Most spoken languages in the world and interesting linguistic statistics

There are currently 6,912 living languages in the world, with over 500 that are close to extinction. Language in numbers is an insightful infographic curated by folks at Custom-Writing covering some intriguing facts and statistics surrounding not only the most spoken languages in the world but also most studied and used ones.

The infographic can be segregated into multiple individual sections if you are looking for bitesize information, each of which presenting an insight into a separate category of linguistic statistics. The notable sections of the infographic are as follows:

• Top 10 most spoken languages in the world
• Major language families of the world
• Top 10 languages used online
• Top 10 content languages used online
• Most studied foreign languages in Europe
• Foreign languages studied in Europe

Let’s take a look at each section in detail.

Top 10 most spoken languages in the world by native speakers

The top 10 most spoken languages in the world by native speakers are as follows:

10. Lahnda

Lahnda, also known as Lahndi or Western Punjabi, is a language spoken primarily in Pakistan, with 119 million current speakers. There are currently 6 countries with Lahnda speakers.

9. Japanese

Japanese, spoken primarily in Japan, has nearly 128 million speakers in over two countries.

8. Russian

Russian is the largest native language in Europe, with roughly 154 million speakers worldwide. It is spoken in 19 countries, primarily the Russian Federation.

7. Portuguese

Portuguese is spoken in a total of 13 countries worldwide, with 219 million speakers. It is predominantly spoken in Portugal.

6. Bengali

Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in Bangladesh. It has a total of 242 million speakers, with 4 countries speaking this language.

5. Hindi

Hindi, also an Indo-Aryan language, is spoken mainly in India. It is spoken in 5 countries and has 260 million speakers worldwide.

4. Arabic

Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims but spoken fluently by 295 million people worldwide. It is spoken in 57 countries, primarily Saudi Arabia and neighboring gulf counteries.

3. English

One might think that English is the most spoken language in the world. Well, it is quite true when we consider it by the total number of English language speakers worldwide. About a billion people speak English language globally but only 33% consider it as their native language. Therefore, when we talk about the most spoken language in the world by native speakers, then English falls to third place with 372 million native speakers in over 106 countries. The United Kingdom is its primary country.

2. Spanish

Spanish, also called Español or Castellano, has a total number of 437 million speakers in 31 countries. It is mainly spoken in Spain and Latin America.

1. Chinese

Chinese, specifically Mandarin Chinese, is the most spoken native language in the world. Primarily spoken in China, Chinese has 1.284 billion speakers worldwide. It is spoken in 37 countries.

World’s Major Language Families

There are a total of 142 language families in the world, but the following six language families are particularly notable as each of them makes up  at least 5% of the world’s languages and together makeup two-third of all languages. These six language families are:

6. Trans-New Guinea Family

Trans-New Guinea family is found in New Guinea and its neighboring islands and has 3 million speakers. It consists of 478 living languages, but little is known about this family’s history.

5. Austronesian Family

This family has 325 million speakers and consists of 1224 living languages, including Malay, Javanese, and Tagalog.

4. Afro-Asiatic Family

Afro-Asiatic family, also known as the Afrasian family, has 366 living languages that are spoken mainly in Western Asia. It has 445 million speakers, the majority of them being Arabic speakers.

3. Niger-Congo Family

The Niger-Congo family of languages is spoken in Africa, having 459 million speakers. It is the world’s largest language family according to the number of distinct languages. It consists of 1562 languages, including Swahili.

2. Sino-Tibetan Family

This family has roughly 452 living languages and 1.355 billion speakers, the majority of them being Chinese speakers.

1. Indo-European Family

The Indo-European family has 440 living languages, including Spanish and English, and 4.077 billion speakers making it the largest language family.

Top 10 Languages Used Online

There are over 3.8 billion internet users from around the globe, speaking a variety of different languages. Here are the top 10 most used languages on the internet.

10. German

There are 84.7 million internet users who speak German online. This makes up 89.2% of the total population of German speakers and 2.2% of all internet users.

9. French

There are 108 million French-speaking users on the Internet, which makes up 26.6% of the total population of French speakers and 2.8% of all internet users.

8. Russian

There are 109.6 million users on the internet who are French-speaking, which makes up 76.4% of the total Russian speaking population and 2.8% of all internet users.

7. Japanese

There are 118.5 million users on the internet who speak Japanese, which makes up 94% of the total population of Japanese speakers and 3% of all internet users.

6. Indonesian/Malaysian

There are a total of 157.6 million internet users who speak Indonesian/Malaysian, which makes up 53.4% of the population of their speakers and 4.1% of all internet users.

5. Portuguese

158.4 million users on the Internet are speakers of Portuguese, which is 56.2% of the total Portuguese-speaking population and 4.1% of all Internet users.

4. Arabic

184.6 million Internet users speak Arabic, which makes up 43.8% of the total population of Arabic speakers and 4.8% of all internet users.

