Top 10 Most Spoken Languages in the World [2022]

Roughly 7,117 languages are spoken all over the world which is impossible to learn every language so we used to speak language depending upon where we are living. Then there comes the role of most spoken languages in the world.

People speak some language to communicate with each other for daily discussion and they understand people’s spoken language only when each other speak the same language.

Every country has its own official language so their people can communicate with each other only by their official language, which language makes the official language decided by the government by seeing which language the majority of people speak.

If we want to go to other countries we have to know their language so to go there we need to learn their language first. We all know that English is the universal language but due to the less literacy rate quite many countries, people didn’t know the English language.

English is the universal language so we write all the articles in the English language.

Here, we have made the list of the most spoken languages in the world so that you brilliant visitors have no dilemma which language is widely spoken. 

Here is the list of the top 10 most spoken languages in the world:

10. Indonesian (199.0 million speakers)

Indonesian is an Austronesian language that is the official language of Indonesia and the official language of Indonesia and ASEAN.

Indonesian language didn’t exist until 1928 along with its standardized version of Malay and considered as a separate language only for political purposes.

Over 199.0 million speakers are fluent speakers of Indonesian but only 20 million of them actually use it as their first language which means most Indonesian speakers are more likely multilingual. Indonesian has a simple language structure which makes it easy to write and pronounce also to learn.

There are over 43 million native speakers of the Indonesian language and the writing system of Indonesian is Latin(Indonesian alphabet) and Indonesian Braille.

There are some words in Indonesian that are borrowed from Sanskrit, Arabic, Dutch, English, and the local language which are innumerable commonly used.

9. Portuguese (252.2 million speakers)

The Portuguese language is a Western Romance language originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe and it is mainly spoken in Portugal, Cape, Verdean Creole, and Papiamento.

Portuguese is the official language of 9 countries like Brazil, Angola, Portugal, East Timor, Macau, and so on. The majority of Portuguese speakers are not from Portugal which is only 5% of Portuguese speakers live in Portugal.

According to UNESCO, Portuguese is the fast-growing European Language in the world behind English.

English borrowed several Portuguese words such as embarrassing, cobra, fetish, etc. and each verb tense of Portuguese language has six different endings. Before 2009 the letters ‘k’, ‘y’, and ‘w’ were not part of the Portuguese Alphabet but later added in the Alphabet in January 2009.

Portuguese is very similar to Spanish so Portuguese speaking people can understand Spanish easily. Hundreds of words from the Portuguese language are derived from Arabic and 15% of Uruguay’s population speaks Portuguese.

8. Russian (258.0 million speakers)

The Russian language is an East Slavic language which is the family of Indo-European languages and official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and so on.

It is widely used in Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

The Russian Language is the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 26 December 1991. It is mostly spoken in Israel and Mongolia. It is the largest native language in the Europe Continent which makes over 144 million native speakers.

The Russian language is considered as the 7th most spoken languages in the world by native speakers. It is the sixth official language of the United Nations and the second most widespread language on the internet after English.

Some of the English words borrowed from the Russian language such as knout, kadet, glasnost, vodka, and so on. Foreign astronauts must speak the Russian language because in the event of emergency instructions are given to astronauts in Russian.

7. Bengali (265.2 million speakers)

Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language mainly spoken by the Bengalis in South Asia mainly in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is spoken majorly in the country of Bangladesh and in the states of West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam in India.

Bangladesh and Sierra Leone are the two countries that use Bengali as the official language. Bengali speaking people do not live in Sierra Leone but Bengali is the official language of Sierra Leone for the status in recognition of the Bangladeshi peacekeeping force to restore the peace of that region. 

The International Mother Language day is based on the Bengali Language which is recognized by UNESCO on 21 February 1999 for the recognition of the language.

Bengali has developed over the course of more than 1,300 years ago and in 1956 there is the Bengali language movement demanding Bengali to be an official language of Pakistan. The Grammar of the Bengali language is gender-free which is quite an interesting fact.

6. Arabic (274.0 million speakers)

Arabic is a term used mostly by the western linguists and over 274.0 million speakers all around the world.

Over 22 countries have Arabic as the official language such as Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and so on.

There are a few words in Arabic that sound like that don’t exist in other languages such as ‘ح’ etc. The number system used today was introduced to Europeans by Arab merchants and there are many English words that are of Arabic origin like alcohol, algebra, algorithm, alkaline, candy, coffee, cotton, ghoul, hazard, lemon, and so on.

