Languages are keys to express once feeling or knowledge. It is the best way to communicate. In the world, via different languages are known and are spoken. Each state or country of the world has a specific language. It is difficult to find which language is most spoken in the world. Even a little change in area, or region, gives a different touch to the language being spoken. As per native number of speakers, the following are the top 10 most spoken languages in the world.
#1 Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, but excl. Other varieties)
Native speakers: 920 millions
Language family: Sino-Tibetan
Branch : Sinitic
China is a big land country with the highest population in the world. About 70 percentage of the Chinese speak Mandarin Chinese language. This counts for about 920 million speakers. Around the globe also, the language is used in other countries. Making the language at number one position of most spoken language of the world. It’s the Official Language of the People’s Republic of China. So, mandarin language is often referred to as Standard Chinese.
#2 Spanish
Native speaker: 475 millions
Language family: Indo-European
Branch: Romance
In the list of most spoken native language of the world, Spanish ranks at number two. It is spoken in 31 countries of the world, mostly around the Latin America and in Spain. The language was originated in Spain at the Castile region. Spanish is easy to learn language. Its phonetic nature, meaning that its pronunciation is in the way it looks. Spanish is written in the Latin script, with the addition of the character. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.
#3 English
Native speaker: 373 millions
Language family: Indo-European
Branch: Germanic
The language English is named after the Angles. They were Germanic ancient peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. The Speakers of English are called Anglophones. Modern English has spread around the world under influence of the British Empire and the USA. Through all types of printed and electronic media of these countries. English is among the most spoken language in the world. And the third-most spoken native language in the world. It is the official first language in over one hundred countries.
#4 Hindi (excl. Urdu)
Native speaker: 344 millions
Language family: Indo-European
Branch: Indo-Aryan
The fourth most spoken language in the world is Hindi. If counted together with Urdu, it is the third most-spoken language in the world. India and Nepal are two major countries with Hindi speakers. Modern Standard Hindi’s vocabulary is borrowed from Sanskrit. Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, an abugida. Devanagari consists of 11 vowels and 33 consonants and is written from left to right. Hindi is one of the two official languages of the Government of India, along with English.
#5 Bengali
Native speaker: 234 millions
Language family: Indo-European
Branch: Indo-Aryan
The language Bengali, often referred to as Bangla. It follows Portuguese as a language among the most spoken ones in the world. Bangla is the official and national language of Bangladesh. Bengali has developed over the course of more than 1,300 years. It has a millennium-old literary history. Bengali follows a subject–object–verb word order. The language make use of post-positions, opposite to prepositions used in English. It is the most widely spoken language in many states of India.
#6 Portuguese
Native speaker: 232 millions
Language family: Indo-European
Branch: Romance
Portuguese is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family. The language originated in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Portuguese is related to modern Spanish and developed from Latin. As per the New Orthographic Agreement of 1990, there are 26 alphabets in the Portuguese. Earlier, there were 23 alphabets used in the language. It is the Official Language in 9 countries. A high number of speakers are in Africa and South America. Making Portuguese sixth spoken language of the world.
#7 Russian
Native speaker: 154 millions
Language family: Indo-European
Branch: Balto-Slavic
Russian is the official language of four countries of the world. Russian uses the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script with 33 alphabets. It’s the native language of 16 nations in the world. Making the language at seventh position with most native speaker in the world. Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
#8 Japanese
Native speaker: 125 millions
Language family: Japonic
Branch: Japanese
Japanese language is the only language only spoken in Japan. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language. The language has simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel & consonant length. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles. The sentence structure is topic–comment. Though spoken in only one country, Japanese is the 8th most popular spoken language.
#9 Yue Chinese (incl. Cantonese)
Native speaker: 85.2 millions
Language family: Sino-Tibetan
Branch: Sinitic
Yue Chinese is Spoken in Southern China, particularly in the region of Liangguang. Yue varieties are among the most conservative of Chinese varieties. The language rank ninth in the list of most spoken language of the world. It is Informally used in the country. Sharing a lot of vocabulary with Mandarin. But both languages are different in pronunciation, consonants and tone. It has the final consonants and tonal categories of Middle Chinese.
#10 Vietnamese
Native speaker: 84.6 millions
Language family: Austroasiatic
Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language originating from Vietnam. It is an analytic language with phonemic tone. Vietnamese also uses noun classifiers. Its vocabulary is influence from Chinese and French. It is considered national and official language of Vietnam. The language is officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic. Vietnamese speakers are found in Southeast Asia, East Asia, North America, Europe, & Australia. Thus making Vietnamese as one of the top 10 spoken languages of the world.
There is a significant relationship between language and nation. Through language, people preserve their community’s history. Likewise, customs and traditions, memory, unique modes of thinking, meaning & expression. Peoples of the world speak different languages. Each language with a specific history and style.
Which language do you think has influenced the most in today’s world? Is it the matter or information more important than the language that is used? Do language to be given importance or not? Comment below to share your views. Thanks for staying until the end.
