Languages Of The World Most Spoken

Nigerian Pidgin 1207 Million Speakers

Nigerian Pidgin is a lingua franca, which means that its a bridge language. Its a way for the more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria to communicate. Its not recognized as an official language in Nigeria.

Its most closely related to English, but different ethnic groups will incorporate words from their native languages, which means it can vary from speaker to speaker. Its become such a common language in Nigeria and across the West African Coast that BBC has started publishing news in pidgin.

Most Spoken Languages In The World 2022

Language acts as a bridge for communication and development among the peoples of the world. In the globalized world today, there are more than 5000 languages spoken in 233 different countries and regions. Can you imagine that as some languages are slowly disappearing, some are becoming more and more commonly spoken?

So what are the most commonly used languages in the world? In this article, we will take you through the top10 most spoken languages.

• Native speakers: 360400 million
• Non-native speakers: 750 million
• Language family: Indo-European
• Official language in: 59 countries 27 non-sovereign entities Various organizations

English is the official language of the largest number of countries and the lingua franca in the world. In terms of native speakers, English is the third most spoken language after Chinese and Spanish. But its the most popular language to learn. So adding the number of non-native speakers, English is the most spoken language in the world. According to some statistics, if you know English, then you can understand 25% of internet users and 60% of the websites in the world.

• Non-native speakers: 198.7 million
• Language family: Sino-Tibetan
• Official language in: Peoples Republic of China Singapore United Nations Cooperation Organization ASEAN

The Most Spoken Languages In The World And Where They Are Spoken

Our world is becoming more and more globalized by the day, and as a result, many of us are being introduced to a variety of some of the most spoken languages in the world. With a plethora of countries, cultures, and ethnicities that all have their own unique languages, its not surprising that there are more than 7,000 widely spoken languages in the world!

If youre reading this article, you probably have a decent understanding of one of the most popular languages on earth, English. And although English is currently the worlds most spoken language , its not the only one that matters.

As you explore the languages in this article, youll discover that there are many more international languages that might matter more than English in the near future. As a vital part of human connections, language allows us to share our thoughts, ideas, and feelings with the rest of the world.

Read on to find out which languages fill out the 20 most spoken languages in the world and discover some fun and fascinating facts about each of them!

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Korean 77 Million Speakers

It is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. Technology is the main reason to learn this language. However, popular culture has been one of the keys to bringing young people closer to the language.

Musical groups such as Black Pink or BTS have generated authentic industries around the so-called K-Pop, and this has made the acquisition of the language much more attractive.

Portuguese 232 Million Native Speakers

This is another language whose reach owes much to its colonial past. Starting in the 15th century, avid Portuguese traders and conquerors brought their language to Africa, Asia and the Americas. The spread of Portuguese may have initially been tied to European colonization, but the colonized countries developed their own vibrant cultures that transformed the language forever. Today, Portuguese is spoken by 232 million native speakers in countries like Brazil, Goa, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bisseau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Macau. Its also the language of Machado de Assis, Bossa Nova, Mia Couto, Fernando Pessoa and Agualusa.

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Turkish 881 Million Speakers

Even though Turkish may not be the most popular language to learn, it is an important language to learn. Its related to languages like Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Uzbek. Learning Turkish will open up many opportunities for trade and business in these regions.

The Turkish language itself has a rich history that stretches back nearly 1,500 years. One of the most interesting aspects of the Turkish language is that it has 29 different letters, and it only started using the Latin alphabet in 1928.

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English 373 Million Native Speakers

English language is the third most spoken language in the world. It has approximately 373 million native speakers who are spread out in the different continents.

It is the official first language in over one hundred countries. It is ranked as one of the most influential languages in the world because it is also the first second language chosen by different people globally.

English is a Germanic language because of its structure of sentences and vocabularies. This language has however been influenced by a variety of languages.

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Russian // 258 Million

Since missions to the International Space Station usually launch from Russian territory in Kazakhstan, U.S. astronauts headed to the ISS have to learn Russian. âIâve been asked many times whatâs the hardest thing about space flight and I say itâs learning the language,â astronaut Peggy Whitson said in a 2020 interview.

Arabic 315 Million Native Speakers

Recent numbers put Arabic at around 315 million native speakers. But this is another instance of numbers not telling the full tale: Arabic, like Chinese, is so vastly different in its respective dialects as to be effectively a number of languages, grouped as one for the sake of convenience. Modern Standard Arabic is a primarily written form, closely related to the Classical Arabic of the Quran. However, the spoken forms of Arabic in, say, Oman and Morocco are so different that a couple of philosophy professors from these countries might be able to discuss the finer points of the ancient texts while still struggling to order lunch.

