Ethnologue list of most-spoken languages
This list gives the most spoken languages in the world according to the Ethnologue, a widely cited reference for languages around the world. The Ethnologue is sometimes criticised for using out-of-date data, but there is no available fully authoritative source for numbers of first language speakers which uses the same criteria for counting in each case. Another tendency of the Ethnologue is to separate what many others (sometimes including speakers of the varieties) consider to be single languages: see for example comments in this article on English and German.
This list, based on the 15th EDition (2005), aims to count first language speakers only (though there are some difficulties with this criterion, as with any other, caused by issues such as multilingualism, differing perceptions of cultural identity and the questions of when language varieties are to be considered different languages or dialects). It also counts macrolanguages, as defined by the Ethnologue, such that Chinese and Arabic are counted as united languages rather than by the varieties also listed, such as Mandarin Chinese or Egyptian Arabic. The year bracketed next to the number of speakers is the year given in the Ethnologue for when the data was taken (for the country with most speakers).
Ranking by number of native speakers |
Language |
Number of speakers |
Where spoken natively by more than 5% of the population or listed as an official language in the countries' constitution |
Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Chinese |
1,205m (1999) |
People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia, Singapore |
This figure includes all varieties of Chinese such as Mandarin and Cantonese, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible |
2 |
Spanish |
322.3m (1995) |
Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, United States, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Panama, Andorra, Gibraltar |
|
3 |
English |
309.4m (1984) |
United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, British Overseas Territories, Singapore, Malaysia, Belize, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Northern Mariana Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada The Bahamas, Barbados, Guam, Cayman Islands,The Philippines, India, Pakistan,Trinidad and Tobago, Malta, Hong Kong, India, Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Zimbabwe Also see List of countries by English-speaking population |
Does not include significant populations in countries such as Jamaica and Guyana, where speakers are said to speak creoles. British Overseas Territories include places such as Falklands Islands, Ascension Island etc. See, List of countries by English-speaking population. |
4 |
Arabic |
206m (1999) |
Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Mauritania, Palestinian territories, Israel, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Chad, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Djibouti, Somalia, Western Sahara |
Figure from all varieties of Arabic, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible |
5 |
Hindi |
180.8m (1991) (Khariboli dialect only) |
India, Fiji, Singapore |
Speakers of the main Khariboli dialect(1991). Indian census (2001) figure is 422m, and represents all Hindi dialects, which the Ethnologue deems mutually unintelligible. Hindi and Urdu are considered as separate languages although they are mutually intelligible when used in everyday conversation. They are written in two different scripts. |
6 |
Portuguese |
177.5m (1998) |
Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Goa, Macau, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau and strong minority in France (over a million), Luxembourg, Andorra ... |
|
7 |
Bengali |
171m (1994) |
Bangladesh, India |
|
8 |
Russian |
145m (2000) |
Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Israel, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan |
|
9 |
Japanese |
122m (1985) |
Japan |
|
10 |
Standard German |
95.4m (1994) |
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein |
This figure seems to include Swiss German, even though this is listed under a different code. Ethnologue divides "German" into 18 dialects1 (Middle and Upper German, not including Low German and Yiddish), totalling to 114.2 million. Including Yiddish and Northern Low Saxon, the total is 118 million. |
11 |
French |
77m (2000) |
France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, French Guiana, CameroonFrench Polynesia, New Caledonia and other overseas territories and departments of France. |
Figure does include significant populations in countries such as Haiti and Mauritius, where speakers are said to speak creoles. 14th edition (2000) gives 77m total. |
12 |
Javanese |
75.5m (1989) |
Indonesia, Suriname |
|
13 |
Telugu |
69.7m (1997) |
India |
|
14 |
Marathi |
68m (1997) |
India |
|
15 |
Vietnamese |
67.4m (1999) |
Vietnam |
|
16 |
Korean |
67m (1986) |
South Korea, North Korea |
|
17 |
Tamil |
66m (1997) |
India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives |
|
18 |
Italian |
61.5m |
Italy, San Marino, Switzerland |
Population includes some of whom are native bilinguals of Italian and regional varieties, and some of whom may use Italian as second language. Sicilian is included. |
19 |
Western Panjabi |
60.8m (2000) |
Pakistan |
Figure does not include Eastern Panjabi, spoken in India, 27.1m |
20 |
Urdu |
60.5m (1997) |
Pakistan, India, Afghanistan |
Standard Hindi and Urdu are considered as separate languages although they are mutually intelligible when used in everyday conversation. They are written in two different scripts. |
See also
- List of languages by number of native speakers - a similar list but from various sources
- Ethnologue
External links
- The Ethnologue
- Different lists of the most spoken languages (the Ethnologue list is from a previous, not the 2005, edition).
- Encarta list, based on data from Ethnologue, but some figures (e.g. for Arabic) widely vary from it
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