Although there are over 6,000 languages in existence today, the vast
majority of the world speaks less than 150. Of those 150, the usual
suspects are all there, however there are a few that may surprise you;
English drops to third place and Portuguese overtakes Bengali. Enough
teasing, let’s get started.
01. Chinese (Mandarin) – 935 Million Native Speakers
Of the more than 6.6 billion people in the world, 14.1% of them speak
Mandarin Chinese. China has many dialects, but Mandarin Chinese is the
most common and widely accepted of them all. It is the native language
of roughly 935 million Chinese. 09 more after the break...
02. Spanish – 387 Million Native Speakers
Saying “Hola” at spot number two is Spanish with 387 million speakers.
This accounts for about 5.85% of the world getting the big bien venido
upon entering this world. Also a common second language, for Americans
and others, Spanish is quickly gaining ground as a world language partly
due to it being widely thought of as the easiest language to
learn.[livingbilingual.com/2013/06/11/learning-a-language-the-easiest-language-to-learn]
While it has quite a ways to go before it overtakes Chinese, it’s
already overtaken number #3… English.
03. English – 365 Million Native Speakers
If you’re reading this, you speak English to some degree (or you are
really confused.) While behind Spanish, English is still the lingua
franca of the world. It dominates business, trade, and America’s
currency, the dollar, is still used on a global scale. Hollywood helps
spread our lovely language throughout the world and helps it maintain it
as a status language.
04. Hindi – 295 Million Native Speakers
Hindi is the big-hitter in India. India has over 122 languages with 22
of them recognized by the constitution of India as official languages.
Of them, Hindi has emerged as the big dog; the one everyone wants to
play with. It is essentially a lingua franca in parts of, if not all of,
India. Most Indians can speak or understand it to some degree. India
has a lot of people, therefore a lot of people speak Hindi. Logical.
05. Arabic – 280 Million Native Speakers
Obviously, as astute as you all are, you know this statistic is a bit
skewed. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the common language used for
news broadcasts and official stuff, however most Arabic-speaking folk
speak a dialect of Arabic; Egyptian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Algerian
Arabic, etc. If these were fragmented off, none of them would easily
make the top 10, however, luckily for Arabic, they are all lumped
together for official purposes. You got lucky this time, Arabic. Arabic
is also one of the hardest languages to learn for English speakers.
06. Portuguese – 204 Million Native Speakers
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
From Brazil to Portugal, the Portuguese know how to party. They also
know how to multiply. From a relatively smaller number of countries,
this rabbit-like mammals get it done when it comes to producing little
Portuguese speakers.
07. Bengali – 202 Million Native Speakers
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
I bet you didn’t see Bengali coming… in fact, I bet you don’t know what
Bengali is. Let me educate you. Bengali is the language native to the
southeastern region of Asia known as Bengal. Think Bangladesh. While
numbers vary for the ‘native speakers’ of this language, it’s still in a
solid place among the top 10 most spoken languages in the world.
08. Russian – 160 Million Native Speakers
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Russian, or Russki as I like to call it (I don’t know why) is a Slavic
language that gives me fits when I try to learn it. Written in the
Cyrillic alphabet, it looks and sounds foreign to most English speakers.
The Russians know how to be cold and decline words. And be tough. And
intimidating.
09. Japanese – 127 Million Native Speakers
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Perhaps the most polite language on the top 10, Japanese is famous for
it’s difficulty in addressing various levels of people with regards to
their status and respect level. Seemingly two different languages are
used for addressing elders and people of authority vs. that annoying kid
down the street. With it’s unique writing system, it appears to be
really foreign to a large portion of the world. However, to 127 million
people, it’s pure comfort.
10. Punjabi – 96-130 Million Native Speakers
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Ahh Punjabi, what would a top 10 list be without you? Punjabi “…is an
Indo-Aryan language spoken by 130 million (2013 estimate) native
speakers worldwide making it the 10th most widely spoken language in the
world.”
It’s clear to see that the vast majority of languages are comprised of
only the top fraction of a percent. Of the 6,000+ languages spoken
today, this list of 10 makes up for roughly 45% or so of the total
population of the earth. As the world becomes smaller, we lose a lot of
the underrepresented languages out there. Whether you consider this a
natural part of civilization, or a tragedy, it is happening. There are
large efforts out there to support and help preserve near-extinct
languages, but it will remain an uphill battle as more and more people
jump on the bandwagon to speak one of the more ‘common’ languages.
