There are more than 7, 000 spoken languages in the world
but nearly half the population speaks one of just 12
as their first language.
As a matter of fact,
more than three- quarters of all languages
are only spoken by a small number of people
overall, most of the world communicates using just a handful of dominant vocabularies
So what are the biggest languages in the world?
Well by a landslide, the most common language comes from the most populated country, China.
With more than 1 in 6 people on earth claiming it as their first language,
Chinese is primarily spoken by nearly 1.2 billion.
Technically, Chinese is a macro language made up of 7 major groups spread out over more than 200
different dialects.
In particular, Mandarin represents the vast majority of Chinese speakers.
Some 70%
The next language on the list is Spanish,
With 400 million native speakers worldwide,
it clocks in at less than half of Chinese's massive breach.
But unlike Chinese, the birth country of Spanish
isn't where it's most prevalent. Instead of Spain, Mexico takes the crown as the most populous
Spanish speaking country in the world
With 18 other countries in the Americas claiming it as an official language
Spanish is also the largest second language in both the US and Canada.
Perhaps surprisingly, English is only the third most spoken language in the world
with 335 million speakers.
Barely the populations in the US and UK combined.
But when including those who learn it at as a second language,
that number bumps up to 830 million, surpassing Spanish, but not Chinese.
Fun fact: English is not the official language of the United States,
The US doesn't even have an official language.
And yet, reportedly 97% of its residents speak English.
The rest of the top 12 break down into Hindi at number 4, spoken predominantly in India.
Arabic, throughout the Middle East. And rounding out the list are: Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese
Lahnda, Javanese and German
with nearly a billion speakers combined.
With most of the world speaking the few languages,
it might juts be worth your while to broaden your horizons and learn
a second one.
If you're interested in exciting videos from around the world,
you'll definitely want to join us over at Seeker Stories
We've been exploring cultures, movements and inspiring stories
that help bring the world closer together and we really think you'll like it a lot.
There's a link to the channel in the description below.
We'll see you there.