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Bengali 2727 Million Speakers

Bengali, also known as Bangla, is the official language of Bangladesh, and its the second most spoken language in India, behind Hindi.

Some people have never heard of the Bengali language, and they definitely dont know its one of the most spoken languages in the world!

People who speak Bengali are very proud of their language though. In fact, people around the world know Bengali for its language movements, and many people have sacrificed their lives for the sake of this language. The country of Bangladesh actually got its name from the language!

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English 370 Million Native Speakers

If youre reading this article, you may be one of the 370 million-odd native English speakers, or one of the 978 million people who speak it as a second language. This indicates the remarkable success of English as the lingua franca of business, travel and international relations. The relative ease with which English can be picked up and the pervasive soft power of US culture means that English will continue to dominate the world stage for the foreseeable future. For some, English is still synonymous with opportunity and a better quality of life.

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Indonesian 199 Million Speakers

Indonesia is the fourth most populated nation in the world, which is why Indonesian is one of the most spoken languages in the world. You may also hear people refer to Indonesia as bahasa baku, which is the standard dialect in Indonesia.

When you speak Indonesian, you will also be able to communicate with people in Malaysia and Brunei because it is very similar to the Malay language.

It is also by far one of the easiest Asian languages to learn when compared to other widely-spoken languages like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai.

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Portuguese 234 Million Speakers

In the business world, Brazil is not spoken of as another market, but as another planet. It is a completely different world from what is known even in the rest of Latin America.

That is why speaking Portuguese is opening the doors to a new world.

In any case, this language also represents an opportunity beyond Brazil, as it is spoken in Portugal and in several African countries.

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Japanese 126 Million Native Speakers

Almost all of the 126 million native Japanese speakers live in Japan certainly the most highly geographically concentrated of all the languages on this list. Japanese boasts two distinct writing systems, hiragana and katakana, as well making extensive use of Chinese Kanji characters. The largest groups of Japanese speakers living outside Japan can be found in the United States, the Philippines and Brazil.

What Was The First Language Spoken

The first language spoken by humans is a subject of some debate.

The Times of India reports that the worlds oldest language is Sanskrit, widely considered to be one of the most ancient languages in the world, and the origin point for many modern languages.

Sanskrit has been spoken since 5,000 years before Christ, but in its modern iteration is less of a form of communication and more of a language used for worship.

Translation service, The Spanish Group, however reports that recent evidence suggests the language of Tamil might actually be older, dating back to 350 BC and possibly serving as the blueprint for Latin and Greek.

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Hindi 344 Million Native Speakers

The fourth most spoken language is Hindi. Hindi is only spoken as a first language in seven countries, the main ones are Nepal and India. It is important to notice that this number of first language speakers does not include Urdu. The success of this language is because of the sheer number of people living in the countries. Hindi language counts with around 344 million speakers.

Least Spoken Languages In The World

There are approximately 7,000 languages spoken in the world, but many of them are only spoken by a small number of people. The least spoken languages in the world are typically those that are only spoken by a few hundred or a few thousand people. Some of the least spoken languages include Kanakanavu, which is spoken by just over 500 people in Vanuatu, and Xavante, which is spoken by around 1,000 people in Brazil.

The only language spoken in the Peruvian Amazon, Taushiro , is in danger of extinction. Tanema is only spoken by one person, Lainol Nalo, on the island of Vanikoro, which is located in the Solomon Islands. Tanema and Taushiro are 200% more fluent in Lemerig than they are in Tanema and Taushiro. It is the language of a group of people known as the Njerep in Nigeria. Only in eastern African country Ethiopia does a native language of the region, dubbed omoota, exist. The language is so small that it shares a name with a small farming village where all ten of its remaining speakers are still alive.

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Most Spoken Languages In The World : Hindi

Hindi is the fourth most spoken language of the world. The number of native Hindi speakers worldwide is 310 million. In terms of percentage, nearly 4.46 % of worlds population speaks Hindi as their primary language. Hindi is one of the total 22 official languages of India. Hindi is the most commonly spoken and understood languages of India. Other than India, Hindi is also popularly spoken in Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname. Apart from India, Hindi has got the official language status in Fiji.

Urdu which is also quite similar to Hindi is the common language of Pakistan. if Hindi and Urdu speakers are together considered as one unit then Hindi/Urdu speakers exceeds English speaking population and reaches 3rd spot. Devanagari is the recognized script of Hindi. Most of the words of Hindi are derived from Sanskrit language. Most common dialects of Hindi are Awadhi, Braj Bhasha, Bagheli, Bundeli, Chhatisgarhi, rajasthani, hariyanvi, Kannauji, Khadi Boli etc.

