Most lists of the top languages list languages by the number of native speakers. This one lists the top languages by the number people who speak a language regardless of when or how they learned it. The numbers (the latest as of 2012) are in millions and should be regarded as approximations:
- English (1200)
- Mandarin Chinese (1025)
- Hindi/Urdu (570)
- Arabic (526)
- Spanish (390)
- Russian (250)
- Bengali (250)
- French (200)
- Portuguese (193)
- Malay (180)
- Punjabi (144)
- Swahili (140)
- Japanese (123)
- German (118)
- Persian (110)
- Wu (90)
- Tagalog (89)
- Telugu (87)
- Vietnamese (86)
- Javanese (85)
- Marathi (84)
- Turkish (83)
- Korean (72)
- Tamil (71)
- Yue (Cantonese) (70)
- Italian (62)
- Min (60)
- Pashto (60)
- Thai (60)
- Burmese (56)
- Gujarati (54)
- Hausa (53)
By 2100, the top ten will probably look something like this:
- English (1989)
- Arabic (866)
- Mandarin Chinese (803)
- Swahili (789)
- Hindi/Urdu (704)
- French (607)
- Spanish (448)
- Bengali (250)
- Portuguese (281)
- Hausa (278)
According to United Nations projections, Africa will boom while the world greys. Even China and India will be shrinking after 2050. That favours Africa’s largest languages:
- Swahili and Hausa join the top ten, pushing out Russian and Malay.
- Arabic, English and French enjoy a second wind because of their position in Africa.
Sources: Wikipedia, CIA Factbook for India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh. Tagalog = 96% of the population of the Philippines as per the Tagalog article in the Wikipedia. All sources retrieved on September 25th 2012. Where there were several estimates I generally picked the highest one as most of these numbers are understated as it is. For example, Hindi does not count those who know it in Bangladesh, where Hindi-language film and television does better than Bengali programming. In 2014 I added the projection for 2100. That is mostly based on GeoHive (for the 2012 revision of the UN numbers) and the Wikipedia (retrieved in 2014 for the proportion of English speakers in different countries).
– Abagond, 2007, 2014.
See also:
I wondered why you designated the different languages of India as separate languages and only included “Mandarin” speakers as speakers of Mandarin Chinese, but did not include any of the major dialects of Chinese as spoken by a number of speakers.
Wu (Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Hangzhou), Yue (Cantonese), Min (Fujian / eastern Guangdong / Taiwan) and Hakka all have more than enough speakers to place on this list — Wu and Yue speakers both number over 70 million each and Min would have over 45 million.
Filipino, which is based on Tagalog, is spoken by at least as many people as speak Vietnamese, if not more.
Malay, on which both Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu are based, is spoken and understood by at least 150 million, more than speak French as a first or second language.
I know that you stated your source, but did you consider cross-checking against others? The source is not very accurate.
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@ Jefe
Thank you. You are right, there are serious omissions. I will have to find a better source.
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@ Jefe
Updated the list. Still not completely happy with it, but it is much better than it was and better than the Wikipedia where the figures for South Asian languages are pretty much ten years out of date.
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I think the top 10 are about right, but I was surprised by the low numbers of Spanish speakers. I expected it to be well over 400 million.
But English @ 1.5 billion? What counts as an English speaker?
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[…] Wikipedia (2013) for most megadeath events, various posts of mine: At least 100 million, Top languages, If Black America were […]
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Where is Swahili?!
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Swahili is mainly spoken in East Africa:
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From wikipedia:
“The total number of Swahili speakers exceeds 140 million”
You should also do a post about the federation of these Swahili speaking countries( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Federation) it is exciting to finally see them unite as this will make them stronger. I am learning swahili and I hope to be a part of this new country’s promising future.(they will be the first african country to have a non colonial language and culture to take pride in) it could be the Japan of Africa!
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I just realized that you may not have understood my original comment…i am wondering why Swahili is NOT on the list.
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@ Mansa Musa
Oh, I see what you mean. Good catch. Thank you. Looking back at my source, it only listed its native speakers. I am putting Swahili at 100 million, which is a mid-range estimate.
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I changed Swahili to the higher estimate since that is what I did with other languages.
That puts it at #12. It will probably rise to #4 or #5 by 2100 as Europe, North America and China grey and Africa booms.
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The top languages by 2100 (millions of speakers in parentheses):
1. English (1989)
2. Arabic (866)
3. Mandarin Chinese (803)
4. Swahili (789)
5. Hindi/Urdu (704)
6. French (607)
7. Spanish (448)
8. Bengali (250)
9. Portuguese (281)
10. Hausa (278)
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That is very interesting to see. Mandarin chinese going down and english going up. When you look in the past of America, there were fears of whites “losing the country” to immigrants. With the large and ever growing hispanic population growing in America, I have to wonder if America will become a bilangual conutry.
This projection you posted obviously assumes there are no major world wars which change the world order.(Imagine China expanding through force because of overpopulation in Australia for example) or even some natural event like yellow stone errupting. That would essentially end the American Empire.
In any event, I am happy to see that Swahili will be a worldwide language. Hopefully the future united country of East Africa will be a major power as well.
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Most lists of the top languages list languages by the number of native speakers. This one lists the top languages by the number people who speak a language regardless of when or how they learned it.
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What about the top language according to the number of people that understand it but can’t speak it fluently or even at all?
Seems like that would be the best language to learn if you want people to do what you tell them to do?
And do it correctly.
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Interesting update to this topic (posted only a few days ago):
The 10 Most Widely Spoken Languages in the World
Langfocus
(https://youtu.be/NG3r5N6ES3M)
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How about Vulgarian?
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it’s unlikely mandarin is going downwards as the economy of china expands…as to malay, it’s already #6 or so right now (with about 280 million total speakers)…your current list is wrong. and it’s very unlikely english will have 2 billion semi-fluent speakers….you don’t count people who know a few words only.
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I still say Vulgarian trumps all of them.
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@Herneith
Vulgarian? Do you refer to the swearing register of Mother Russia’s tongue [russkiy mat], which actually exists as a separate language within a language? 😀
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