Table of Contents
Top 10 most spoken languages in the world
In this list, we are going to have a look at the top 10 most spoken languages in the world. We are categorizing these languages on the basis of the most native speakers of a particular language.
So starting with an honorable mention. This language doesn’t make the list, but we feel like it should.
French
With 153 non-native speakers, totaling 229 million worldwide, it’s the official language of 20 countries. With the highest number of speakers in France, Canada, Belgium, and then Switzerland. It’s also widely spoken in parts of Western and Central Africa. On several Caribbean islands and even on the South American continent.
In French Guiana, French is a romance language, but over the centuries it’s taken on influence from Celtic and Germanic tongues. In fact, the language and country are named after the Franks, a collection of tribes from the Middle Ages. French contributed a lot to the English language even being the language spoken at the English court sometimes in history.
Now actually starting the top 10.
10: Punjabi/ Lahnda
This one has recently replaced German. It has over 100,000,000 native speakers. It is spoken in large areas of India and Pakistan. Its origin is the Punjab region which was separated into two when the British left. Punjabi is the most widely spoken. It is the most spoken language in Pakistan.
The 11th most widely spoken language in India, and Interestingly, the fifth most spoken in Canada. It can be written SHAHMUKHI or GURMUKHI. The Muslim population uses the 1st and the Sikh population uses the second one.
09: Japanese
Almost all 130,000,000 native speakers live in the origin point of this language. And it’s the most highly geographically concentrated language on the list. Japanese people used two writing systems. Hiragana and Katakana.
08: Russian
Although Russia is not a densely populated state. However Russian is one of the largest languages in the world. Here 153 million people are native, among which most are spread around the neighboring countries. Ukrainian and Belarussian are also similar to Russian, but they were actually formed their shape in medieval rule in the kingdom of Keiv.
07: Portuguese
Portuguese has most of its native speakers being native. 221 million with 11 million non-natives. This Latin language was developed in Portugal but today it is spoken in 15 countries on different continents. Brazilian Portuguese is very different from the European one and is the most spoken dialect.
06: Bengali
Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language the language of Bangladesh, with 228 native speakers. It is also being spoken in a lot of Indian states. Surprisingly this language has an origin with other European Languages. However, It uses the Bengali script.
05 Arabic
Arabic is spoken by approximately 420 million people worldwide. It is the official language of 26 countries most of which are in North Africa and the Middle East. Arabic is also seen as the religious language of Islam, however, most Muslims are not native Arabic speakers.
04: Hindi/Urdu
Hindi/Urdu is the biggest language of the Indian sub-continent. There has been an argument, that whether both of these are the same language with different dialects or are totally different. With almost 350 native speakers, Hindi is the national language of India and the Urdu of Pakistan. But Hindi uses the DEWNAGARI script, while Urdu uses the NASTALIQ or Persian script today.
03: English
With 380 native speakers and half a billion non-native, English comes at no. 3. The world consumes most of the entertainment in English because it is the language of technology. There is a cultural dominance of English worldwide. It is a Germanic Language, with some aspects close to Dutch and German.
02: Spanish
Being spoken in 31 countries, it has almost 460 million people. It is the main language of South America except for Brazil. In the south of the US, this language has over 40 million speakers.
01: Chinese
One in every six people in the world, Chinese has over 1.2 billion native speakers in the world. Chinese is like a group of languages where Mandarin Chinese is the biggest. It is written in Chinese Characters which are ancient pictorial systems, where each symbol represents different concepts or words. The traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, while the simplified ones are used in China, Singapore, and Malaysia.
These Top 10 Languages make a large number of the world’s population. Arabic and Hindi/Urdu take about 4%, English 5%, Spanish 6%, and Chinese about 17% of the world’s population.
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اس آرٹیکل کو بہتر بنانے میں ہماری مدد کریں
اگر آپ کو اس آرٹیکل میں کوئی غلطی نظر آ رہی ہے۔ تو درست اور قابلِ اعتبار معلومات کی فراہمی میں ہماری مدد کریں۔ ہم درست معلومات کی ترسیل کے لیے سخت محنت کرتے ہیں ۔
اگر آپ بھی ہمارے ساتھ معلومات کا تبادلہ کرنا چاہتے ہیں تو ہماری اس کمیونٹی میں شامل ہو کر معلومات کے سلسلے کو بڑھانے میں ہماری مدد کریں۔
