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The World’s Top 10 Most Spoken Languages

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The World’s Top 10 Most Spoken Languages

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The Briefing

  • Around 15% of the global population speaks English, making it the world’s most spoken language
  • However, only a third of English speakers consider it their native language
  • There are more native Mandarin Chinese speakers worldwide than native English speakers

The World’s 10 Most Spoken Languages

In today’s increasingly globalized world, having a shared means of communication—or an international language, rather—is more important than ever.

With over 1.1 billion speakers worldwide, English is currently the closest we’ve come to a lingua franca, a common language that connects people from different backgrounds.

However, Mandarin Chinese may one day catch up. Here’s a look at the top 10 most spoken languages across the globe:

RankLanguageTotal Speakers
1English1,132 million
2Mandarin Chinese1,117 million
3Hindi615 million
4Spanish534 million
5French280 million
6Standard Arabic274 million
7Bengali265 million
8Russian258 million
9Portuguese234 million
10Indonesian199 million

While English and Mandarin Chinese come close when looking at their total number of speakers, English has a wider geographical distribution—it’s classified as an official language in 67 different countries worldwide.

In contrast, Mandarin Chinese is recognized as an official language in just five regions.

Top 10 Languages By Native Speakers

Things look slightly different when looking at total native speakers, or people who consider a language their first/primary one.

In this instance, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish outrank English:

RankLanguageNative Speakers
1Mandarin Chinese918 million
2Spanish460 million
3English379 million
4Hindi341 million
5Bengali228 million
6Portuguese221 million
7Russian154 million
8Japanese128 million
9Western Punjabi93 million
10Marathi83 million

This begs the question—will English remain the “dominant” language in the years to come, or will the world be switching to a new lingua franca in the future?

»For a more in-depth look at languages, visit: The 100 Most Spoken Languages Around the World

Where does this data come from?

Source: Ethnologue
Notes: This database covers a majority of the world’s population and details approximately 7,111 living languages

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Central Banks

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Public trust in the Federal Reserve chair has hit its lowest point in 20 years. Get the details in this infographic.

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The Briefing

  • Gallup conducts an annual poll to gauge the U.S. public’s trust in the Federal Reserve
  • After rising during the COVID-19 pandemic, public trust has fallen to a 20-year low

 

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Each year, Gallup conducts a survey of American adults on various economic topics, including the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve.

More specifically, respondents are asked how much confidence they have in the current Fed chairman to do or recommend the right thing for the U.S. economy. We’ve visualized these results from 2001 to 2023 to see how confidence levels have changed over time.

Methodology and Results

The data used in this infographic is also listed in the table below. Percentages reflect the share of respondents that have either a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence.

YearFed chair% Great deal or Fair amount
2023Jerome Powell36%
2022Jerome Powell43%
2021Jerome Powell55%
2020Jerome Powell58%
2019Jerome Powell50%
2018Jerome Powell45%
2017Janet Yellen45%
2016Janet Yellen38%
2015Janet Yellen42%
2014Janet Yellen37%
2013Ben Bernanke42%
2012Ben Bernanke39%
2011Ben Bernanke41%
2010Ben Bernanke44%
2009Ben Bernanke49%
2008Ben Bernanke47%
2007Ben Bernanke50%
2006Ben Bernanke41%
2005Alan Greenspan56%
2004Alan Greenspan61%
2003Alan Greenspan65%
2002Alan Greenspan69%
2001Alan Greenspan74%

Data for 2023 collected April 3-25, with this statement put to respondents: “Please tell me how much confidence you have [in the Fed chair] to recommend the right thing for the economy.”

We can see that trust in the Federal Reserve has fluctuated significantly in recent years.

For example, under Alan Greenspan, trust was initially high due to the relative stability of the economy. The burst of the dotcom bubble—which some attribute to Greenspan’s easy credit policies—resulted in a sharp decline.

On the flip side, public confidence spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was likely due to Jerome Powell’s decisive actions to provide support to the U.S. economy throughout the crisis.

Measures implemented by the Fed include bringing interest rates to near zero, quantitative easing (buying government bonds with newly-printed money), and emergency lending programs to businesses.

Confidence Now on the Decline

After peaking at 58%, those with a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the Fed chair have tumbled to 36%, the lowest number in 20 years.

This is likely due to Powell’s hard stance on fighting post-pandemic inflation, which has involved raising interest rates at an incredible speed. While these rate hikes may be necessary, they also have many adverse effects:

  • Negative impact on the stock market
  • Increases the burden for those with variable-rate debts
  • Makes mortgages and home buying less affordable

Higher rates have also prompted many U.S. tech companies to shrink their workforces, and have been a factor in the regional banking crisis, including the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Where does this data come from?

Source: Gallup (2023)

Data Notes: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted April 3-25, 2023, with a random sample of –1,013—adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. See source for details.

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