Sh.Mahdavi: List of languages by number of worldwide speakers

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

List of languages by number of worldwide speakers

at 12:53 AM Posted by Shahab Mahdavi

Here is a look at the break down of people speaking some of the more popular languagesof the world.

1. Mandarin: 982,000,000 native, 179,000,000 second language = 1,151,000,000 total

2. English: Over 1,500,000,000 worldwide.

3. French: 113 million “native and real speakers” (includes 64,473,140 French people), 250 million second language (worldwide including Africa and North Africa) = 363 million (as a total of first and additional language spoken) and up to 500 million total with significant knowledge of the language (2008).

4. Spanish: Total of 417 million including second-language speakers (1999).

5. Hindi: Standard Hindi 325,000,000; A total of 650,000,000 including Urdu and secondary speakers, does not include Maithili. All Hindi dialects are mutually intelligible.

6. Russian: 165 million native, 110 million second language = 275 million total

7. Arabic: 246 million(Encarta estimate)

8. Portuguese: 215 million native, 20 million second language = 235 million total

9. German: 101 million native (88 million Standard German, 5 million Swiss German, 8 million Austrian German), 60 million second language = 214 million worldwide.

10. Bengali: 196 million native (2004 CIA) (includes 14 million Chittagonian and 10.3 million Sylheti).

11. Persian (Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian): ca. 72 million; sometimes taken to include all of Southwestern Iranian (Luri, Tati, and other); ca. 72 million second language, total ca. 144 million total

12. Japanese: 130 million native, 2 million second language = 132 million total

13. Turkish: 74 million (2006 estimate) + 15 million second language = 89 million

14. Italian: around 62 million people.

15. Dutch: 25 million people.

٭ It must be said that Ter Sami, which is a language from Uralic family in Russia (Murmansk Oblast), has the lowest population in the world: JUST 6 PEOPLE!!!

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