How many languages do you think are spoken throughout the world? Given that there are officially 195 countries, and that many countries have the same official language, a guess could be that there exist around 150 languages?
This guess, albeit educated, would be wide of the mark! According to Ethnologue, there are 7,139 distant languages spoken today, but 40% of these are endangered with less than 1,000 speakers, and over half of the world’s population speak just 23 languages!
If you had to guess out of the 7,139 existing languages, which five are the most spoken, what would you include in your list? I can guess that languages like Quechua of Ancash and Huánuco and Walloon (both spoken by just 600,000 people) will not make the cut, but will any of the five most spoken languages surprise you?
5. Arabic – Spoken by 275 million people
Arabic is spoken by over 275 million people in 25 countries! The dialects vary amongst the countries, so you have to be careful. An Arabic speaker from Morocco may not understand if you speak to him in a Syrian dialect, especially as Moroccan Arabic is influenced by French!
However, to make things easier, there is a modern standard dialect that is uniform throughout the Arab world, though native Arabic speakers do not learn this as a first language, but as a second language, in school and through exposure to media.
If you want to learn the dialect spoken by the most number of people, that would be Egyptian Arabic, spoken by around 78 million people. But, you must be warned, Arabic is a difficult language to learn, as there are three forms of writing every letter. An initial form, a medial form, and a final form, so good luck!
4. Hindi – Spoken by 310 million people
Hindi is spoken by 310 million people! On top of this, more than 100 million people speak a language which is similar to Hindi!
Although it is mainly spoken in India, only 55% of the population are native speakers. 40% of the population of Fiji also speak Hindi!
Interestingly enough, English has many words borrowed from Hindi, due to the British Empire and its colonisation of India. The word jungle comes from the Hindi word ‘jangal,’ meaning wasteland and the word thug is derived from the Hindi word ‘thag,’ meaning thief!
Although Hindi is not commonly learned nowadays, it is likely to be in the future, given the economic potential of India!!
3. English- Spoken by 360 million people
English is spoken by 360 million native speakers, and on top of this, over 1 billion people speak English as a second language! I’m sure I teach you nothing by informing you that it is the most popular language to learn in the world. The British Council estimates that there are 1.5 billion people learning English at any moment. The good news is that English is one of the easiest languages to learn due to the lack of genders and verb agreements!
The British Empire developed the importance of English, and its effects are still felt today, with English as an official language in countries like India.
English is the business language and the language of international institutions. So much so that even after Brexit, the EU still maintained English as its official language! America, as a superpower, manages to ensure its continual relevance through the media and the entertainment industry!
The country with the highest number of English speakers is the USA, and consequently, it is American English which is often taught as the ‘English Standard.’
2. Spanish- Spoken by 400 million people
Spanish is spoken by over 400 million people and is the most spoken language in South America. Once again, this is the doing of colonisation. After Colombus discovered the new world, Spain colonised much of Central and South America, and as a result, Spanish is still spoken there today, although indigenous languages are still spoken by millions.
Spanish is also influenced by Arabic, due to the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and over 8000 Spanish words have Arabic origins.
Due to immigration, it is also spoken by 41 million people in North America and Spanish is the second most demanded language to learn after English!
1. Mandarin- Spoken by 1 billion people
Advancing any other language in terms of native speakers, Mandarin is spoken by 1 billion people. Due to the growing global importance of China, more and more learn Mandarin each year.
However, before you embark on the adventure, keep in mind that it is a very difficult language to learn. The characters are very different and are not letters, but represent an idea or a concept. You also have to be careful with your pronunciation, Mandarin has four different voice tones and these are used to differentiate words. There is one piece of good news though! There are no tenses in Chinese, so you will not have to spend hours learning past participles.!If you want to learn Mandarin, you should start by learning Pinyin, as it will teach you how to pronounce a word.
Fun facts
1:) Although Korean is only spoken by 75 million people, more and more people are learning Korean due to its influence on global culture.
2:)Although Latin is considered a dead language and is not the official language of any country, Latin is still taught in schools around the world. Having an understanding of Latin will accelerate your learning in Latin-based languages.
