List of languages by total number of speakers: Difference between revisions
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| [[Mandarin Chinese]] (incl. [[Standard Chinese]]) |
| [[Mandarin Chinese]] (incl. [[Standard Chinese]]) (官话) |
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| [[Sino-Tibetan languages|Sino-Tibetan]] |
| [[Sino-Tibetan languages|Sino-Tibetan]] |
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| [[Sinitic languages|Sinitic]] |
| [[Sinitic languages|Sinitic]] |
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| [[Hindi language|Hindi]] (incl. all [[Central Zone languages]]) |
| [[Hindi language|Hindi]] (incl. all [[Central Zone languages]]) (हिन्दी) |
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| [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] |
| [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] |
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| [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]] |
| [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]] |
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| [[Modern Standard Arabic|Standard Arabic]] |
| [[Modern Standard Arabic|Standard Arabic]] (العربية) |
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| [[Afro-Asiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic]] |
| [[Afro-Asiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic]] |
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| [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] |
| [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] |
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| [[Bengali language|Bengali]] |
| [[Bengali language|Bengali]] (বাংলা) |
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| [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] |
| [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] |
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| [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]] |
| [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]] |
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| [[Russian language|Russian]] |
| [[Russian language|Russian]] (русский) |
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| [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] |
| [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] |
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| [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] |
| [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] |
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Revision as of 15:38, 16 September 2019
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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 50 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) (官话) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 917.8 million | 1 | 198.7 million | 5 | 1.116 billion[6] |
| 3 | Hindi (incl. all Central Zone languages) (हिन्दी) | 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 (العربية) | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | - | - | 273.9 million | 3 | 273.9 million[10] |
| 7 | Bengali (বাংলা) | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 228.3 million | 5 | 36.7 million | 14 | 265.0 million[11] |
| 8 | Russian (русский) | 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
Notes
References
- ^ For further examples of mutually intelligible varieties that are often, and even legally, classified as separate languages, see Malay language, Persian language and Serbo-Croatian.
- ^ Crystal, David (March 2008). "Two thousand million?". English Today. doi:10.1017/S0266078408000023.
- ^ "Summary by language size". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
- ^ Tagalog at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ English at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Chinese, Mandarin at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Hindi at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Spanish at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ French at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Arabic, Standard at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Bengali at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Russian at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Portuguese at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Indonesian at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Urdu at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ German, Standard at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Japanese at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Swahili at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Marathi at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Telugu at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Punjabi, Western at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Chinese, Wu at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Tamil at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Turkish at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Korean at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Vietnamese at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Chinese, Yue at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Javanese at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Italian at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Arabic, Egyptian at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Hausa at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Thai at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Gujarati at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Kannada at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Persian, Iranian at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Bhojpuri at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Chinese, Min Nan at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
- ^ Filipino at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
