NationMaster - Encyclopedia: List of the most spoken native languages

Note: this table has been split out from List of languages by total speakers This page attempts to present a list of languages by total native speakers. ...

The following table is based largely on a list of the world's top 100 languages published by Ethnologue in 1999. [1] (http://web.archive.org/web/19990429232804/www.sil.org/ethnologue/top100.html) Many of the estimates in the original table were for years prior to 1999.

The original Ethnologue list included Serbo-Croatian with 21 million speakers. Serbo-Croatian (srpskohrvatski or hrvatskosrpski) is a name for a language of the Western group of the South Slavic languages. ...

(12 countries)

Order number and language	Countries and/or regions with more than 1% as native speakers	Total number of native speakers (million)
1. Mandarin Chinese	Brunei, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand (8 countries)	885
2. English	American Samoa, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Canada, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guam, Guyana, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Montserrat, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Marianas, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Pitcairn, Puerto Rico, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Tokelau, Trinidad, Turks and Caicos, United Kingdom, United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vanuatu, Zimbabwe (52 countries)	402
3. Spanish	Andorra, Argentina, Aruba, Belize, Bolivia, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Gibraltar, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, United States, Uruguay, U.S. Virgin Islands, Venezuela (30 countries)	332
4. Bengali	Bangladesh, India, United Arab Emirates	189
5. Hindi	India, Belize, South Africa, Yemen (4 countries)	182
6. Portuguese	Andorra, Angola, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, France, Luxembourg, Macau, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands Antilles, Paraguay, Portugal, São Tomé e Príncipe, South Africa, Switzerland, Venezuela (20 countries)	181
7. Russian	Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United States, Uzbekistan (17 countries)	145
8. Japanese	Japan	127
9. German	Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Paraguay, Poland, Switzerland, United States, Uruguay (18 countries)	120
10. Wu Chinese	China	90-95
11. Punjabi¹	India, Pakistan, Kenya, Singapore (4 countries)	89¹
12. Javanese	Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore	75.5
13. Korean	North Korea, South Korea, Thailand	75
14. French	Andorra, Belgium, Canada, Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, France, French Polynesia, Gabon, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Luxembourg, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Monaco, Morocco, New Caledonia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Seychelles, Switzerland, Tunisia , Vanuatu , Vietnam (23 countries)	72
15. Marathi	India	71.8
16. Turkish	Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Republic of Macedonia, Netherlands, Turkey (8 countries)	67.7
17. Vietnamese	Cambodia, China, United States, Vietnam (4 countries)	67.4
18. Telugu	India, Singapore	66.4
19. Cantonese (Yue Chinese)	Brunei, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Malaysia, Panama, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam (11 countries)	65-70
20. Tamil	India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka (6 countries)	63.1
21. Italian	Canada, Croatia, Eritrea, France, Italy, San Marino, Slovenia, Switzerland (8 countries)	61.5
22. Urdu	Afghanistan, India, Mauritius, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand (6 countries)	58
23. Min Nan Chinese	Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand (8 countries)	> 50
24. Ukrainian	Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, USA, Australia, Belarus, Romania, Serbia Montenegro, Moldova, Latvia, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Argentina A country, a land, or a state, is a geographical area that connotes an independent political entity, with its own government, administration, laws, often a constitution, police, military, tax rules, and population, who are one anothers countrymen. ... This article is on all of the Northern Chinese dialects. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is a commonwealth in political union with the United States of America at a strategic location in the West Pacific Ocean. ... The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is a nation located in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela. ... The Turks and Caicos Islands is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom consisting of two groups of tropical islands in the Caribbean, southeast of the Bahamas, at 21°45′ N 71°35′ W. The thirty islands total 166 sq. ... This article is about the Bengali language. ... Hindi (हिन्दी) is a language spoken in most states in northern and central India. ... The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe is a tiny two-island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, distanced 140 kilometers from one another, and situated about 250 and 225 kilometers, respectively, off the northwestern coast of Gabon. ... Wu (吳方言 pinyin wú fāng yán; 吳語 pinyin wú yǔ) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. ... Punjabi (sometimes spelled Panjabi) is the language of the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ... The Javanese language is the spoken language of the people in the central and eastern part of the island of Java, in Indonesia. ... Côte dIvoire (often called Ivory Coast in English; see below about the name) is a country in West Africa. ... Marathi (मराठी) is one of the widely spoken languages of India, and has a long literary history. ... Official languages Macedonian2 Capital Skopje President Branko Crvenkovski Prime Minister Vlado Bučkovski Area – Total – % water Ranked 145th 25,713 km² 1. ... Telugu(తెలుగు) belongs to the family of Dravidian languages and is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. ... This article is on all of the Yue dialects. ... Missing image The letter ழ் is a consonant believed to be unique to Tamil and Malayalam Tamil is a classical language and one of the major languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. ... Urdu(اردو) is an Indo-European language which originated in India, most likely in the vicinity of Delhi, from whence it spread to the rest of the subcontinent. ... Mǐn Nán (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name Bân-lâm-gú; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ... and others (more than 25 countries)	47.8
25. Egyptian Arabic	Egypt	46.3
26. Jinyu Chinese	China	45
27. Gujarati	India, Kenya, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe (9 countries)	46.1
28. Polish	Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, United States, Canada, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Kazakhstan	42.7
29. Xiang Chinese	China	40-45
30. Persian²	Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Oman, Qatar, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates (7 countries)	31.3²
31. Malayalam	India, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (3 countries)	35.8
32. Hakka Chinese	Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand (5 countries)	34
33. Kannada	India	33.7
34. Azerbaijani³	Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Iraq (5 countries)	32³
35. Oriya	India	31
36. Sunda	Indonesia	27
37. Bhojpuri	India, Mauritius, Nepal	26.6
38. Gan Chinese	China	25
39. Maithili	India, Nepal	24.3
40. Hausa	Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Togo (8 countries)	24.2
41. Romanian	Hungary, Israel, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine (6 countries)	23.5
42. Dutch	Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), Surinam, Netherlands Antilles, Aruba	22.8
43. Burmese	Bangladesh, Myanmar	22
44. Sindhi	Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Singapore (4 countries)	21.4
45. Algerian Arabic	Algeria	21.1
46. Awadhi	India, Nepal	20.5
47. Thai	Singapore, Thailand	20.2
48. Yoruba	Benin, Nigeria	20

