List of languages by total number of speakers

This is a list of languages by total number of speakers.

It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. For example, while Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centred on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors consider its mutually unintelligible varieties separate languages. Similarly, Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language, but sometimes considered multiple languages. Conversely, colloquial registers of Hindi and Urdu are almost completely mutually intelligible and are sometimes classified as one language, Hindustani. Rankings of languages should therefore be used with caution, as it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum.

There is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a second-language (L2) speaker. For example, English has about 450 million native speakers but depending on the criterion chosen can be said to have as many as two billion speakers.

There are also difficulties in obtaining reliable counts of speakers, which vary over time because of population change and language shift. In some areas, there are no reliable census data, the data are not current, or the census may not record languages spoken or may record them ambiguously. Speaker populations may be exaggerated for political reasons, or speakers of minority languages may be underreported in favor of a national language.

Ethnologue (2026) Ethnologue lists the following languages as having 50 million or more total speakers. This section does not include entries that Ethnologue identifies as macrolanguages encompassing several varieties, such as Arabic, Lahnda, Persian, Malay, Pashto, and Chinese.

+ Most spoken languages, Ethnologue, 2026LanguageFamilyBranchNumbers of speakers(millions) First-language(L1) Second-language(L2) Total(L1+L2) English(excl. creole languages) Indo-European Germanic 372 1,121 1,493 Mandarin Chinese(incl. Standard Chinese but excl. other varieties) Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 988 194 1,183 Hindi(excl. Urdu) Indo-European Indo-Aryan 347 264 611 Spanish(excl. creole languages) Indo-European Romance 487 75 561 Modern Standard Arabic(excl. dialects) Afro-Asiatic Semitic 0 335 335 French(excl. creole languages) Indo-European Romance 75 258 334 Bengali Indo-European Indo-Aryan 234 43 274 Portuguese(excl. creole languages) Indo-European Romance 252 18 269 Indonesian Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian 78 177 255 Urdu(excl. Hindi) Indo-European Indo-Aryan 78 168 246 Russian Indo-European Balto-Slavic 133 77 210 Standard German Indo-European Germanic 76 57 133 Japanese Japonic 124 2 126 Nigerian Pidgin English Creole West African Pidgin English 5 116 121Egyptian Arabic(excl. other Arabic dialects)Afro-AsiaticSemitic 83 35 118 Marathi Indo-European Indo-Aryan 83 16 99 Vietnamese Austroasiatic Vietic 86 11 97 Telugu Dravidian South-Central 83 13 96 Swahili Niger–Congo Bantu 4 91 95 Hausa Afro-Asiatic Chadic 58 36 94 Turkish Turkic Oghuz 86 7 94 Western Punjabi(excl. Eastern Punjabi) Indo-European Indo-Aryan 90 Tagalog Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian 33 54 87 Tamil Dravidian South 79 8 86 Yue Chinese(incl. Cantonese) Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 85 1 86 Wu Chinese(incl. Shanghainese) Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 83 <1 83 Iranian Persian(excl. other Persian dialects) Indo-European Iranian 65 17 82 Korean Koreanic 82 1 82 Amharic Afro-Asiatic Semitic 39 39 78 Thai Kra–Dai Zhuang–Tai 27 44 71 Javanese Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian 69 Italian Indo-European Romance 60 6 66 Gujarati Indo-European Indo-Aryan 58 5 62 Kannada Dravidian South 44 15 59Levantine Arabic(excl. other Arabic dialects)Afro-AsiaticSemitic 55 3 58 Sudanese Arabic(excl. other Arabic dialects) Afro-Asiatic Semitic 43 11 54 Yoruba Niger-Congo Yoruboid 48 5 53 Bhojpuri Indo-European Indo-Aryan 53 <1 53

The World Factbook (2022) The World Factbook, formerly produced by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), estimated the ten most spoken languages (L1 + L2) in 2022 as follows:

+ Most spoken languages, CIA, 2022 Language Percentage of world population (2022) English 18.8% Mandarin Chinese 13.8% Hindi 7.5% Spanish 6.9% French 3.4% Arabic 3.4% Bengali 3.4% Russian 3.2% Portuguese 3.2% Urdu 2.9%

List of languages by total number of speakers

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