese is a tonal language that uses thousands of logograms, it will certainly keep you busy.
2. Spanish — 486 Million Native Speakers
If we were only to look at native speakers, Spanish is in front of English with about 486 million speakers. If you want a language that will open up whole continents to you, Spanish is your best bet. As with all the languages on this list, the politics of language and associated identity are highly disputed: ask Catalan or Quechua speakers if Spanish is their local tongue and you will get a very different answer. But it is certainly the primary language of most of South and Central America, Spain, and, ahem, large swathes of the United States.
3. English — 380 Million Native Speakers
If you’re reading this article, you may be one of the 380 million-odd native English speakers, or one of the billion people who speak it as a second language. This indicates the remarkable success of English as the lingua franca of business, travel and international relations. It’s also the most common official language in the world, being the most common official language in the world. The relative ease with which English can be picked up (especially compared with Chinese) and the pervasive soft power of U.S. culture means that English will continue to dominate the world stage for the foreseeable future. For some, English is still synonymous with opportunity and a better quality of life.
4. Arabic — 362 Million Native Speakers
Recent numbers put Arabic at around 362 million native speakers. But this is another instance of numbers not telling the full tale: Arabic, like Chinese, is so vastly different in its respective dialects as to be effectively a number of languages, grouped as one for the sake of convenience. Modern Standard Arabic is a primarily written form, closely related to the Classical Arabic of the Quran. However, the spoken forms of Arabic in, say, Oman and Morocco are so different that a couple of philosophy professors from these countries might be able to discuss the finer points of the ancient texts while still struggling to order lunch.
5. Hindi — 345 Million Native Speakers
India has 23 official languages, with Hindi/Urdu chief among them. Whether this is one language — Hindustani — or two dialects is still fiercely debated. Spoken mainly in northern India and parts of Pakistan, Hindi uses devnagri script, while Urdu uses Persian notation. If you ever travel in the Indian subcontinent, a little Hindi will get you a long way. Plus, this is the language that gave us shampoo, jungle, jodhpurs and bungalow — what’s not to love?
6. Bengali — 237 Million Native Speakers
Admit it: you didn’t expect Bengali to be on the list of most spoken languages. The Partition of Bengal by the British in 1947 divided (mainly Hindu) West Bengal, now part of India, from its (mainly Muslim) counterpart East Bengal, now Bangladesh. It is the language of Kolkata, the Andaman Islands, fabulous sweets and 130-odd million Bangladeshis — many of whom are extremely vulnerable to climate change. By the next century, the population is projected to double while 15 percent of the land area is expected to disappear below rising seas.
7. Portuguese — 236 Million Native Speakers
This is another language whose reach owes much to its colonial past. Starting in the 15th century, avid Portuguese traders and conquerors brought their language to Africa, Asia and the Americas. The spread of Portuguese may have initially been tied to European colonization, but the colonized countries developed their own vibrant cultures that transformed the language forever. Today, Portuguese is spoken by 236 million native speakers in countries like Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It’s also the language of Machado de Assis, Bossa Nova, Mia Couto, Fernando Pessoa and Agualusa.
8. Russian — 148 Million Native Speakers
With roughly 148 million native speakers, Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world. Famed for its inscrutable grammar and quite lovely Cyrillic script, it remains one of the six languages spoken in the United Nations, and produced the literary likes of Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy and Pushkin.
9. Japanese — 123 Million Native Speakers
Almost all of the 123 million native Japanese speakers live in Japan — certainly the most highly geographically concentrated of all the languages on this list. Japanese boasts two distinct writing systems, hiragana and katakana, as well making extensive use of Chinese Kanji characters. The largest groups of Japanese speakers living outside Japan can be found in the United States, the Philippines and Brazil.
10. Lahnda (Western Punjabi) — 118 Million Native Speakers
With varying estimates of around 118 million native speakers, the last spot on the list goes to… Lahnda, a Pakistani macrolanguage that primarily includes Western Punjabi! (Sorry German — you got dumped from top world languages a few years back.) That doesn’t even include Eastern Punjabi, which is spoken in India. The Punjab was sliced in two by the British when they left, and millions of people were forced to abandon their homes, businesses and families. But they’re slowly taking their revenge, Bollywood-style: Punjabi songs now account for 50 percent of chart-toppers. That’s a comeback if we’ve ever seen one.
Top 10 Languages By Total Number Of Speakers
When we count the top 10 most spoken languages according to the total number of people who speak them (whether or not the language is their mother tongue), eight of the 10 languages from the list above still make an appearance, but with a few major differences: English narrowly edges out Chinese for the top spot, Japanese and Punjabi lose their spots, and French and Indonesian join the top 10 thanks to the fact that more people speak them as a second language than as a native language.
Before the list, one factor that we should mention is the status of official languages. English, as mentioned the most common official language, is boosted into first place thanks to its title as the most common official language. The second most common, French, is also launched into the top 10 thanks to that fact. This is thanks to the fact that the official languages of countries often aren’t most people’s native language, but they are a second language people will learn to connect disparate groups within a single nation. That doesn’t mean every official language is naturally a widely spoken language, though. Bolivia is the country with the most official languages with 37, but only one of those — Spanish — makes the top 10 list here, while the rest are mostly indigenous languages protected by official status.
1. English
1.515 billion total speakers
2. Mandarin Chinese
1.140 billion total speakers
3. Hindi
609 million total speakers
4. Spanish
559 million total speakers
5. Standard Arabic
332 million total speakers
6. French
312 million total speakers
7. Bengali
278 million total speakers
8. Portuguese
264 million total speakers
9. Russian
255 million total speakers
10. Urdu
238 million total speakers
Illustrations by Victoria Fernandez.
This article was originally published in 2015. It has been updated with more recent data and information.