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The World Factbook, produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), estimates the ten most spoken languages (L1 + L2) in 2022 as follows: Most spoken languages, CIA, 2022 [46] Language
LanguageFamilyBranchFirst-language (l1) SpeakersEnglish (excl. creole languages )380 millionMandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, ...939 millionHindi (excl. Urdu )345 millionSpanish (excl. creole languages )485 millionMar 22, 2024 · In 2023, there were around 1.5 billion people worldwide who spoke English either natively or as a second language, slightly more than the 1.1 billion Mandarin Chinese speakers at the time of...
Dec 11, 2020 · According to Ethnologue, Chinese (and all of its varieties such as Mandarin and Wu) is by far the most spoken language across the world with 1.31 billion speakers. That's approximately 16...
- English – 1.5 Billion Speakers
- Mandarin Chinese – 1.1 Billion Speakers
- Hindi – 602 Million Speakers
- Spanish – 548 Million Speakers
- French – 274.1 Million Speakers
- Arabic – 274 Million Speakers
- Bengali – 272 Million Speakers
- Russian – 258 Million Speakers
- Portuguese – 257.7 Million Speakers
- Urdu – 231 Million Speakers
A few factors explain why English is one of the most common global languages used for business and academics worldwide. Simple grammar structures, specifically conjugation and gender, allow new speakers the opportunity to pick it up rapidly. For eastern countries, its status as not only widely used but neutral enables political neighbors to convers...
A massive country with a wealth of historical roots, mainland China harbors between 7 and 10 language groups, and the most dominant is called Mandarin. Eighty percent of the population uses this variant, which has been adopted into both English and Chinese alphabets. If you examine a typical Chinese keyboard, each key has an abundance of symbols th...
The primary language of India, Hindi originates from the ancient language of Sanskrit, and similarities between the typography are obvious. One hundred twenty-one languages can be found in the populated country of India, but more than half of the population can speak Hindi. Other influences on the language, over time, have included Persian, Arabic,...
Another colonizing force, Spain's influence on the globe carried with it the impact of their native language. Over 360 million people use it as a first language, and many countries throughout the Caribbean and Americas consider it their official language, such as Mexico and Costa Rica. It is also spoken in Africa. Several variants exist, with some ...
Known as the language of love by some and the language of tongue-twisters by others, French is a product of the merging of Latin and Celtic languages. The first texts written in a recognizable French script appeared around 842, although like English, it took many evolutions to inherit the form it has today. For instance, the word 'forest' in Englis...
Over a thousand years ago, and particularly highlighted in the Quran, Arabic originated in the Arabian Peninsula, where various nomadic groups spoke it. The language has expanded across the world alongside Islamic conquests in the regions of North Africaand the Mediterranean. Arabic is a consonant-heavy language that trips up learners with a backgr...
Bangladeshand the West Bengal state in eastern India are the strongest bastions of this language which is also spoken in other countries where Bengalis have emigrated. The language is also Indo-European, like Hindi, with connections to Sanskrit. Interestingly, the language is gender-neutral, and it also harbors over 100 thousand unique words. The c...
Centuries of expansion and administration have bound the people of the Russian landmass together. This is no small feat considering the 6.6 million square miles that make up the country. The language itself is Slavic and shares similarities with Ukrainian, Belarusian, and even Polish. The intermingling and Russian army occupations that occurred in ...
A romance language spoken between Portugal and its former colony, Brazil, Portuguese is also heard in places throughout Spain and the Azores Islands. Moreover, large populations of speakers live in several countries in Africa as well as the United States. It is a poetic language that scholars and creatives settled on around 1200 AD, although a spli...
As an Indo-Aryan language, Urdu is primarily spoken in Pakistan and India. Large communities also exist in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. As the official language of Pakistan, Urdu was also heavily influenced by Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, despite the origins being in North India throughout the Delhi region o...
- Cory Price
Mar 28, 2024 · 1. Chinese — 1.3 Billion Native Speakers. Numbers vary widely — Ethnologue puts the number of native speakers at 1.3 billion native speakers, roughly 900 million of whom speak Mandarin — but there’s no doubt it’s the most spoken language in the world.
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Sep 16, 2023 · Mandarin Chinese – 1.118 Billion Speakers. There are around 1.118 billion speakers of Mandarin Chinese, and it has been spoken in China for more than 3,000 years. Mandarin Chinese is also the official language of Singapore and Taiwan. There are many other languages in China (like Cantonese ), but Mandarin is by far the most widely spoken.
According to the World Atlas of Languages’ methodology, there are 8324 languages, spoken or signed, documented by the governments, public institutions and academic communities; out of 8324, around 7000 languages are still in use.
