Misc

Ranked: The 100 Most Spoken Languages Around the World

Published

4 years ago

February 15, 2020

Iman Ghosh

100 Most Spoken Languages

Ranked: The 100 Most Spoken Languages Worldwide

Even though you’re reading this article in English, there’s a good chance it might not be your mother tongue. Of the billion-strong English speakers in the world, only 33% consider it their native language.

The popularity of a language depends greatly on utility and geographic location. Additionally, how we measure the spread of world languages can vary greatly depending on whether you look at total speakers or native speakers.

Today’s detailed visualization from WordTips illustrates the 100 most spoken languages in the world, the number of native speakers for each language, and the origin tree that each language has branched out from.

How Do You Define A Language?

The data comes from the 22nd edition of Ethnologue, a database covering a majority of the world’s population, detailing approximately 7,111 living languages in existence today.

The definitions of languages are often dynamic, blurring the lines around a singular understanding of what makes a language:

Linguistic: focused on lexical and grammatical differences, or on variations within speech communities
Social: focused on cultural or political factors, as well as heritage and identity

For the purposes of measurement, the researchers use the ISO 693-3 set of criteria, which accounts for related varieties and dialects—ensuring that linguistics are not the only factor considered in this count of languages.

Here are the language origins of the 100 most spoken languages:

The-100-Most-Spoken-Languages-in-the-World_Supplemental

Indo-European languages have the widest spread worldwide. According to Ethnologue, the language family contains over 3 billion speakers in total. Interestingly, there are actually 1,526 Niger-Congo languages altogether, though only 12 are represented here.

Let’s now dive into the top 10 most spoken languages overall.

Which Languages Have the Most Speakers?

It comes as no surprise that English reigns supreme, with over 1.1 billion total speakers—or roughly 15% of the global population. Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, and French round out the top five.

Rank	Language	Total Speakers	Language Origin
1	English	1,132 million	Indo-European
2	Mandarin Chinese	1,117 million	Sino-Tibetan
3	Hindi	615 million	Indo-European
4	Spanish	534 million	Indo-European
5	French	280 million	Indo-European
6	Standard Arabic	274 million	Afro-Asiatic
7	Bengali	265 million	Indo-European
8	Russian	258 million	Indo-European
9	Portuguese	234 million	Indo-European
10	Indonesian	199 million	Austronesian

However, this is only one piece in the full fabric of languages.

The metrics for native speakers tell a slightly different tale, as Mandarin Chinese shoots up to 918 million—almost 2.5x that of English native speakers.

Rank	Language	Native Speakers	Language Origin
1	Mandarin Chinese	918 million	Sino-Tibetan
2	Spanish	460 million	Indo-European
3	English	379 million	Indo-European
4	Hindi	341 million	Indo-European
5	Bengali	228 million	Indo-European
6	Portuguese	221 million	Indo-European
7	Russian	154 million	Indo-European
8	Japanese	128 million	Japanic
9	Western Punjabi	93 million	Indo-European
10	Marathi	83 million	Indo-European

Note: No native speaker data was available for Filipino, Standard Arabic, Nigerian Pidgin, or Cameroonian Pidgin.

Here, Spanish comes in strong second for native speakers with 460 million, considering it’s well-used across Latin America. The Indian languages of Hindi and Bengali cap off the top five by native speakers as well.

These are the biggest languages people learn growing up, but what about the ones they pick up later in life?

What About Second (L2) Languages?

Nearly 43% of the world’s population is bilingual, with the ability to switch between two languages with ease.

From the data, second language (L2) speakers can be calculated by looking at the difference between native and total speakers, as a proportion of the total. For example, 66% of English speakers learned it as a second language.

Swahili surprisingly has the highest ratio of L2 speakers to total speakers—although it only has 16 million native speakers, this shoots up to 98 million total speakers. Overall, 82% of Swahili speakers know it as a second language.

Swahili is listed as a national or official language in several African countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s likely that the movement of people from rural areas into big cities in search of better economic opportunities, is what’s boosting the adoption of Swahili as a second language.

Indonesian is another similar example. With a 78% proportion of L2 speakers compared to total speakers, this variation on the Malay language has been used as the lingua franca across the islands for a long time. In contrast, only 17% of Mandarin speakers know it as a second language, perhaps because it is one of the most challenging languages to learn.

