List of languages by total speakers Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
This page tries to present a list of languages by total native speakers.
Note, however, that lists such as this may vary somewhat depending upon the definition given to certain terms. In particular, the exact difference between "dialect" and "language" is often important. An example of where this can have an impact is the case of Arabic, which can be considered either a single language or a group of related languages. Ethnologue and the CIA World Factbook, the sources of the tables given below, consider it to be multiple languages, and it is therefore not listed here. If one chose to count it as a single language, however, it would appear in the top ten.
A similar situation occurs with Chinese. If all the varieties of Chinese are counted as a single language, then Chinese appears in first place with over 1.2 billion speakers. If counted separately, then five varieties of Chinese are found in the top 25.
The lists only take into account first-language (native) speakers. Counting second language speakers is extremely difficult and approximate at best.
| Table of contents |
|
2 CIA World Factbook estimates 3 See also 4 External links |
The following data was collected in 1996, and should be considered out of date. We are attempting to find a more recent source. Linked pages may not agree with data here because of differing sources. Rankings were removed from some linked pages because of ambiguity and the age of these data.
Ethnologue estimates
Source: ethnologue
The CIA World Factbook provides the following estimates of "first language" speakers for the year 2000.
CIA World Factbook estimates
|
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. |
Chinese, Mandarin Hindi English Spanish Bengali Russian Portuguese Japanese German, Standard Korean French |
14.37% 6.02% 5.61% 5.59% 3.4% 2.75% 2.63% 2.06% 1.64% 1.28% 1.27% |
Source: factbook entry
This is an Article on List of languages by total speakers. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About List of languages by total speakers See also
External links