Widely Spoken Languages In The World

Bloged in Language by Parables Monday August 7, 2006

The following is a ball-park figure of the 30 Most Widely Spoken Languages. I did some research and different sources have a slightly different order but they are all about the same. I was so surprised that Mandarin Chinese was at the top and it gave me a reason to research what is widely spoken. If you are learning or making an attempt to learn new languages, this should give you an idea of what is widely spoken presently.

The list was taken from this site: http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html

KEY - Position:Language:Family:Script(s)Used:Speakers(Millions):WhereSpoken(Major)

1:Mandarin:Sino-Tibetan:Chinese Characters:1051:China, Malaysia, Taiwan
2:English:Indo-European:Latin:510:USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand
3:Hindi:Indo-European:Devanagari:490:North and Central India
4:Spanish:Indo-European:Latin:425:The Americas, Spain
5:Arabic:Afro-Asiatic:Arabic:255:Middle East, Arabia, North Africa
6:Russian:Indo-European:Cyrillic:254:Russia, Central Asia
7:Portuguese:Indo-European:Latin:218:Brazil, Portugal, Southern Africa
8:Bengali:Indo-European:Bengali:215:Bangladesh, Eastern India
9:Malay, Indonesian:Malayo-Polynesian:Latin:175:Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore
10:French:Indo-European:Latin:130:France, Canada, West Africa, Central Africa
11:Japanese:Altaic:Chinese Characters and 2 Japanese Alphabets:127:Japan
12:German:Indo-European:Latin:123:Germany, Austria, Central Europe
13:Farsi (Persian):Indo-European:Nastaliq:110:Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia
14:Urdu:Indo-European:Nastaliq:104:Pakistan, India
15:Punjabi:Indo-European:Gurumukhi:103:Pakistan, India
16:Vietnamese:Austroasiatic:Based on Latin:86:Vietnam, China
17:Tamil:Dravidian:Tamil:78:Southern India, Sri Lanka, Malyasia
18:Wu:Sino-Tibetan:Chinese Characters:77:China
19:Javanese:Malayo-Polynesian:Javanese:76:Indonesia
20:Turkish:Altaic:Latin:75:Turkey, Central Asia
21:Telugu:Dravidian:Telugu:74:Southern India
22:Korean:Altaic:Hangul:72:Korean Peninsula
23:Marathi:Indo-European:Devanagari:71:Western India
24:Italian:Indo-European:Latin:61:Italy, Central Europe
25:Thai:Sino-Tibetan:Thai:60:Thailand, Laos
26:Cantonese:Sino-Tibetan:Chinese Characters:55:Southern China
27:Gujarati:Indo-European:Gujarati:47:Western India, Kenya
28:Polish:Indo-European:Latin:46:Poland, Central Europe
29:Kannada:Dravidian:Kannada:44:Southern India
30:Burmese:Sino-Tibetan:Burmese:42:Myanmar

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