Egyptian Arabic is a dialect of Arabic spoken in Egypt. ... Jin (simplified: 晋语; traditional: 晉語; pinyin: jìnyǔ), or Jin-yu, is a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Gujarati (also sometimes Gujrati) is a language native to the state of Gujarat in western India. ... Xiang (湘語/湘语), also Hunan, Hunanese, or Hsiang, is a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Persian (فارسی), (local name in Iran and Afghanistan: Fârsi), Pârsi (older local name, but still used by some speakers), Tajik (a Central Asian dialect) or Dari (Another local name in Afghanistan), is a language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Bahrain and Uzbekistan. ... Malayalam (മലയാളം) is the major language of the state of Kerala, in southern India. ... Hakka is one language in the family of languages known as Chinese. ... Kannada - aptly described as sirigannada (known to few as Kanarese) is one of the oldest Dravidian languages and is spoken in its various dialects by roughly 45 million people. ... Oriya (ଓଡ଼ିଆ) is one of the Indian languages mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa. ... Basa Sunda (literally, language of Sunda), also called Sundanese, is the language of about 27,000,000 people from the western third of Java or 13. ... Bhojpuri is the main language spoken in the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, and it is also spoken in the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh. ... Gan (赣) is one of the major divisions of spoken Chinese, concentrated in and typical of Jiangxi Province. ... Maithili is of the family of Indo-Aryan languages, which are part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. ... Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 24 million people, and as a second language by about 15 million more. ... Definitions Flanders (Dutch: Vlaanderen, French: Flandre or Flandres) has two main designations: a historical region (the County of Flanders), and an administrative region of Belgium (the Flemish Region and the Flemish Community). ... Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan. ... Awadhi is a dialect of Hindi, spoken in the Awadh (Oudh) region of Uttar Pradesh. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Notes

Note 1: Punjabi is separated into two languages by Ethnologue: Western Punjabi (60,647,207) and Eastern Punjabi (27,109,000). In addition, the Mirpur dialect (1,022,000) is also taken into account. This total is based on new figures in the 15th edition. Punjabi (sometimes spelled Panjabi) is the language of the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ...

Note 2: Ethnologue splits Persian (Farsi) into two languages: Eastern Farsi (7 million) and Western Farsi (24.28 million). Persian (فارسی), (local name in Iran and Afghanistan: Fârsi), Pârsi (older local name, but still used by some speakers), Tajik (a Central Asian dialect) or Dari (Another local name in Afghanistan), is a language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Bahrain and Uzbekistan. ...

Note 3: Azerbaijani is split by Ethnologue into North Azerbaijani (about 7 mln. speakers) and South Azerbaijani (about 24.4 mln. speakers).

Primary source: Ethnologue (http://www.ethnologue.com)

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