largest

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The Largest Languages of the World

This a list of more than thirty world languages that have the largest number of native speakers (in millions). It is based on three different estimates: our own (Gulper 2013), those of the Swedish encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin (NE 2007), and those of the Ethnologue.

Our estimates are based on the most recent available data updated to the current year 2013, considering population increase as well as the status of each language (growing, stable, declining), and taking into account the often blurred distinction between language and dialect. Some discrepancies with other estimates are explained in notes at the bottom of the table.

Nationalencyklopedin provides estimates for the year 2007 while the Ethnologue is based on actual data gathered, mainly, in the years showed between brackets (when a language is spoken in several countries we show only the date of the data with the major weight).

Language
01) Chinese
02) Hindi
03) Spanish
04) English
05) Arabic
06) Bengali
07) Portuguese
08) Russian
09) Japanese
10) Punjabi
11) German
12) Javanese
13) Telugu
14) Marathi
15) French
16) Korean
17) Vietnamese
18) Tamil
19) Urdu
20) Turkish
21) Persian
22) Italian
23) Thai
24) Gujarati
25) Malay
26) Kannada
27) Polish
28) Ukrainian
29) Pashto
30) Malayalam
31) Oriya
32) Sundanese
33) Hausa
34) Burmese
Gulper (2013)
13000000
5080000
4300000
3830000
3100000
2650000
2060000
1640000
1280000
1150000
1010000
950000
860000
830000
800000
790000
790000
780000
750000
720000
670000
630000
560000
550000
500000
440000
410000
400000
35-450000
390000
380000
380000
350000
350000

NE (2007)
93500
29500
38700
36500
28000
20200
20400
16000
12700
9600
9200
8200
7600
7300
7400
7600
7600
7000
6600
6300
6500
5900
5600
4900
7700
3800
4000
3000
3900
3800
3300
3800
3400
3300

Ethnologue
847 (2000)
260 (2001)
405 (2011)
335 (2010)
223 (2006)
193 (2001)
202 (1998)
162 (2010)
122 (1985)
90 (2001)
84 (1990)
84 (2000)
74 (2001)
72 (2001)
68 (2006)
66 (1986)
68 (1999)
69 (2001)
63 (2001)
51 (1987)
57 (2011)
61 (------)
20 (2000)
46 (2001)
16 (2004)
38 (2001)
39 (1986)
38 (2001)
27 (1993)
34 (2001)
32 (2001)
34 (2000)
25 (1991)
32 (2000)

Notes

1)Chinese. We have considered all forms of Chinese as one language while Nationalencyklopedin and the Ethnologue consider different forms of Chinese as separate languages. Their numbers are for Mandarin Chinese only. Neither view is necessarily more correct than the other. Both have its pros and cons.

2)Hindi. We have included within Hindi all its varieties with the exception of Urdu and Maithili, namely standard Hindi, Braj, Avadhi, Bhojpuri, Magahi and Rajasthani. Others consider them separate languages which explains the big discrepancy between our estimate and many other ones. In this matter we have followed the 2001 census of India that gives 422 million of Hindi speakers which with the population increase between 2001-2013 (about 20 %) yields our number of 508 million.

6)Bengali. Bangladesh accounts for the majority of speakers of Bengali and as the 2001 census seems to underestimate the total population of the country we have relied on several estimates that are more or less coincidental: US State Department (144 millions in 2007), World Bank (160 million in 2008), CIA World Fact Book (156 million in 2010), Word Population Reference (164 million in 2010). Based on them, we estimate that the population of Bangladesh is 171 million of which 98 % speak Bengali yielding 168 million to which the 97 million speakers of Bengali living in India must be added.

25)Malay. Malay is the national language of several countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore) but is the mother tongue of a relatively low percentage of the population. However, the number of Malay speakers is increasing fast as many people are switching from their regional languages to the national language.

29)Pashto. It is difficult to estimate accurately the number of Pashto speakers, because of disagreement about the percentage of Pakistanis who speak the language (between 10 to 20 % of the population).

The Largest Language Families

This is a list of the language families that have the greater number of speakers (in millions). The number of languages in each family is approximate because there is no uniform criteria to separate independent language from dialect. Below the table, some notes give further information.

Phylum/Family
Indo-European
Sino-Tibetan
Niger-Congo
Afro-Asiatic
Austronesian
Dravidian
Turkic
Austroasiatic
Tai-Kadai
Nilo-Saharan
Uralic
Caucasian
Hmong-Mien
Mongolic
Quechuan
Tupian
Mayan
Papuan
Aymaran
Oto-Manguean
Uto-Aztecan

Area
World
China, SE Asia
sub-Saharan Africa
North Africa, Middle East
SE Asia, Oceania
India
Turkey, Central Asia, Siberia
SE Asia
SE Asia, South China
From Mali to east of Lake Victoria
NE Europe, Northern Asia
Caucasus region
Southern China, North SE Asia
Mongolia, North China
Andean region of South America
Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina
South Mexico and Central America
New Guinea
Bolivia, Peru
Mexico
Mexico, South USA

Languages
110-1400
3000
10000
2700
12000
230
290
1400
400
1300
200
35-400
11-150
130
3-160
700
300
7000
30
250
300

Speakers
30000
13600
6160
4700
3500
2590
1640
1170
930
460
200
120
7-100
7-80
7-80
6-70
5-60
40
20
20
20

Notes

1)The Caucasian and Papuan “families” are more a geographical grouping than a genetic one.

2)Two major languages, Japanese and Korean, are of uncertain classification and probably isolates. Because of this, they are not included in the table.

3)Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic families (the latter not shown here) are considered by some scholars as part of a larger grouping, the Altaic family or phylum.