There are two Arabic forms of classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic(MSA) within which Modern standard Arabic is the official language of all Arab League countries along with most printed Arab league-like books, newspapers written in MSA. The algebraic letter ‘X’ that represents an unknown number originates from the Arabic word ‘shay’.

5. French (276.6 million speakers)

French is also a Romance language of the Indo-European family and over 76.8 million worldwide native speakers. The birth of the French language is in Gaul and more specifically from Northern Gaul.

About 45% of modern English words are of French origin and it is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn.

Over 29 countries people spoke French as the official language such as Belgium, Benin, Burundi, Canada, France, Niger, Switzerland, Togo, and so on.

French is also considered an influential language in the diplomatic world along with English. It is accepted by many international institutions like the United Nations, the Red Cross, the European Union, the International Olympic Committee, etc, and international courts that use French as one of their official languages.

There are no genuinely French words that use the letter “w” and the most common letter in French is “E”. There are some common English words used in the french language like a cafe, bourgeois, deja vu, and so on.

4. Spanish (537.9 million speakers)

The Spanish Language is a beautiful Romance language which was originated from the Iberian peninsula of Europe and mainly spoken in Spain along with the Americas.

Over 483 million native speakers make it the second most spoken native language and with 537.9 million speakers it is in the 4th most spoken languages in the world list.

There are 21 countries that have Spanish as the official language mainly across Europe, Africa, Central, South, and North America. Spanish has two names Castellano which is the Spanish word for Castilian and Español.

Spanish has also borrowed some words from English like the siesta, tapas, cava, and tortilla however there is a big difference between English and Spanish language.

Spain has always been popular for travel and foreign study destination so schools and universities studying Spanish have also grown in popularity. Most Spanish speakers are in Hispanic America and the third most spoken languages in the world after English and Chinese.

3. Hindi (637.3 million speakers)

Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language that originated from India and over 637.3 people speak the Hindi language. Hindi is mostly influenced by Sanskrit and named after the Persian word “hind”.

The English language has borrowed some words from Hindi like avatar, bandanna, bungalow, guru, jungle, karma, loot, mantra, shampoo, typhoon, Yoga, and so on. Each letter of the Hindi alphabet has its own distinct and independent sound. 

The Hindi language has a wide range of speakers and the majority of Hindi speakers are found in India, Nepal, Trinidad, Tobago, Suriname, Guyana, Mauritius, Fiji, and several other countries along with the United States and the United Kingdom.

It was standardized in the 19th century along with Urdu and has many similarities in these two languages. It uses the Devanagari script that was patterned on the Brahmi script which was developed between the 1st and 4th centuries.

The alphabetical table of Hindi is called Varnmala or the garland of letters and there are 11 vowels and 33 consonants in the Hindi language.

2. Mandarin Chinese (1.120 billion speakers)

Mandarin is a group of Sinitic (Chinese) languages that was mostly spoken in Northern and Southwestern China. Over 1.120 billion speak Mandarin Chinese which mainly originated in north China.

Mandarin Chinese is in the first position in terms of the native speakers and in the second position in the most spoken languages in the world.

Mandarin Chinese is the official language of mainland China, Singapore, and Taiwan, also one of the working languages of the United Nations.

Mandarin is the tonal language that means the meaning of a word changes based on the way we pronounce it. It consists of 50,000 different characters which make it one of the most complex language to learn also. Mandarin started developing 1,000 years ago and it is one of the several Chinese dialects.

Until 1955 it was written in vertical columns, going from right to left but now the People’s Republic of China has Westernized the written language so it is written left to right, horizontally.

1. English ( 1.268 billion speakers)

The English Language is the most spoken languages in the world with over 1.268 billion total speakers. It is a West Germanic language which was first spoken in early medieval England and mostly associated with German, Low Saxon, and Frisian.

It is widely spoken in some areas of South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean along with English speakers are called “Anglophones”. Over 67 countries and 27 non-sovereign entities speak the English language as the official language.

The English language is not only spoken widely in the land which means English is the official language of the sky that indicates all pilots have to speak and identify themselves in English.

It is the leading language of international discourse and speaking in professional contexts like navigation, science, and law. English is one of the most spoken languages in the world so tourists try to learn English as a compulsory language so they can communicate with people from all over the world.

Final words

We make the list by the number of the speaker of that language which was published in Wikipedia and do other research to make the list better. We here try hard to give you the accurate list of the top 10 most spoken languages in the world by doing a lot of research and survey. Keep appreciating our effort and keep reading our article.

If you guys know any of the languages above let us know in the comments below and share these most spoken languages in the world list on social media to update your friends too. Keep loving and visiting us.

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