Below is a List of languages by number of native speakers.[1]
Over half the world's population speaks the 15 most used native languages. They are listed here. They are from the Swedish Nationalencyklopedin (2007, 2010).
The distinction between language and dialect is often not clear. Some mutually intelligible versions have been unified.[2] These include Indonesian and Malay; Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian. It does not include standard Hindi and Urdu. Hindustani has been divided here into the sociolinguistic units of Hindi and Urdu, but at least 100 million speakers of some Hindi dialects are not counted below.
Rank
|
Language
|
Native speakers
|
% of world population
|
Mainly spoken in
|
Language family
|
1
|
Mandarin
|
955,000,000
|
14.4%
|
East Asia
|
Sino-Tibetan
|
2
|
Spanish
|
386,000,000
|
6.15%
|
South America, North America, Spain, Western Sahara, Philippines, Central Africa
|
Indo-European
|
3
|
English
|
360,000,000
|
5.43%
|
northern North America, northern Europe, parts of Africa, Australia/New Zealand
|
Indo-European
|
4
|
Hindi
|
310,000,000
|
4.70%
|
South Asia
|
Indo-European
|
5
|
Arabic
|
295,000,000
|
4.43%
|
Middle East, North Africa
|
Afro-Asiatic
|
6
|
Portuguese
|
215,000,000
|
3.27%
|
eastern South America, southern Africa, Portugal
|
Indo-European
|
7
|
Bengali
|
205,000,000
|
3.11%
|
South Asia
|
Indo-European
|
8
|
Russian
|
155,000,000
|
2.33%
|
East Europe, northern Asia
|
Indo-European
|
9
|
Japanese
|
125,000,000
|
1.90%
|
Japan
|
Japanese
|
10
|
Punjabi
|
102,000,000
|
1.44%
|
South Asia
|
Indo-European
|
11
|
German
|
89,000,000
|
1.39%
|
Central Europe
|
Indo-European
|
12
|
Javanese
|
82,000,000
|
1.25%
|
Indonesia
|
Austronesian
|
13
|
Wu
|
80,000,000
|
1.20%
|
China
|
Sino-Tibetan
|
14
|
Malay/Indonesian
|
77,000,000
|
1.16%
|
Southeast Asia
|
Austronesian
|
15
|
Telugu
|
76,000,000
|
1.15%
|
India
|
Dravidian
|
- ↑ Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin. Asterisks mark the 2010 estimates for the top dozen languages.
- ↑ "Mutually intelligible": each side can understand the other side.