Keeping Language Traditions Alive

Languages are fluid, and constantly evolving—altogether, the 100 most spoken languages paint a unique picture across centuries of a changing world. Here’s the full list of these languages, by types of speakers and language origin.

Rank	Language	Total Speakers	Native Speakers	Origin
1	English	1,132M	379M	Indo-European
2	Mandarin Chinese	1,117M	918M	Sino-Tibetan
3	Hindi	615M	341M	Indo-European
4	Spanish	534M	460M	Indo-European
5	French	280M	77M	Indo-European
6	Standard Arabic	274M	NA	Afro-Asiatic
7	Bengali	265M	228M	Indo-European
8	Russian	258M	154M	Indo-European
9	Portuguese	234M	221M	Indo-European
10	Indonesian	199M	43M	Austronesian
11	Urdu	170M	69M	Indo-European
12	Standard German	132M	76M	Indo-European
13	Japanese	128M	128M	Japanic
14	Swahili	98M	16M	Niger-Congo
15	Marathi	95M	83M	Indo-European
16	Telugu	93M	82M	Dravidian
17	Western Punjabi	93M	93M	Indo-European
18	Wu Chinese	82M	81M	Sino-Tibetan
19	Tamil	81M	75M	Dravidian
20	Turkish	80M	69M	Turkic
21	Korean	77M	77M	Koreanic
22	Vietnamese	77M	76M	Austronesian
23	Yue Chinese	74M	73M	Sino-Tibetan
24	Javanese	68M	68M	Austronesian
25	Italian	68M	65M	Indo-European
26	Egyptian Spoken Arabic	65M	65M	Afro-Asiatic
27	Hausa	63M	44M	Afro-Asiatic
28	Thai	61M	21M	Kra-Dai
29	Gujarati	61M	56M	Indo-European
30	Kannada	56M	44M	Dravidian
31	Iranian Persian	53M	53M	Indo-European
32	Bhojpuri	52M	52M	Indo-European
33	Southern Min Chinese	50M	50M	Sino-Tibetan
34	Hakka Chinese	48M	48M	Sino-Tibetan
35	Jinyu Chinese	47M	47M	Sino-Tibetan
36	Filipino	45M	NA	Austronesian
37	Burmese	43M	33M	Sino-Tibetan
38	Polish	40M	40M	Indo-European
39	Yoruba	40M	38M	Niger-Congo
40	Odia	38M	34M	Indo-European
41	Malayalam	38M	37M	Dravidian
42	Xiang Chinese	37M	37M	Sino-Tibetan
43	Maithili	34M	34M	Indo-European
44	Ukrainian	33M	27M	Indo-European
45	Moroccan Spoken Arabic	33M	27M	Afro-Asiatic
46	Eastern Punjabi	33M	33M	Indo-European
47	Sunda	32M	32M	Austronesian
48	Algerian Spoken Arabic	32M	29M	Afro-Asiatic
49	Sudanese Spoken Arabic	32M	32M	Afro-Asiatic
50	Nigerian Pidgin	30M	NA	Indo-European
51	Zulu	28M	12M	Niger-Congo
52	Igbo	27M	27M	Niger-Congo
53	Amharic	26M	22M	Afro-Asiatic
54	Northern Uzbek	25M	25M	Turkic
55	Sindhi	25M	25M	Indo-European
56	North Levantine Spoken Arabic	25M	25M	Afro-Asiatic
57	Nepali	25M	16M	Indo-European
58	Romanian	24M	24M	Indo-European
59	Tagalog	24M	24M	Austronesian
60	Dutch	23M	23M	Indo-European
61	Sa'idi Spoken Arabic	22M	22M	Afro-Asiatic
62	Gan Chinese	22M	22M	Sino-Tibetan
63	Northern Pashto	21M	21M	Indo-European
64	Magahi	21M	21M	Indo-European
65	Saraiki	20M	20M	Indo-European
66	Xhosa	19M	8M	Niger-Congo
67	Malay	19M	16M	Austronesian
68	Khmer	18M	17M	Austronesian
69	Afrikaans	18M	7M	Indo-European
70	Sinhala	17M	15M	Indo-European
71	Somali	16M	16M	Afro-Asiatic
72	Chhattisgarhi	16M	16M	Indo-European
73	Cebuano	16M	16M	Austronesian
74	Mesopotamian Spoken Arabic	16M	16M	Afro-Asiatic
75	Assamese	15M	15M	Indo-European
76	Northeastern Thai	15M	15M	Kra-Dai
77	Northern Kurdish	15M	15M	Indo-European
78	Hijazi Spoken Arabic	15M	15M	Afro-Asiatic
79	Nigerian Fulfulde	14M	14M	Niger-Congo
80	Bavarian	14M	14M	Indo-European
81	Bamanankan	14M	4M	Niger-Congo
82	South Azerbaijani	14M	14M	Turkic
83	Northern Sotho	14M	5M	Niger-Congo
84	Setswana	14M	6M	Niger-Congo
85	Souther Sotho	14M	6M	Niger-Congo
86	Czech	13M	11M	Indo-European
87	Greek	13M	13M	Indo-European
88	Chittagonian	13M	13M	Indo-European
89	Kazakh	13M	13M	Turkic
90	Swedish	13M	10M	Indo-European
91	Deccan	13M	13M	Indo-European
92	Hungarian	13M	13M	Uralic
93	Jula	12M	2M	Niger-Congo
94	Sadri	12M	5M	Indo-European
95	Kinyarwanda	12M	12M	Niger-Congo
96	Cameroonian Pidgin	12M	NA	Indo-European
97	Sylheti	12M	10M	Indo-European
98	South Levantine Spoken Arabic	12M	12M	Afro-Asiatic
99	Tunisian Spoken Arabic	12M	12M	Afro-Asiatic
100	Sanaani Spoken Arabic	11M	11M	Afro-Asiatic

