List of languages by total number of speakers
List of languages by total number of speakers
This is a list of languages by the total number of speakers.
Background
Lists such as these should be used with caution, for the following reasons:
First, it is difficult to define exactly what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. For example, some languages, including Chinese and Arabic, cover several mutually unintelligible varieties and are sometimes considered single languages and sometimes language families. Conversely, colloquial registers of Hindi and Urdu are almost completely mutually intelligible, so they are sometimes classified as one language, Hindustani, instead of two separate languages.[1]
Second, there is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a second-language speaker. For example, English has about 400 million native speakers but, depending on the criterion chosen, can be said to have as many as 2 billion speakers.[2]
Ethnologue (2019, 22nd edition)
The following 34 languages are listed as having 45 million or more total speakers in the 2019 edition of Ethnologue, a language reference published by SIL International, which is based in the United States.[3] Entries identified by Ethnologue as macrolanguages are not included in this section.
Wikipedia also lists other languages as having 45 million or more total speakers. For example, the Wikipedia page for the Tagalog language reports 70+ million speakers by as early as 2000 and 73+ million speakers by 2013: 28 million L1 (first language) speakers as of 2007 and 45 million L2 (second language) speakers as of 2013. However, Tagalog is not included in this section because Ethnologue reports it as having only 23+ million total speakers.[4]
Speaker totals are generally not reliable because they sum estimates from different dates and sources, usually uncited. Language information is not collected by most national censuses.
| Rank | Language | Family | Branch | L1 speakers | L1 Rank | L2 speakers | L2 Rank | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | Indo-European | Germanic | 379.0 million | 3 | 753.3 million | 1 | 1.132 billion[5] |
| 2 | Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 917.8 million | 1 | 198.7 million | 5 | 1.116 billion[6] |
| 3 | Hindi (incl. all Central Zone languages) | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 341.2 million | 4 | 274.2 million | 2 | 615.4 million[7] |
| 4 | Spanish | Indo-European | Romance | 460.1 million | 2 | 74.2 million | 10 | 534.3 million[8] |
| 5 | French | Indo-European | Romance | 77.2 million | 14 | 202.6 million | 4 | 279.8 million[9] |
| 6 | Standard Arabic | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | — | — | 273.9 million | 3 | 273.9 million[10] |
| 7 | Bengali | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 228.3 million | 5 | 36.7 million | 14 | 265.0 million[11] |
| 8 | Russian | Indo-European | Slavic | 153.7 million | 7 | 104.4 million | 7 | 258.2 million[12] |
| 9 | Portuguese | Indo-European | Romance | 220.7 million | 6 | 13.4 million | 16 | 234.1 million[13] |
| 10 | Indonesian | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | 43.3 million | 29 | 155.3 million | 6 | 198.7 million[14] |
| 11 | Urdu | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 68.6 million | 20 | 101.6 million | 8 | 170.2 million[15] |
| 12 | German | Indo-European | Germanic | 76.0 million | 16 | 56.0 million | 11 | 132.1 million[16] |
| 13 | Japanese | Japonic | — | 128.2 million | 8 | 121,500 | 26 | 128.3 million[17] |
| 14 | Swahili | Niger–Congo | Bantu | 16.0 million | 31 | 82.3 million | 9 | 98.3 million[18] |
| 15 | Marathi | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 83.1 million | 10 | 12.2 million | 17 | 95.3 million[19] |
| 16 | Telugu | Dravidian | South-Central | 82.0 million | 11 | 11.0 million | 18 | 93.0 million[20] |
| 17 | Western Punjabi (Lahnda) | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 92.7 million | 9 | — | — | 92.7 million[21] |
| 18 | Wu Chinese (incl. Shanghainese) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 81.4 million | 12 | 63,400 | 27 | 81.5 million[22] |
| 19 | Tamil | Dravidian | South | 75.0 million | 18 | 5.9 million | 19 | 80.9 million[23] |
| 20 | Turkish | Turkic | Oghuz | 79.4 million | 13 | 380,300 | 24 | 79.7 million[24] |
| 21 | Korean | Koreanic | — | 77.2 million | 15 | — | — | 77.2 million[25] |
| 22 | Vietnamese | Austroasiatic | Vietic | 75.9 million | 17 | 1.0 million | 22 | 76.9 million[26] |
| 23 | Yue Chinese (incl. Cantonese) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 73.1 million | 19 | 402,000 | 23 | 73.5 million[27] |
| 24 | Javanese | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | 68.2 million | 21 | — | — | 68.2 million[28] |
| 25 | Italian | Indo-European | Romance | 64.8 million | 22 | 3.0 million | 21 | 67.8 million[29] |
| 26 | Egyptian Arabic | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | 64.6 million | 23 | — | — | 64.6 million[30] |
| 27 | Hausa | Afro-Asiatic | Chadic | 43.9 million | 28 | 19.5 million | 15 | 63.4 million[31] |
| 28 | Thai | Kra–Dai | Zhuang–Tai | 20.6 million | 30 | 40.0 million | 13 | 60.6 million[32] |
| 29 | Gujarati | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 56.4 million | 24 | 4.1 million | 20 | 60.5 million[33] |
| 30 | Kannada | Dravidian | South | 43.5 million | — | 12.9 million | — | 56.4 million[34] |
| 31 | Persian | Indo-European | Iranian | 52.7 million | 25 | — | — | 52.7 million[35] |
| 32 | Bhojpuri | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 52.2 million | 26 | 160,000 | 25 | 52.4 million[36] |
| 33 | Southern Min (incl. Hokkien) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 50.0 million | 27 | 387,000 | 22 | 50.4 million[37] |
| 34 | Filipino | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | — | — | 45 million | 12 | 45 million[38] |
See also
Linguistic demography
Lists of endangered languages
Lists of languages
List of languages without official status by total number of speakers
List of languages by number of native speakers
World language
Languages used on the Internet