List of languages by total number of speakers
Ethnologue (2019, 22nd edition)
The following 31 languages are listed as having 50 million or more total speakers in the 2019 edition of Ethnologue, a language reference published by SIL International, which is based in the United States.

List of languages by total number of speakers

Section Title: Ethnologue (2019, 22nd edition)
Table Section Text: The following 31 languages are listed as having 50 million or more total speakers in the 2019 edition of Ethnologue, a language reference published by SIL International, which is based in the United States.

Rank	Language	Family	Branch	L1 speakers	L1 Rank	L2 speakers	L2 Rank	Total

1	English	Indo-European	Germanic	379.0 million	3	753.3 million	1	1.132 billion

2	Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese)	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic	917.8 million	1	198.7 million	5	1.116 billion

3	Hindi (incl. all the Central Zone languages; colloquial registers are mutually intelligible with Urdu)	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan	341.2 million	4	274.2 million	2	615.4 million

4	Spanish	Indo-European	Romance	460.1 million	2	74.2 million	10	534.3 million

5	French	Indo-European	Romance	77.2 million	14	202.6 million	4	279.8 million

6	Standard Arabic	Afro-Asiatic	Semitic	273.9 million	3	273.9 million

7	Bengali	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan	228.3 million	5	36.7 million	13	265.0 million

8	Russian	Indo-European	Balto-Slavic	153.7 million	7	104.4 million	7	258.2 million

9	Portuguese	Indo-European	Romance	220.7 million	6	13.4 million	15	234.1 million

10	Indonesian	Austronesian	Malayo-Polynesian	43.3 million	29	155.3 million	6	198.7 million

11	Urdu (colloquial registers are mutually intelligible with Hindi)	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan	68.6 million	20	101.6 million	8	170.2 million

12	German	Indo-European	Germanic	76.0 million	16	56.0 million	11	132.1 million

13	Japanese	Japonic	—	128.2 million	8	131,000	25	128.3 million

14	Swahili	Niger–Congo	Bantu	16.0 million	31	82.3 million	9	98.3 million

15	Marathi	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan	83.1 million	10	12.2 million	16	95.3 million

16	Telugu	Dravidian	South-Central	82.0 million	11	11.0 million	17	93.0 million

17	Western Punjabi (Lahnda)	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan	92.7 million	9	92.7 million

18	Wu Chinese (incl. Shanghainese)	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic	81.4 million	12	63,400	26	81.5 million

19	Tamil	Dravidian	South	75.0 million	18	5.9 million	18	80.9 million

20	Turkish	Turkic	Oghuz	79.4 million	13	380,300	23	79.7 million

21	Korean	Koreanic	—	77.2 million	15	77.2 million

22	Vietnamese	Austroasiatic	Vietic	75.9 million	17	1.0 million	21	76.9 million

23	Yue Chinese (incl. Cantonese)	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic	73.1 million	19	402,000	22	73.5 million

24	Javanese	Austronesian	Malayo-Polynesian	68.2 million	21	68.2 million

25	Italian	Indo-European	Romance	64.8 million	22	3.0 million	20	67.8 million

26	Egyptian Arabic	Afro-Asiatic	Semitic	64.6 million	23	64.6 million

27	Hausa	Afro-Asiatic	Chadic	43.9 million	28	19.5 million	14	63.4 million

28	Thai	Kra–Dai	Zhuang–Tai	20.6 million	30	40.0 million	12	60.6 million

29	Gujarati	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan	56.4 million	24	4.1 million	19	60.5 million

30	Persian	Indo-European	Iranian	52.7 million	25	52.7 million

31	Bhojpuri	Indo-European	Indo-Aryan	52.2 million	26	160,000	24	52.4 million

32	Southern Min (incl. Hokkien)	Sino-Tibetan	Sinitic	50.0 million	27	387,000	22	50.4 million

Sentence(s)

English is the largest language by number of speakers.

final_sentence: English is the largest language by number of speakers.