Hello everyone. Welcome to the Langfocus channel and my name is Paul.
Today, I'm going to be remaking a video
that I made back in the early days of this channel
because, well, a lot of the data in that video is wrong.
The topic is the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world.
We can measure the number of speakers a language has
by looking either at native speakers,
or by looking at the total number of speakers,
including second language speakers.
First, we'll look at the number of native speakers for each language,
and later on, we'll include second language speakers and see how the numbers change.
Based on the number of native speakers,
the most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin.
It has somewhere between 900 million and 955 million native speakers
That makes it the most widely spoken native language in the world by far
Mandarin is the most widely spoken of the Chinese languages,
and it's the official language of China and of Taiwan.
The number of native speakers does not include
native speakers of other Chinese languages, only of Mandarin.
Number 2 is Spanish with somewhere between
405 million and 470 million native speakers,
depending on which source you consult.
Number 2 used to be English,
but the number of native Spanish-speakers has been growing much more quickly
than the number of native English-speakers in recent years.
And, that brings us to number 3 which is English,
with around 360 million native speakers.
And, an interesting side note:
On my previous version of this video,
I got a lot of comments saying there's no way that the number is that low
because the population of the United States alone is about 320 million.
Well, keep in mind that a lot of people in the United States,
a very large percentage of the population,
are actually immigrants who do not speak English as their first language.
And, that's also true of other countries where English is the main language.
Number 4 is Hindustani meaning Hindi and Urdu,
with around 355 million native speakers
Hindi and Urdu are spoken in the Indian subcontinent in India and Pakistan,
and they are very similar in their spoken forms,
and they can be considered one language,
even though their literary forms are quite different.
For more information on Hindustani,
check out my video on that subject right here.
Number 5 is Arabic with around 293 million native speakers.
Now, I should note that Arabic has many different spoken varieties,
many different dialects,
and some of them are harder to understand than other,
some of them are kind of unintelligible.
For example, Moroccan Arabic,
lots of people from other Arabic countries say it's hard to understand them.
But, Arabic does have a standard language.
Standard Arabic unites all of the different dialects,
and people can use it to communicate with speakers of the other dialects.
So, even though some of those dialects are fairly different,
they can be considered one language.
If we include all varieties of Arabic, there are 293 million native speakers.
Number 6 is Portuguese with somewhere between
215 million and 225 million native speakers.
A lot of people are surprised to hear that Portuguese is on this list,
but remember Portuguese is not only the language of Portugal.
It's also spoken in Brazil, which has a population of 200 million
Number 7 is Bengali with around 206 million native speakers,
mostly living in Bangladesh,
and in some of the eastern provinces of India.
Number 8 is Russian with around 155 million native speakers.
Number 9 is Japanese with around 126 million native speakers.
Number 10 is Punjabi with around 102 million native speakers.
It is spoken mainly in Western India and in Pakistan.
In fact, it's the most widely spoken native language in Pakistan,
even though it's not the official language there.
Those were the top ten languages based on the number of native speakers,
but the situation is somewhat different if we include second language speakers.
That's because some languages are much more widely spoken as a lingua franca
than they are as a native language.
So let's see what the list looks like if we include non-native speakers.
Number one is English.
English has a lot fewer native speakers than Mandarin Chinese does,
but if we include all the people around the world
who learn English as a second language or as a foreign language,
that brings the numbers up to around 1.4 to 1.5 billion speakers.
Some people estimate the number to be as high as 2 billion,
but, of course, there is some disagreement about what level of proficiency
is necessary in order to be included as a speaker of English.
English is the de facto global lingua franca, the international language.
Sorry, Esperanto lovers.
Number 2 is Mandarin with somewhere between 1.1 billion and 1.15 billion speakers,
if we include the 190 million people who have learned it as a second language.
Those people are mostly in China and mostly speakers of other Chinese languages.
Number 3 is Spanish with somewhere between 500 million and 570 million speakers.
There are about 90 million people who speak Spanish as a second language,
including linguistic minorities in a lot of Spanish-speaking countries.
And there are also a lot of people who learn Spanish as a foreign language.
Number 4 is Hindustani with around 540 million speakers.
That means that there are about 200 million second language speakers of Hindustani.
Hindi and Urdu function as a lingua francas in much of northern India and Pakistan.
In Pakistan, for example,
Urdu is spoken as a second language by around 94 million people,
and it's only the native language of around 9% of the population.
Number 5 is Arabic with around 422 million speakers.
That means that there are around 130 million second language speakers of Arabic.
A lot of these people are non-Arabs
living in countries where Arabic is an official language.
For example, many speakers of the Berber languages in North Africa
learn Arabic as a second Language
Varieties of Arabic are also used as lingua francas
throughout different parts of Africa.
Number 6 is Russian with around 260 million speakers.
Russian jumped from number 8 on the first list to number 6 on this list.
That's because Russian is widely spoken as a lingua franca
throughout much of the former Soviet Union.
For more information on Russian,
check out my video on that subject right here.
Number 7 is Portuguese with between 250 million and 260 million speakers.
There are about 35 million second language speakers of Portuguese,
mainly in African countries like Angola and Mozambique,
countries where Portuguese is the former colonial language.
Today, there are some native speakers living in those countries,
but Portuguese is also used as a lingua franca
between the diverse linguistic communities.
Number 8 is a language that didn't even appear on our original top 10 list,
and that is the Malay language, including Indonesian which is a variety of Malay.
It is spoken by around 77 million people, as a native language,
and there are an additional 173 million second language speakers,
for a total of 250 million speakers of Malay and Indonesian.
One of the reasons that it was spoken so much more widely as a second language
is because it is widely learned as a second language in Indonesia.
There, it is the official language, but it's mainly used as a lingua franca
because there are hundreds of languages spoken in Indonesia
Number 9 is Bengali with around 226 million speakers.
And, number 10 is French,
another language that didn't appear on our original top 10 list.
While French has around 80 million native speakers,
there are around 140 million second language speakers,
for a total of about 220 million.
The majority of those speakers are in Africa,
where French is spoken in around 31 different countries
Some researchers project that the Francophone population
will be as high as 500 million in the year 2025, and 700 million in the year 2050.
So, which list do you think is more meaningful?
I tend to think that the second list is more meaningful because, in my opinion,
the importance of a language depends on how many people use it for communication,
and not on how many people speak it perfectly,
and with the perfect native accent.
And, I think that another thing that makes a language important
is how many countries it is spoken in
and over how wide of a geographic area it is spoken.
I think we have to balance these two different factors
in order to determine how important the language is.
So, even though Mandarin has the largest number of native speakers,
and even though it has the second largest number of total speakers,
it might not be the most important
or second most important language in the world.
The most important language in the world is, right now,
clearly English because it is widely spoken by so many people around the world.
I would say that number 2 is Spanish because it's spoken by a large population,
and it's spoken in dozens of countries around the world.
And, because the Spanish-speaking population is growing quickly.
I would say that French might be another one in the top 5
because of its fairly large total number of speakers,
because it's widely spoken in Europe and Africa,
and because of the projected growth in the Francophone population.
Another might be Arabic because it's spoken throughout many countries
in the Middle East and North Africa,
and by a growing population in Europe and around the world.
And, another one is probably Chinese,
even though it's not an official language in many places,
China is an important country with a huge population and a large economy,
and Chinese might become more important in the future.
So, the question of the day is: What do you think?
What are the most important languages in the world?
Leave your opinions and your reasons in the comments down below.
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Thank you for watching, and have a nice day!