Languages of the World

It’s more difficult than you might think to figure out which languages are the most widely spoken around the world. Mandarin, English, Spanish and Arabic are all likely to arrive at some point, but there are a few surprises in store as well. Did you know that Bengali is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world? However, assigning concrete facts such as “X million native speakers” to any of these languages is almost impossible. It is a hot debatable topic whether or not something is a language or a dialect. So, these are the top 10 most spoken languages in the world.

Most Spoken Languages of the World

• Chinese

There are over 1.3 billion native speakers of Mandarin, with roughly 1.1 billion of them speaking the language as a second language. People that learn this language can converse with one in six individuals on the planet. 

• Spanish

In terms of the number of people who can really speak the language, Spanish has around 471 million more native speakers than English does. Spanish is the greatest choice if you wish to be able to communicate with people from different continents. Like other languages on this list, Catalan and Quechua speakers will give you completely diverse answers when you ask them if Spanish is their native tongue.

• English

A native English speaker may be one of the 370 million or so individuals who can speak it, while a second language speaker may be one of the 978 million who can. This proves that English is the most widely spoken language in commerce, travel, and international affairs. 

English is relatively easy to learn compared to Chinese. Because of the pervasiveness of American culture, English will continue to remain dominant in the global arena.

• Hindi

There are a total of 23 official languages in India, with Hindi/Urdu being the most widely spoken. Language experts still question whether Hindustani is one language or two dialects. Devnagri script is used in Hindi, which is primarily spoken in northern India and Pakistan, while Persian notation is used in Urdu.

• Arabic

The most recent estimates put the number of native Arabic speakers at around 315 million. Arabic and Chinese are effectively a number of distinct languages that have been combined into one. The Classical Arabic of the Quran is closely related to Modern Standard Arabic, which is essentially a written language.

• Portuguese

Portuguese is one of the most spoken languages in the world due to the influence of colonialism. Portuguese traders and conquerors started spreading their language throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas. 

While European colonisation influenced the growth of Portuguese, the conquered countries created their own unique cultures, which forever changed the language.

• Bengali

No one expects Bengali to be one of the world’s most widely spoken languages. The British partitioned Bengal in 1947, creating India’s now-independent West Bengal and Bangladesh’s current East Bengal, which was predominately Muslim. 

There are 130 million Bangladeshis who speak this language. Bengali is also the language of Kolkata and the Andaman Islands.

• Russia

Currently, Russian is the world’s ninth most spoken language, with an estimated 154 million speakers. One of the six official languages of the United Nations, Russian has produced literary greats such as Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Pushkin. It is also known for its cryptic grammar and beautiful Cyrillic alphabet.

• Japanese

There are around 126 million native Japanese speakers, making it the most concentrated language on this list. Hiragana and Katakana are two separate writing systems in Japanese, whereas Kanji characters are used extensively.

• Lahnda

It is estimated that there are approximately 118 million native speakers of this language. Western Punjabi is the primary component of Pakistani macrolanguage Lahnda. 

Conclusion

There are currently more than 7,100 languages spoken around the globe. All of them contribute to making the world a more attractive and interesting place. These languages are, however, not spoken by as many people as they should be. More than one billion people speak these languages, making them popular among language learners around the world.