The world's largest languages - the languages with the most speakers

What are the biggest languages in the world? We got curious and checked which languages have the most speakers in the world. Here is the list of the ten largest languages in the world. Are any of the languages on the list surprising?

How many languages are there?

There are many thousands of languages in the world and it is difficult to determine the exact number, as it depends, for example, on the definition of language and dialect. The language catalogue 'Ethnologue' lists 6909 languages in the world. Impressive, isn't it?

The world's largest language

When we talk about the world's major languages, we mean the languages with the most people. native speakers. The figures for the number of speakers differ slightly in different sources, and we have used the 2015 figures from Ethnologue.

World's largest languages, from 10 to 1

Here we list the world's largest languages, starting at number ten. So number 1 is by far the largest language in the world. We can also reveal that German comes in at number 11, with 78 million speakers.

10th Punjabi

Punjabi is spoken by around 88.7 million people, mainly in the state of Punjab in India and the province of Punjab in Pakistan. Punjabi is used, among other things, by the Sikh community and in the Bhangra musical form. Although Punjabi is the largest language in Pakistan and is used by 44 per cent of the population, it is not an official language in the country. Instead, the official language is Urdu.

9. Japanese

Japanese is spoken by about 128 million people, which is mainly the population of Japan. Japanese is the official language of the country and is divided into two dialects: East Japanese and West Japanese. The language is considered to belong to the Japanese language family, which also includes the Ryukyu languages, spoken on the Ryukyu Islands in the East China Sea.

8. Russian

Around 166 million people speak Russian, making it one of the largest languages in the world. The language is mainly spoken in Russiabut partly also in other former Soviet republics such as Moldova and Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and the Baltic countries. As many have emigrated, there are also large Russian-speaking communities in Israel and Germany, among others.

7. Bengali

The Bengali language is spoken by around 189 million people, mainly in Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura. There are also native Bengali speakers in the Indian states of Assam, Jharkhand and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, as well as in Nepal. The most famous Bengali writer is Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

6. Portuguese

An estimated 203 million people speak Portuguese. They live in Portugal (about 10.3 million inhabitants) and in several other countries around the world such as Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea Bissau, Macao, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe. The language spread around the world in the 15th and 16th centuries, when Portugal had a large colonial empire.

5. Arabic

Arabic is spoken by around 242 million people in many different countries in North Africa and the Middle East. Countries where Arabic is spoken include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Sudan, Iraq and Yemen. Arabic differs from country to country and is roughly divided into three main varieties: modern standard Arabic, classical Arabic and dialects.

4. Hindi

Hindi is spoken by around 260 million people, mainly in the central and northern parts of India. With its 1.3 billion inhabitants, India is a huge country with many official languages. However, Hindi is arguably the most important official language in the country. It belongs to the Hindustani language family, along with, for example, Urdu, which is spoken in Pakistan.

3. English

Around 335 million people are native speakers of English, making it the third largest language in the world. Most native English speakers live in the USA, Australia and the UK, Ireland, Canada and New Zealandbut also in countries such as India and South Africa.

As well as being the mother tongue of many people in the world, English is the world's most widely spoken language, often acting as the "lingua franca", i.e. a language that can be used when people have different mother tongues.

2. Spanish

Spanish is spoken by 399 million people, across South America and in Europe. Spain and the United States. Spanish is an official language in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela. The language came to the American continent during Spanish colonisation in the 16th century.

1. World's largest language: Mandarin (Chinese)

Mandarin, a group of Chinese dialects, is spoken by 848 million people worldwide. They live mainly in China and in Taiwan, but also in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Mandarin is also spoken by Chinese emigrants all over the world. The Mandarin language can be divided into a number of different dialects, which differ linguistically in several ways.

Do you speak one or more of the world's major languages?

Do you speak one or more of the world's major languages? Or would you like to learn one of them? We speak English and have also studied some Spanish and Russian. Unfortunately, we don't speak any of these languages, but some knowledge of the languages can still help!