3. Spanish

There are 312 million Internet users who speak Spanish, which is 61.1% of the total Spanish-speaking population and 8% of all Internet users.

2. Chinese

There are 770.8 million Internet users who are speakers of Chinese, which is 54.1% of the Chinese-speaking population and 19.9% of all Internet users.

1. English

984.7 million users on the Internet speak English, which is 68.6% of the total population of English speakers and 25.3% of all Internet users, making it the most widely spoken language on the Internet.

Others

896.7 million people, which is the remaining 23.1% of Internet users, speak rest of the various languages.

Top 10 Content Languages Used for Websites:

Here are the top 10 content languages used on the internet, deduced after analyzing 10 million websites:

10. Polish: 1.7% of all content.

9. Chinese: 2.1% of all content.

8. Italian: 2.4% of all content.

7. Portuguese: 2.6% of all content.

6. French: 4.1% of all content.

5. Spanish: 5.1% of all content.

4. Japanese: 5.5% of all content.

3. German: 5.6% of all content.

2. Russian: 6.8% of all content.

1. English: 51.3% of all content.

Most Studied Foreign Languages in Europe

92% of all students in Europe study a foreign language in school and almost all the pupils in primary and secondary education learn at least one foreign language in the Member States of Europe. According to the statistics provided by Eurostat, here are the most studied foreign languages in Europe:

6. Russian

2% of all European students study Russian as a second language. 67% of the students in Estonia, 57% of the students in Latvia, and 33% of the students in Lithuania study Russian.

5. Italian

3% of all European students study Italian as a second language. 38% of the students in Malta, 24% of the students in Croatia, and 17% of the students in Cyprus study Italian.

4. German

100% of the students in Luxembourg, 65% of the students in Slovenia, and 17% of the students in Croatia study German as a second language. In total, German is studied by 19% of all European students.

3. Spanish

73% of the students in France, 40% of the students in Sweden, and 20% of the students in Denmark study Spanish as a second language. In total, Spanish is studied by 22% of all European students.

2. French

French is studied by 23% of all European students as a second language. It is studied by 100% of the students in Luxembourg, 83% of the students in Romania, and 59% of the students in Ireland.

1. English

English is studied by students in almost all the countries in Europe, except for Luxembourg. It is studied by 100% of students in Malta, Romania, Sweden, Czech Republic, France, Austria, Finland, and Croatia. In total, it is studied by 96% of all European Students.

Foreign Languages Studied in the U.S

Only 20% of the students in the United States of America learn a foreign language in school. According to the National K-12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey, here are the most commonly studied languages in the U.S:

9. Russian: 0.14% of the students enrolled.

8. Arabic: 0.24% of all students.

7. Japanese: 0.64% of all students.

6. American Sign Language: 1.23% of all students.

5. Latin: 1.98% of all students.

4. Chinese: 2.13% of all students.

3. German: 3.11% of all students.

2. French: 12.12% of all students.

1. Spanish: 69.21% of all students.

Ranked: Here are the Top 100 Most Spoken Languages in the World

Here is a complete list of top 100 most spoken languages in the world ranked by the total number of speakers. The number of native speakers and language origin can also be seen against each language.

