Most spoken languages in the World

Updated on Oct 05 2020

Mandarin Chinese

918M

11.922 of world pop.

1. Mandarin Chinese

Chinese is the official language of the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and one of the four official languages of Singapore.

Spanish

480M

5.994 of world pop.

2. Spanish

Spanish is by far the most common second language in the US, with over 50 million total speakers.

English

379M

4.922 of world pop.

3. English

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

Hindi

341M

4.429 of world pop.

4. Hindi

Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and across the Indian subcontinent.

Bengali

228M

2.961 of world pop.

5. Bengali

Bengali is the official and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled languages of India, behind Hindi.

Portuguese

221M

2.870 of world pop.

6. Portuguese

Portuguese is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola.

Russian

154M

2.000 of world pop.

7. Russian

Portuguese is the official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Japanese

128M

1.662 of world pop.

8. Japanese

Japanese is primarily in Japan, where it is the national language.

Punjabi

92.7M

1.204 of world pop.

9. Punjabi

Punjabi is the native language of the Punjabi people, which encompasses northwest India and eastern Pakistan.

Marathi

83.1M

1.079 of world pop.

10. Marathi

Marathi is the official language in the Maharashtra and Goa states of Western India.

Telugu

82M

1.065 of world pop.

11. Telugu

Telugu is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana.