Most spoken languages in Europe

Updated on Oct 05 2020

Russian

106M

1. Russian

Russian is the largest native language in Europe and the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia.

German

97M

2. German

German is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and Liechtenstein.

French

66M

3. French

French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents.

Italian

65M

4. Italian

Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family.

English

60M

5. English

English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years.

Polish

38.5M

6. Polish

After World War II, millions of Polish speakers can be found in countries such as Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Spanish

38M

7. Spanish

Spanish is a global language and the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.

Ukrainian

32.6M

8. Ukrainian

From 1804 until the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian language was banned from schools in the Russian Empire.

Romanian

24M

9. Romanian

Romanian speakers with large populations in Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Dutch

22M

10. Dutch

Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English.