the language spoken by the greatest number of native speakers in the world is
The worldâs most spoken language by total speakers. Encyclopaedia Britannica suggests the following list, which seemingly combines native speakers with non-native speakers: 1  English (1,000 million). 2  Mandarin (1,000 million).3  Hindi/Urdu (900 milllion). 4  Spanish (450 million).5  Russian/Belarusian (320 million).his information, based on number of native speakers, comes from Ethnologue, a widely-respected encyclopaedia of the worldâs living languages. At the time of the last update, there were 7105 living languages, but that figure is likely to have decreased since then as languages become extinct.