In the 21st Edition of Ethnologue, a well-respected and widely used reference by linguists, it shared the Top 23 languages spoken in the world, with the number of first-language speakers and the number of countries where it is established:

Source: https://www.ethnologue.com





Top 23 languages spoken in the world

1. Chinese – 1.299 billion first-language speakers established in 38 countries

2. Spanish – 442 million first-language speakers established in 31 countries

3. English – 378 million first-language speakers established in 118 countries

4. Arabic – 315 million first-language speakers established in 58 countries

5. Hindi – 260 million first-language speakers established in 4 countries

6. Bengali – 243 million first-language speakers established in 4 countries

7. Portuguese – 223 million first-language speakers established in 15 countries

8. Russian – 154 million first-language speakers established in 18 countries

9. Japanese – 128 million first-language speakers established in 2 countries

10. Lahnda – 119 million first-language speakers established in 6 countries

11. Javanese – 84.4 million first-language speakers established in 3 countries

12. Turkish – 78.5 million first-language speakers established in 8 countries

13. Korean – 77.2 million first-language speakers established in 6 countries

14. French – 76.8 million first-language speakers established in 53 countries

15. German – 76 million first-language speakers established in 28 countries

16. Telugu – 74.8 million first-language speakers established in 2 countries

17. Marathi – 71.8 million first-language speakers established in 1 country

18. Urdu – 69.2 million first-language speakers established in 7 countries

19. Vietnamese – 68 million first-language speakers established in 3 countries

20. Tamil – 66.7 million first-language speakers established in 7 countries

21. Italian – 64.8 million first-language speakers established in 14 countries

22. Persian – 61.5 million first-language speakers established in 29 countries

23. Malay – 60.7 million first-language speakers established in 18 countries

Wow, knowing that gives us a better perspective of the world’s languages!

Now, where does your language rank? Did you find these statistics interesting? Share your thoughts below.

Attribution – Global Language Image is made by M. Adiputra