English 1121 Million Speakers

It is the most widely spoken language in the world because of the global impact of England and the United States in the last three centuries.

It is not the mother tongue of most people, but it is the one that most people seek to learn. With English, there is no country or culture that cannot be accessed in a globalized world. This is the lingua franca of the 21st century.

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Most Spoken Languages In The World : Bengali

Bengali like Hindi is also an Indian language and originated from Indo-European family. Bengali has about 205 million speakers. Bengali native speakers constitute of 3.05 % of worlds population. It is one of the official languages of India and sole Official and National language of Bangladesh. Bengali is the seventh largest spoken language of world. It is commonly spoken in eastern parts of India including states like West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and union territory of Andaman and Nicobar islands. Bengali language has got rich and extensive literature works and both the National Anthems of India and Bangladesh are written in Bengali.

Huge Languages That You Didn’t Realise Had So Many Speakers

Did any of the top 10 most spoken languages surprise you?

While researching this post, I spotted a few languages whose size surprised me including some I’d never even heard of before. Let’s finish off with a quick look at some languages which don’t get much global attention, but nevertheless have a large number of speakers.

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German 1346 Million Speakers

German is an official language of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium , Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg. People also speak it in parts of Italy and Poland.

German is a language of business, and speaking German can open up many opportunities to work in large companies anywhere in the world. Some of the biggest car manufacturers come from Germany, including Audi, Volkswagen, and Mercedes.

It is also the second most spoken language in scientific research. Germany is a significant contributor to international research and development efforts, and welcomes scientists from abroad to work in fellowships throughout Germany.

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Vietnamese 85 Million Native Speakers

The tenth language in our ranking is Vietnamese. This language is spoken by approximately 85 million speakers mainly in Vietnam, where it is considered national and official language. Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic.

Vietnamese has a very phonemic tone with a significant influence from Chinese and French, which include the use of tones to distinguish words with identical consonant and vowel sequences. Words order usually express syntactic relations of words to each other, while using modifiers rather than affixes can express the tense and voice of verb forms.

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Urdu 2313 Million Speakers

Urdu is an Indo-Iranian language with 230 million speakers. Its the official language of Pakistan and its also recognized as an official regional or secondary language in India, where speakers of both languages can understand one another.

Urdu has adopted several words directly from English, including airport, file, science, corrupt, bus, and library. English has also adopted words from Urdu and Hindi, like pajamas and khaki.

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How Many Languages Are There

There are over 7,000 languages in the world. Ethnologue, an online publication that provides data on the languages of the world, reports that there are 7,151 living languages.

Just 23 of those languages account for half of the worlds populations speaking patterns though.

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Portuguese 2577 Million Speakers

Portuguese is the official language of nine countries: Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe. Because of its colonial history, there are also many Portuguese speakers in parts of India.

In writing, a lot of Portuguese and Spanish words are usually mutually intelligible. Portuguese can also serve as a solid foundation if you want to learn other romance languages.

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Iranian Persian 774 Million Speakers

The Persian language is a group of related languages that are spoken either in Iran or by Iranian people all over the world. The most widely spoken dialects of this language include Western and Eastern varieties, with other closely related languages like Kurdish, Pashto, Ossetic and Tati.

The earliest written form of Persian appeared during the Sassanid Era . However, its usage declined during the Islamic era until it became popular again between 1925-1935 under Reza Shahs dynasty. Reza Shah made Farsi a required school subject for all children in Iran.

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Size Of Genomes Across Different Organisms

Human DNA is made up of approximately 3.2 billion base pairs that are tightly wound up and stored in our cells. If you were to unwind and measure the DNA stored in a single human cell, it would be about 2 meters long!

This lengthy DNA is stored in pairs of chromosomes. A full collection of chromosomes, or an entire set of genetic information, is referred to as a genome.

Genomes vary in size, depending on the organism. Here is a look at 24 different species and the size of their genomes, from animals and plants to bacteria and viruses:

The Marbled Lungfish has the largest known animal genome. Its genome is made up of 130 billion base pairs, which is about 126.8 billion more than the average human genome.

Comparatively, small viruses and bacteria have fewer base pairs. The Hepatitis D virus has only 1,700 base pairs, while E. coli bacteria has 4.6 million. Interestingly, research has not found a link between the size of a species genome and the organisms size or complexity.

In fact, there are still a ton of unanswered questions in the field of genome research. Why do some species have small genomes? Why do some have a ton of redundant DNA? These are still questions being investigated by scientists today.