What Languages Have the Most Native Speakers?

Here is our top ten list of the languages around the world that have the most native speakers:

Mandarin Chinese: 1 billion +
English: 512 million
Hindi: 501 million
Spanish: 399 million
Russian: 285 million
Arabic: 265 million
Bengali: 245 million
Portuguese: 196 million
Malay-Indonesian: 140 million
Japanese: 125 million

Looking at this list, we can see that Mandarin has the most native speakers of any language. English, which may not have the most native speakers but is the most widely spoken language, is next. Then comes Hindi, a language that is less commonly used in Japan. Although we generally think of Hindi less often, we need to remember that it is a commonly spoken language. Spanish, the language of Spain and most of Latin America comes in at fourth. Rounding out the top five is Russian.

Arabic is number six. While none of the Arabic speaking countries have giant populations, the Arabic speaking region of the world is large. Bengali, at number seven, is another language that we should think of more often. Next, at number eight is Portuguese, one of the few languages that has spread all over the globe. Number nine, Malay-Indonesian, is another language that we don't think about that much, but we should. Japanese completes the top ten. We probably don't need to tell you anything about Japanese!

We would like to note that neither French nor German, two important European languages, are in the top ten list. We may think of them as being important in Europe, but when looking at the total number of speakers in the world, they are not as important as we thought they would be.

Return to Top Ten main page.

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