List of Languages by Total Number of Speakers - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

List List of languages languages by total number of speakers speakers - Wikipedia, ikipedia, the free encyc... encyc...

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List of languages by total number of speakers From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A number of sources have compiled lists of languages by their number of speakers. However, all such lists should be used with caution. First, it is difficult to define exactly what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. For example, Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages and sometimes language families. Similarly, Similarly, Hindi is sometimes considered a single language or a family including Mewari, Chattisgarhi, Bhojpuri etc., but together with Urdu it also is often considered a single language Hindustani. Second, there is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a secondlanguage speaker. For example, English has about 340 million native speakers but, depending on the criterion chosen, can be said to have as many as 2 billion speakers.[1]

Contents 1 Ethnologue (2015, 18th edition) 2 See also 3 Refe Refere renc nces es 4 Exte Extern rnal al link linkss

thnologue (2015, thnologue (2015, 18th edition) The following languages are listed as having 50 million or more native speakers in the 2015 edition of Ethnologue, a language reference published by SIL International.[2] Speaker totals are generally not n ot reliable, as they add together estimates from different dates and (usually uncited) sources; language information is not collected on most national censuses.

List of languages by total number of speakers - Wikipedia, the free encyc...

Language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_s...

Family all varieties of Chinese

L1 speakers

L2 speakers

1,200 million

?

Total

?

Mandarin Chinese

Sino-Tibetan, Chinese

900 million

190 million in China

1,090 million

English

Indo-European, Germanic

339 million

603 million

942 million

Spanish

Indo-European, Romance

430 million

91 million

518 million

Arabic

Afro-Asiatic, Semitic

240 million (no 250 million date) (1999)

490 million

Modern Standard Hindi

Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, Hindustani (essentially same language as Urdu)

260 million (2001)

120 million in India (1999)

380 million

Russian

Indo-European, Slavic

170 million (ca. 2010)

92 million (ca. 262 million 2010)

French


76 million (ca. 153 million 2015) (2015)

229 million

Malay (incl. Indonesian and Malaysian)

Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian

60 million (no date)

150 million (2010)

210 million

Portuguese


202 million (2010)

6 million

209 million

Bengali

Indo-European, Indo-Aryan

189 million (2001–2011)

19 million in Bangladesh (2011)

208 million

Urdu

Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, Hindustani (essentially same language as Hindi)

64 million (1998–2001)

94 million in 160 million Pakistan (1999)

Japanese

Japonic

130 million

Lahnda (incl. Western Indo-European, Indo-Aryan Punjabi)

0.0115 million (2010)[3]

117 million (no ? date) 8 million in Germany (2012)

130 million 117 million

Standard German

Indo-European, Germanic

78 million (2012)

Javanese

Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian

84 million (2000)

84 million

Telugu

Dravidian

74 million (2001)

5 million in 79 million India (no date)

Tamil

Dravidian

69 million (2001)


86 million


Language

Family


L1 speakers

L2 speakers

Total

Korean

Koreanic

77 million (2008–2010)

77 million

Wu Chinese (incl. Shanghainese)


77 million (1984)

77 million

Marathi


72 million (2001)


Turkish

Turkic, Oghuz

71 million (2006)

0.3 million in Turkey

Vietnamese

Austroasiatic, Viet–Muong

68 million (1999)

Italian


64 million (2015)

Yue Chinese (incl. Cantonese)


62 million (1984–2006)

Persian


Egyptian Arabic

Afro-Asiatic, Semitic

71 million 68 million

3 million (2015)

67 million

57 million (2011)

?

?

55 million (2006)

?

?

The distinction Ethnologue uses for Eastern and Western Panjabi is the national border, which does not correspond to the linguistic distinction. Hindi and Urdu are essentially a single language; however, 100 million non-Hindustani speakers are included under "Hindi", which is therefore not a single language. Hausa has 25 million L1 total and 15 million L2 in Nigeria, and so approaches our limit of 50 million. Coastal Swahili has 15 million L1 in Tanzania (2012) and "probably over 80% of rural" Tanzania as L2, not counting Kenya or the 10 million L2 speakers of Congo Swahili (1999), so it also approaches our limit.

See also Linguistic demography Lists of endangered languages - with the fewest numbers of speakers Lists of languages List of languages without official status by total number of speakers List of languages by number of native speakers World language

References 1. Crystal, David (March 2008). "Two thousand million?". English Today. doi:10.1017/S0266078408000023. 2. "Summary by language size". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2016-04-06. 3. "Japanese". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2016-03-07.

External links



Most Widely Spoken Languages (http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm) The World’s 10 most influential Languages (http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber /rep-weber.htm) by George Weber (French) Qu'est-ce que la Francophonie? (http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/francophonie/francophonie.htm)

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List of Languages by Total Number of Speakers - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

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