Here are the 10 most spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers, according to 2023 estimates from various sources like Ethnologue and Statista:
- Mandarin Chinese: 1.3 billion native speakers
- Spanish: 559 million native speakers
- English: 379 million native speakers
- Hindi: 602 million native speakers
- Arabic: 274 million native speakers (includes different dialects)
- Bengali: 272 million native speakers
- Portuguese: 232 million native speakers (includes Brazilian Portuguese)
- Russian: 258 million native speakers
- Japanese: 126 million native speakers
- Punjabi: 134 million native speakers
It’s important to note that these are estimates and can vary depending on the source and the definition of “native speaker.” Additionally, language families like Arabic and Chinese encompass several dialects with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility.
Furthermore, the landscape of most spoken languages is dynamic and can change over time due to factors like population growth, migration, and language education policies.