One reason these languages are popular is that they are actively and consistently used. Unfortunately, nearly 3,000 (about 40%) of all languages are at risk of being lost, or are already in the process of dying out today.

Languages play a crucial role in our daily lives. … [Their] losses have huge negative impacts indigenous peoples’ most basic human rights.

—UN, IYoIL statement

As a result, the United Nations declared 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYoIL), with a resolution to continue fostering these languages and pass on their knowledge for future generations.

Related Topics:africa languages english chinese spanish native speakers world languages total speakers hindi mandarin swahili

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Misc

Ranked: America’s Best Universities

Evaluated on 19 different metrics, here’s the list of America’s best universities, led by 14 private schools.

Published

5 days ago

November 25, 2023

Pallavi Rao

Ranked: America’s Best Universities

The latest ranking of America’s best universities is here, perfectly timed for the approaching admissions season.

“Best” is of course subjective, and U.S. News and World Report has compiled 19 metrics on which they evaluated more than 400 national universities. Some of them include:

Graduation rates & performance: A four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class earning a bachelor’s degree in six years or less. Performance is measured against predictions made by the publishers, and when beaten, the university gains a higher scoring.
Peer assessment: A two-year weighted average of ratings from top academics—presidents, provosts and deans of admissions—on academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar.
Financial resources: The average per student spend on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2021 fiscal year.
Debt: A school’s average accumulated federal loan debt among borrowers only.
Pell graduation rates & performance: the same calculation as stated above, but focused only on Pell Grant students, adjusted to give more credit to schools with larger Pell student proportions.

The website’s methodology section details how they sourced their data, the weights assigned to each metric, and their changes over the years.

From the hundreds assessed come the nearly 50 best universities that offer a variety of undergraduate majors, post-graduate programs, emphasize research, or award professional practice doctorates.

Which are the Best Universities in America?

At the top of the list, Princeton University is the best university in the country, known for its physics, economics, and international relations departments. Notably, it’s a rare Ivy league university that does not have a law, medical, or business school.

Here’s the full ranking of America’s best universities, along with annual tuition requirements.