Rank	Language	Total Speakers	Native Speakers	Language Origin
1.	English	1,132 million	379 million	Indo – European
2.	Mandarin Chinese	1,117 million	918 million	Sino – Tibetan
3.	Hindi	615 million	341 million	Indo – European
4.	Spanish	534 million	460 million	Indo – European
5.	French	280 million	77 million	Indo – European
6.	Standard Arabic	274 million	Not available	Afro – Asiatic
7.	Bengali	265 million	228 million	Indo – European
8.	Russian	258 million	154 million	Indo – European
9.	Portuguese	234 million	221 million	Indo – European
10.	Indonesian	199 million	43 million	Austronesian
11.	Urdu	170 million	69 million	Indo – European
12.	Standard German	132 million	76 million	Indo – European
13.	Japanese	128 million	128 million	Japanic
14.	Swahili	98 million	16 million	Niger – Congo
15.	Marathi	95 million	83 million	Indo – European
16.	Telugu	93 million	82 million	Dravidian
17.	Western Punjabi	93 million	93 million	Indo – European
18.	Wu Chinese	82 million	81 million	Sino – Tibetan
19.	Tamil	81 million	75 million	Dravidian
20.	Turkish	80 million	69 million	Turkic
21.	Korean	77 million	77 million	Koreanic
22.	Vietnamese	77 million	76 million	Austronesian
23.	Yue Chinese	74 million	73 million	Sino – Tibetan
24.	Javanese	68 million	68 million	Austronesian
25.	Italian	68 million	65 million	Indo – European
26.	Egyptian Spoken Arabic	65 million	65 million	Afro – Asiatic
27.	Hausa	63 million	44 million	Afro – Asiatic
28.	Thai	61 million	21 million	Kra – Dai
29.	Gujarati	61 million	56 million	Indo – European
30.	Kannada	56 million	44 million	Dravidian
31.	Iranian Persian	53 million	53 million	Indo – European
32.	Bhojpuri	52 million	52 million	Indo – European
33.	Southern Min Chinese	50 million	50 million	Sino – Tibetan
34.	Hakka Chinese	48 million	48 million	Sino – Tibetan
35.	Jinyu Chinese	47 million	47 million	Sino – Tibetan
36.	Filipino	45 million	Not available	Austronesian
37.	Burmese	43 million	33 million	Sino – Tibetan
38.	Polish	40 million	40 million	Indo – European
39.	Yoruba	40 million	38 million	Niger – Congo
40.	Odia	38 million	34 million	Indo – European
41.	Malayalam	38 million	37 million	Dravidian
42.	Xiang Chinese	37 million	37 million	Sino – Tibetan
43.	Maithili	34 million	34 million	Indo – European
44.	Ukrainian	33 million	27 million	Indo – European
45.	Moroccan Spoken Arabic	33 million	27 million	Afro – Asiatic
46.	Eastern Punjabi	33 million	33 million	Indo – European
47.	Sunda	32 million	32 million	Austronesian
48.	Algerian Spoken Arabic	32 million	29 million	Afro – Asiatic
49.	Sudanese Spoken Arabic	32 million	32 million	Afro – Asiatic
50.	Nigerian Pidgin	30 million	Not available	Indo – European
51.	Zulu	28 million	12 million	Niger – Congo
52.	Igbo	27 million	27 million	Niger – Congo
53.	Amharic	26 million	22 million	Afro – Asiatic
54.	Northern Uzbek	25 million	25 million	Turkic
55.	Sindhi	25 million	25 million	Indo – European
56.	North Levantine Spoken Arabic	25 million	25 million	Afro – Asiatic
57.	Nepali	25 million	16 million	Indo – European
58.	Romanian	24 million	24 million	Indo – European
59.	Tagalog	24 million	24 million	Austronesian
60.	Dutch	23 million	23 million	Indo – European
61.	Sa’idi Spoken Arabic	22 million	22 million	Afro – Asiatic
62.	Gan Chinese	22 million	22 million	Sino – Tibetan
63.	Northern Pashto	21 million	21 million	Indo – European
64.	Magahi	21 million	21 million	Indo – European
65.	Saraiki	20 million	20 million	Indo – European
66.	Xhosa	19 million	8 million	Niger – Congo
67.	Malay	19 million	16 million	Austronesian
68.	Khmer	18 million	17 million	Austronesian
69.	Afrikaans	18 million	7 million	Indo – European
70.	Sinhala	17 million	15 million	Indo – European
71.	Somali	16 million	16 million	Afro – Asiatic
72.	Chhattisgarhi	16 million	16 million	Indo – European
73.	Cebuano	16 million	16 million	Austronesian
74.	Mesopotamian Spoken Arabic	16 million	16 million	Afro – Asiatic
75.	Assamese	15 million	15 million	Indo – European
76.	Northeastern Thai	15 million	15 million	Kra – Dai
77.	Northern Kurdish	15 million	15 million	Indo – European
78.	Hijazi Spoken Arabic	15 million	15 million	Afro – Asiatic
79.	Nigerian Fulfulde	14 million	14 million	Niger – Congo
80.	Bavarian	14 million	14 million	Indo – European
81.	Bamanankan	14 million	4 million	Niger – Congo
82.	South Azerbaijani	14 million	14 million	Turkic
83.	Northern Sotho	14 million	5 million	Niger – Congo
84.	Setswana	14 million	6 million	Niger – Congo
85.	Souther Sotho	14 million	6 million	Niger – Congo
86.	Czech	13 million	11 million	Indo – European
87.	Greek	13 million	13 million	Indo – European
88.	Chittagonian	13 million	13 million	Indo – European
89.	Kazakh	13 million	13 million	Turkic
90.	Swedish	13 million	10 million	Indo – European
91.	Deccan	13 million	13 million	Indo – European
92.	Hungarian	13 million	13 million	Uralic
93.	Jula	12 million	2 million	Niger – Congo
94.	Sadri	12 million	5 million	Indo – European
95.	Kinyarwanda	12 million	12 million	Niger – Congo
96.	Cameroonian Pidgin	12 million	Not available	Indo – European
97.	Sylheti	12 million	10 million	Indo – European
98.	South Levantine Spoken Arabic	12 million	12 million	Afro – Asiatic
99.	Tunisian Spoken Arabic	12 million	12 million	Afro – Asiatic
100.	Sanaani Spoken Arabic	11 million	11 million	Afro – Asiatic

Reference: Ethnologue; a database covering majority of the world’s languages