Most widely spoken language by number of native speakers

Which are the most widely spoken languages in the world, is one of the most interesting questions to answer. There are plenty of surveys carried out worldwide just to find out how many languages are spoken commonly worldwide. Every country has its own language and every language has its own sub-languages and each sub language has its own dialect that is native to a particular region or community.

Let us begin with countdown for the top 10 most widely spoken languages worldwide. And the winning contenders are as follows:

Mandarin Chinese

With the most number of Chinese in the world, the language is bound to be the most spoken language. You may say there are more English speakers, but Mandarin Chinese beat English by a 2:1 ratio. Mandarin Chinese also takes the title of the hardest language to learn. More than a billion people in China can speak one of the most difficult languages.

English

English has taken up the second position as the most spoken language in the world. A recent study has proven that there are more English language speakers in India than in all of Western Europe with the exception of the United Kingdom. It was seen that English was the primary language for 2.3 lac Indians, second language for 86 lac Indians and 39 million Indians speak English as their third language. The multilingual Indians have found the key to stay connected with the world by becoming fluent with the most spoken language worldwide.

Hindi

The second most populous country in the world, India's national language Hindi takes the third place as the most spoken language in the world. Hindi is the primary language in the multilingual Indian continent. And India has been predicted to soon surpass China as the most populous country, so Hindi is bound to be spoken by more number of people. Hindi has many dialects that are spoken in different states of India. You can have a look at the Hollywood movies of India to understand and learn a bit of Hindi with a lot of drama, dance and a dash of Indian 'masala'.

Spanish

The land of fiestas, traditions and bullfight, Spain has its national language Spanish bagging the fourth place as the most spoken language worldwide. The animated cartoon character Speedy Gonzales has made the Spanish sentence, '¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!' (Hurry Up, Get Up) famous worldwide. Similarly, Spanish is a widely used language as it is spoken in every Central and South American country, Cuba, Spain and also in the United States. In fact, the Spanish language has been a forerunner in contributing some of the words like tornado, taco grande supreme and patio, etc. to the English diction.

Arabic

One of the oldest languages of the world, Arabic is spoken in the Middle East. This is the 5th most spoken language in the world with speakers living in countries that include Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon. Many Muslims all over the world can read, write and speak Arabic even though Arabic is not their mother tongue. This is because Arabic is the language of the Muslim holy book, the Koran. Arabic has been made the 6th official language of the UN in 1974.

Portuguese

Say Portuguese and it reminds you of the greatest explorer of the world, Vasco Da Gama. With all the explorers from this country who went on in search of new, exotic places, Portuguese became a language that was established in many other parts of the world. The counties other than Portugal where Portuguese is spoken include Brazil, Venezuela, Macau, Angola, Mozambique.

Bengali

With over 120 million people as the population of the country, Bangladesh can pride itself as the country with the 6th most spoken language, that is, Bengali. This one language is spoken by one and all in Bangladesh. Also, there are significant number of speakers of Bengali in the neighbouring country, India. Although, Bengali may be a new discovery for you, there is a significant population in the world that speaks Bengali.

Russian

Russian is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world that is also spoken in Belarus, Kazakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan even America and many other countries apart from Russia. Russian is also one of the six languages in the UN. Thus, Russian takes the 8th position in the list of top 10 languages.

French

The French language takes the 9th slot in this list. French is the language of romance and is spoken in Belgium, Canada, Cameroon, Rwanda, Haiti. France is famous not only for its Eiffel Tower and Haute Couture, but also for French one of the most popular languages in the world.

German

The first language of Germany that is spoken by more than 95% of the population comes 10th in the race of languages that are spoken the most. Germany also has speakers in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and some German-speaking communities of Northern Italy, East Cantons of Belgium, French Alsace region South Jutland county of Denmark and many more parts of Europe.

Other honorable mentions that did not make it up to the top 10 list are Malay-Indonesian, Japanese language, Urdu, Punjabi, Korean, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Cantonese, Wu, Vietnamese, Javanese, Italian, Turkish, Tagalog, and Thai.

Unit 10. English-Speaking Countries

When at Rome, do as Romans do.