Rank	School Name	State	Tuition
1	Princeton University	New Jersey	$59,710
2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts	$60,156
3	Harvard University	Massachusetts	$59,076
3	Stanford University	California	$62,484
5	Yale University	Connecticut	$64,700
6	University of Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania	$66,104
7	California Institute of Technology	California	$63,255
7	Duke University	North Carolina	$66,172
9	Brown University	Rhode Island	$68,230
9	Johns Hopkins University	Maryland	$63,340
9	Northwestern University	Illinois	$65,997
12	Columbia University	New York	$65,524
12	Cornell University	New York	$66,014
12	University of Chicago	Illinois	$65,619
15	University of California, Berkeley	California	$48,465 (out-state) $15,891 (in-state)
15	University of California, LA	California	$46,326 (out-state) $13,752 (in-state)
17	Rice University	Texas	$58,128
18	Dartmouth College	New Hampshire	$65,511
18	Vanderbilt University	Tennessee	$63,946
20	University of Notre Dame	Indiana	$62,693
21	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	Michigan	$57,273 (out-state) $17,786 (in-state)
22	Georgetown University	Washington, DC	$65,082
22	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	North Carolina	$39,338 (out-state) $8,998 (in-state)
24	Carnegie Mellon University	Pennsylvania	$63,829
24	Emory University	Georgia	$60,774
24	University of Virginia	Virginia	$58,950 (out-state) $22,323 (in-state)
24	Washington University, St. Louis	Missouri	$62,982
28	University of California, Davis	California	$46,043 (out-state) $15,266 (in-state)
28	University of California, San Diego	California	$48,630 (out-state) $16,056 (in-state)
28	University of Florida	Florida	$28,658 (out-state) $6,381 (in-state)
28	University of Southern California	California	$68,237
32	University of Texas, Austin	Texas	$41,070 (out-state) $11,698 (in-state)
33	Georgia Institute of Technology	Georgia	$32,876 (out-state) $11,764 (in-state)
33	University of California, Irvine	California	$47,759 (out-state) $15,185 (in-state)
35	New York University	New York	$60,438
35	University of California, Santa Barbara	California	$45,658 (out-state) $14,881 (in-state)
35	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	Illinois	$36,068 (out-state) $17,572 (in-state)
35	University of Wisconsin, Madison	Wisconsin	$40,603 (out-state) $11,205 (in-state)
39	Boston College	Massachusetts	$67,680
40	Rutgers University, New Brunswick	New Jersey	$36,001 (out-state) $17,239 (in-state)
40	Tufts University	Massachusetts	$67,844
40	University of Washington	Washington	$41,997 (out-state) $12,643 (in-state)
43	Boston University	Massachusetts	$65,168
43	The Ohio State University	Ohio	$36,722 (out-state) $12,485 (in-state)
43	Purdue University, Main Campus	Indiana	$28,794 (out-state) $9,992 (in-state)
46	University of Maryland, College Park	Maryland	$40,306 (out-state) $11,505 (in-state)
47	Lehigh University	Pennsylvania	$62,180
47	Texas A&M University	Texas	$40,607 (out-state) $12,413 (in-state)
47	University of Georgia	Georgia	$30,220 (out-state) $11,180 (in-state)
47	University of Rochester	New York	$64,384
47	Virginia Tech	Virginia	$36,090 (out-state) $15,478 (in-state)
47	Wake Forest University	North Carolina	$64,758
53	Case Western Reserve University	Ohio	$62,234
53	Florida State University	Florida	$21,683 (out-state) $6,517 (in-state)
53	Northeastern University	Massachusetts	$63,141
53	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	Minnesota	$36,402 (out-state) $16,488 (in-state)
53	William & Mary	Virginia	$48,841 (out-state) $25,041 (in-state)

MIT places second, and Harvard and Stanford tie for third. Yale rounds out the top five.

Private universities, including seven Ivy League colleges, dominate the top of the rankings. Meanwhile, the highest-ranked public schools are tied at 15th, both state schools in California.

For affordability, since the higher ranks are populated by private universities, there tends to be a broad correlation of better universities being more expensive. That said, the most expensive school in the top 50 ranks is actually the University of Southern California, tied at 28th, for $68,237/year.

As it happens, also tied at 28th, the University of Florida is the most affordable public school for in-state students ($6,381/year) and Florida State University tied at 53rd, is the most affordable for out-of-staters at $21,683/year.

However these costs are tuition-only, and don’t account for other necessary expenses: accommodation, food, and textbooks.

Best University versus Best “Fit”

Finding the best university for prospective students is more than just perusing a long ranking list.

Aside from the numerous schools present within each university—which can often be the best for specific majors—factors like location, proximity to family, campus culture, the non-academic pursuits (sports, extracurriculars, internships) are also taken into consideration.

In fact, research has found that just attaining a university degree improves future earnings potential and employability.

Furthermore, individual engagement at college (irrespective of the rank of the school in question) plays a far bigger role in learning and general well-being than simply attending a highly-ranked school.

However, for low income and minority students, attending a top-ranked school does improve future earnings considerably. For women, it also often results in delaying marriage and kids, which results in more work-hours and as a result, more pay.