There are approximately 7000 languages spoken in the world today, the majority of which are spoken by very tiny populations. About 60% of the world’s population, approximately 4 billion people, speak one of the few languages listed below. In fact, only 40 languages are spoken by more than 30 million native speakers. These most spoken languages are listed below in order of native speakers. Note that only native speakers are counted and that dialectal differences are overlooked.
1. Mandarin
935 million native speakers
14.1 % of the world’s population
2. Spanish
460 million native speakers
5.85 % of the world’s population
3. English
379 million speakers
5.52 % of the world’s population
4. Hindi
341 million speakers
4.46 % of the world’s population
5. Arabic
319 million speakers
4.23 % of the world’s population
6. Bengali
228 million speakers
3.08 % of the world’s population
7. Portuguese
221 million speakers
3.05 % of the world’s population
8. Russian
154 million native speakers
2.59 % of the world’s population
9. Japanese
128 million speakers
1.92 % of the world’s population
10. Punjabi
95 million speakers
1.44 % of the world’s population
11. German
92 million native speakers
1.39 % of the world’s population
12. Marathi
83.1 million native speakers
1.26 % of the world’s population
13. Javanese
82 million native speakers
1.25 % of the world’s population
14. Telugu
82 million native speakers
1.25 % of the world’s population
15. Wu
81.4 million native speakers
1.21 % of the world’s population
16. Malay
80.3 million speakers
1.20 % of the world’s population
17. Turkish
79.4 million native speakers
1.18 % of the world’s population
18. Korean
77.3 million native speakers
1.15 % of the world’s population
19. French
77.2 million native speakers
1.15 % of the world’s population
20. Vietnamese
76.0 million native speakers
1.14 % of the world’s population
21. Tamil
75.0 million native speakers
1.12 % of the world’s population
22. Yue (Cantonese)
73.1 million native speakers
1.10 % of the world’s population
23. Urdu
68.6 million native speakers
1.0 % of the world’s population
24. Italian
64.8 million native speakers
0.96 % of the world’s population
25. Persian
61.8 million native speakers
0.92 % of the world’s population
26. Gujarati
56.4 million native speakers
0.85 % of the world’s population
27. Thai
56.0 million native speakers
0.85 % of the world’s population
28. Southern Min
50.1 million native speakers
0.75 % of the world’s population
29. Jin
46.9 million native speakers
0.70 % of the world’s population
30. Polish
40.0 million native speakers
0.61 % of the world’s population
31. Pashto
39.7 million native speakers
0.59 % of the world’s population
32. Kannada
38.8 million native speakers
0.58 % of the world’s population
33. Xiang
38.5 million native speakers
0.58 % of the world’s population
34. Malayalam
38.4 million native speakers
0.58 % of the world’s population
35. Sundanese
38.2 million native speakers
0.57 % of the world’s population
36. Hausa
38.4 million native speakers
0.58 % of the world’s population
37. Odia
33.4 million native speakers
0.50 % of the world’s population
38. Burmese
33.0 million native speakers
0.50 % of the world’s population
39. Hakka
31 million native speakers
0.46 % of the world’s population
40. Ukrainian
30 million native speakers
0.46 % of the world’s population
