Most Spoken Languages in the World 2023: There ae more than 7,100 languages that are spoken in the world today. Each and every language is one of a kind and make the world a diverse and beautiful place. Unfortunately, there are some languages that are less widely spoken than others. For example Busuu– it is only spoken by eight people. While, other languages are spoken by huge populations across different nations. As we are living in increasingly globalized world, due to which there are a no. of languages that have been introduced into our lives. Different nations, cultures, traditions and ethnicities all have their own languages to communicate with others in their region. Lets have a look at the most spoken languages in the world including their facts and details.
Most Spoken Languages in the World 2023
English
English is the most spoken language in the world with 1.35 billion speakers all over the world. It is the official language of 67 countries, including many large international organizations. These include the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, United Nations and the World Trade Organization. In addition to that, 55% of the language in internet is English, and it’s the most studied language in the universe. Therefore, the advantages of speaking English is countless.
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin Chinese is related to Burmese, Cantonese and Tibetan. As per the research, you only need around 2,500 characters to be able to read almost 98% of written Chinese.
In regards to native speakers alone, Mandarin Chinese is the second most spoken language globally. It is considered as the official language of mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also placed at the six official languages of the United Nations. There are approximately 1.09 million native speakers in the world. Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language i.e. the meaning of a word changes based on the way you pronounce it.
Hindi
Hindi language is considered a one of the two official languages of India (the other is English). It contains many different dialects, however not all dialects can be understood by each other. Moreover, Hindi is an official language of India, but not every individual of India speaks it. India holds more than 22 languages. Various variations of Hindi is spoken by the people around the world. You can hear Hindi some Caribbean countries like Tobago, Guyana and Suriname and in Fiji too (where it’s an official language). It has 600 million speakers all over the globe.
Spanish
Spanish language is kind of related to Romanian, French, Italian and Portuguese. It is known that the first modern novel and the second most translated book after the Bible was written in Spanish language. There are 22 countries over 4 continents that speak Spanish as their one of the official languages. It is considered as one of the most studied language in the world. It includes 534 million speakers in the world.
Standard Arabic
Arabic is termed as the official language in 26 countries, but there are some countries and regions that have their own dialects of Arabic. Arabic speakers speak the dialect of Standard Arabic so they can understand each other. This is the reason why there are zero native speakers of Standard Arabic language. In this list, Standard Arabic is the only language that has zero native speakers however it is still considered as one of the most spoken languages worldwide. It has around 274 million speakers in the world.
French
There are 280 million speakers of French language which is related to Romanian, Italian and Spanish. This is a fact that the 45 per cent of modern English words are originated from French. This language is spoken across different parts of the globe – everywhere from the rest of France and parts of African countries such as Madagascar and Senegal, Canada, etc. The French language has its roots spread all over the world.
Bengali
Bengali, also commonly called as Bangla, is termed as the official language of Bangladesh country. It is considered ad the second most spoken language in India, after Hindi. While you may have never heard of the Bengali language, but it’s one of the most spoken languages globally. Bengali speakers feels very proud of their language though. In fact, people around many countries know this language for its language movements, and a huge number of people have sacrificed their lives for the sake of Bengali language. The Bangladesh country has got its name from the language itself. It has 268 million speakers all over the globe.
Russian
Countries like Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have their official language i.e. Russian. Russian language was considered as the official language of the Soviet Union. Though there are many people who still use this language in public life in all the former Soviet states and Mongolia and Israel. Today, in Europe, Russian is the most spoken language.
Language experts observe Russian as one of the most complex and richest languages in the world. You may be surprised to know that, all words in the Russian language starts with “A” come from other languages though. Russian has approximately 258 million speakers in the world.
Portuguese
Portuguese language is related to Spanish, Italian, French and Romanian. Up to the present time, the letters “k”, “w“ and “y” were not included in the Portuguese alphabet. In the year 2009, a new agreement was signed to standardize the spelling forms in distinct variations.
Portuguese language was originated from the region of Medieval Galicia (which was partly in the northwest of Spain and partly in the north of Portugal), however only 5 percent of the 215 million native speakers of Portuguese actually reside in Portugal.