List of Languages of the World

Introduction:

Language is one of the most important aspects when it comes to communication and successful internationalisation. Without a doubt, it has become an integral element of multiculturalism. As a result, the function of language has greatly affected the development of countries as well as their programs for foreign affairs. Thus, in today’s world, language serves as a primary factor for distinguishing people from each other and hence creating different opinions on issues. Language is not only used for understanding one’s own country’s culture, but also to convey information from different regions to people from other locations. Usually, such information depends on who is giving it or when such information was gathered by them.

What is Official Language?

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a specific country. Usually, an official language is the one that is used by the government for official purposes.

Additionally, it may also be defined as being the language of public administration and the courts of law. In many countries, it is essential for any document created by government authorities to be in the official language for it to be valid in court. For example, all EU documents must be translated into all EU languages before they can become valid.

Moreover, in Australia and New Zealand English is the official language but each state has its own Language Act that defines what an official language means within their jurisdiction.

Below is the list of 12 languages which are spoken the most all over the world:

Why is English the most spoken language in World?

English is both the most spoken language in the world and the most widely understood. This is due to its status of being the official language in countries such as the United States, India and the UK. Also, as English is a second language for a large number of people, it plays a major role in forming international communication.

Even though there are other languages with more native speakers than English, this does not mean that they have more global dominance than it does. For example, Spanish has around 350 million native speakers and Chinese Mandarin has over 1 billion native speakers. However, unlike English there is no country which uses these two languages for all government purposes. Therefore, their importance for global communication is lesser than that of English’s.

Similarly, other languages have much fewer native speakers than English. For instance,

German has less than 100 million native speakers and Arabic only has a little over 170 million native speakers. However, there are certain countries such as Germany and Arab that use English for all government purposes. Thus, their importance for global communication is even lesser compared to English. However, the most important fact about English being the most spoken language in the world is that it is also one of the most studied languages in universities around the world. This means that many more people have knowledge of it than any other language in the world. Additionally, the study of English has seen a steady increase in recent years. In fact, it has now become the most popular language to study at university level. As such, there are many more native English speakers who learned it from an early age than any other language in the world.

As per statistics, 2/3rds of the students currently pursuing higher education are taking up courses that require knowledge of English. These include languages like Philosophy, Linguistics and Archeology. Also, many people who don’t pursue a career related to their degree will learn English as they believe it is important to know the language for professional and personal reasons alike.

Conclusion:

As many countries and nations rely on English for official purposes, it is expected to remain the most widely used language in world. In fact, it is already one of the official languages of almost a hundred countries. If anything, this list will get longer as more countries choose to adopt English for their government purposes.

However, due to certain factors such as changing trends and global popularity of certain languages like Chinese Mandarin and Russian, there is a chance that English might become the second most spoken language in the world in the future. If this happens then only numbers will matter in determining which are the top most spoken languages in the world. Thus, all other factors like cultural significance will be ruled out and everything will depend on which country has more native speakers than others.