The Ten Most Spoken Languages on Earth
Measurements depend on definitions: English has about 450 million native speakers, but second- and third-language speakers may add up to as many as two billion. This list ranks languages by total speakers:
- English: 1,493 million speakers
- Mandarin Chinese: 1,183 million speakers
- Hindi: 611 million speakers
- Spanish: 561 million speakers
- Modern Standard Arabic: 335 million speakers
- French: 334 million speakers
- Bengali: 274 million speakers
- Portuguese: 269 million speakers
- Indonesian: 255 million speakers
- Urdu: 246 million speakers