# List of languages by total number of speakers

This is a list of languages by total number of speakers.
It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. For example, Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centred on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors consider its mutually unintelligible varieties separate languages. Similarly, Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language. Conversely, colloquial registers of Hindi and Urdu are almost completely mutually intelligible, and are sometimes classified as one language, Hindustani. Such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum.
There is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a second-language speaker. For example, English has about 450 million native speakers but, depending on the criterion chosen, can be said to have as many as two billion speakers.
There are also difficulties in obtaining reliable counts of speakers, which vary over time because of population change and language shift. In some areas, there is no reliable census data, the data is not current, or the census may not record languages spoken, or record them ambiguously. Sometimes speaker populations are exaggerated for political reasons, or speakers of minority languages may be underreported in favor of a national language.

## Ethnologue (2025)

Ethnologue lists the following languages as having 50 million or more total speakers. This section does not include entries that Ethnologue identifies as macrolanguages encompassing several varieties, such as Arabic, Lahnda, Persian, Malay, Pashto, and Chinese.
Most spoken languages, Ethnologue, 2025 :
| Language | Family | Branch | First-language (L1) speakers | Second-language (L2) speakers | Total speakers (L1+L2) |
| English (excl. creole languages) | Indo-European | Germanic | 390 million | 1.1 billion | 1.5 billion |
| Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, but excl. other varieties) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 990 million | 194 million | 1.2 billion |
| Hindi (excl. Urdu) | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 345 million | 264 million | 609 million |
| Spanish (excl. creole languages) | Indo-European | Romance | 484 million | 74 million | 558 million |
| Modern Standard Arabic (excl. dialects) | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | 0 | 332 million | 335 million |
| French (excl. creole languages) | Indo-European | Romance | 74 million | 238 million | 312 million |
| Bengali | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 242 million | 43 million | 284 million |
| Portuguese (excl. creole languages) | Indo-European | Romance | 250 million | 17 million | 267 million |
| Russian | Indo-European | Balto-Slavic | 145 million | 108 million | 253 million |
| Indonesian (excl. other Malay) | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | 75 million | 177 million | 252 million |
| Urdu (excl. Hindi) | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 78 million | 168 million | 246 million |
| Standard German | Indo-European | Germanic | 76 million | 58 million | 134 million |
| Japanese | Japonic | — | 124 million | 2 million | 126 million |
| Nigerian Pidgin | English Creole | Krio | 5 million | 116 million | 121 million |
| Egyptian Arabic (excl. other Arabic dialects) | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | 84 million | 35 million | 119 million |
| Marathi | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 83 million | 16 million | 99 million |
| Vietnamese | Austroasiatic | Vietic | 86 million | 11 million | 97 million |
| Telugu | Dravidian | South-Central | 83 million | 13 million | 96 million |
| Hausa | Afro-Asiatic | Chadic | 58 million | 36 million | 94 million |
| Turkish | Turkic | Oghuz | 85 million | 6 million | 91 million |
| Western Punjabi (excl. Eastern Punjabi) | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | — | — | 90 million |
| Swahili | Niger–Congo | Bantu | 4 million | 83 million | 87 million |
| Tagalog | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | 33 million | 54 million | 87 million |
| Tamil | Dravidian | South | 79 million | 8 million | 86 million |
| Yue Chinese (incl. Cantonese) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 85 million | 1 million | 86 million |
| Wu Chinese (incl. Shanghainese) | Sino-Tibetan | Sinitic | 83 million | <1 million | 83 million |
| Iranian Persian (excl. other Persian dialects) | Indo-European | Iranian | 65 million | 17 million | 83 million |
| Korean | Koreanic | — | 81 million | <1 million | 82 million |
| Thai | Kra–Dai | Zhuang–Tai | 27 million | 44 million | 71 million |
| Javanese | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | — | — | 69 million |
| Italian | Indo-European | Romance | 63 million | 3 million | 66 million |
| Gujarati | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 58 million | 5 million | 62 million |
| Levantine Arabic (excl. other Arabic dialects) | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | 58 million | 3 million | 60 million |
| Amharic | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | 35 million | 25 million | 60 million |
| Kannada | Dravidian | South | 44 million | 15 million | 59 million |
| Bhojpuri | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | 53 million | <1 million | 53 million |
| Sudanese Arabic | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | 41 million | 11 million | 52 million |

## The World Factbook (2022)

The World Factbook, produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), estimates the ten most spoken languages (L1 + L2) in 2022 as follows:
Most spoken languages, CIA, 2022 :
| Language | Percentage of world population (2022) |
| English | 18.8% |
| Mandarin Chinese | 13.8% |
| Hindi | 7.5% |
| Spanish | 6.9% |
| French | 3.4% |
| Arabic | 3.4% |
| Bengali | 3.4% |
| Russian | 3.2% |
| Portuguese | 3.2% |
| Urdu | 2.9% |