Which Language Family Is Primarily Spoken in Southern India Today?
What are the Most Spoken Languages in the World?
What are the most spoken languages in the world?
This question isn't as unproblematic as it may seem. There are a few complications that get in hard to give a precise reply:
First of all, what exercise you mean by spoken? Exercise you desire to rank languages by their number of native speakers, or by how many people speak them at all, natively or non-natively? These two approaches produce very different-looking lists.
Secondly, where do y'all draw the boundary between a language and a dialect? How different practise ii "dialects" have to be before they're considered separate languages entirely? There's often no clear answer – and the respond yous give can significantly bear on a language's position in the "almost-spoken" rankings.
With that being said, it's possible to come up upwards with some crude rankings. Here'due south the best judge, at the time of writing, equally to the most-spoken languages in the world – going by full number of speakers, not merely natives.
The Peak ten Most Spoken Languages in the World
1. Standard mandarin Chinese (one.1 billion speakers)
Number of native speakers: 897 million
Number of non-native speakers: 193 million
Total speakers: 1.09 billion
Proper noun in the linguistic communication itself: 普通话 (Putonghua)
Linguistic communication family: Sino-Tibetan
Related to: Cantonese, Tibetan, Burmese
People sometimes speak of "Chinese" as if it's a unmarried language. It's actually a group of related languages, of which Standard mandarin Chinese is by far the biggest. It'southward an official language in the People's Republic of China, the Democracy of Communist china (Taiwan), and Singapore.
The native name for Standard mandarin, Putonghua, literally means "common spoken communication", although in Taiwan people call it Guoyu – "national linguistic communication". Historically, it was also chosen Guanhua – "the spoken language of officials". Since Standard mandarin is more than common in northern China, it'south sometimes referred to as beifanghua (北方话) – "Northern Dialects".
Mandarin is written using Chinese characters (sometimes chosen "Han characters"), an aboriginal pictorial system where each symbol represents a different word. There are two primary versions – "traditional" characters, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, and "simplified" characters, used in China, Singapore, and Malaysia. It's estimated that y'all demand to acquire 2,000-3,000 characters to read a paper – an educated Chinese person will know about eight,000!
2. English language (983 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 371 million
Number of non-native speakers: 611 million
Total number of speakers: 983 1000000
Language-family unit: Germanic, a sub-family of Indo-European.
Related to: German language, Dutch, Western frisian
Name in the language itself: English. Only yous already knew that.
Thanks to the historical dominance of the British Empire – and, more recently, the economical and cultural clout of the United States – English language is well-established as the world's lingua franca(if only in that location were other contenders for an international linguistic communication), and is the second virtually spoken language in the earth.
The name "English" comes from the "Angles", a Germanic people who settled in Britain in the offset millennium A.D.. They ultimately derived their name from Anglen, a region in northern Germany, and of course they gave their name to the area at present known as England.
At its core, English is a Germanic language. Its vocabulary and judgement structure are closest to modern languages similar German and Dutch. However, it's been heavily influenced by other languages throughout its foreign history. Much English vocabulary is Latin in origin, having been introduced by the French-speaking Normans who conquered Britain in the 11th century A.D.
iii. Hindustani (544 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 329 one thousand thousand
Number of non-natives: 215 million
Total number of speakers: 544 million
Language family: Indo-Aryan, a sub-family of Indo-European.
Related to: Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Nepali
Proper noun in the language itself: हिन्दुस्तानी or ہندوستانی
Hindustani is the collective name for Hindi and Urdu – two dialects of the same linguistic communication. The name comes from Hindu stan, a historical term for the north/due north-western part of the Indian subcontinent.
Hindi is spoken beyond northern and central India, and is the official linguistic communication of the Indian authorities. Urdu is primarily spoken in Pakistan. While Hindi and Urdu take differences in vocabulary and pronunciation, speakers of either linguistic communication can easily communicate with each other.
A notable difference between Hindi and Urdu is that they employ dissimilar writing systems. Hindi is ordinarily written in in Devanagari script – called "देवनागरी" in the script itself. Urdu, on the other mitt, is written right-to-left with a script that's closely related to the Arabic alphabet. The name "Urdu" itself is written "اُردُو".
four. Spanish (527 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 436 million
Number of not-native speakers: 91 meg
Total number of speakers: 527 million
Language family: Romance, a sub-family of Indo-European.
Related to: French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanaian
Name in the language itself: español or castellano
¡Sí señor! By number of native speakers, Castilian is the second biggest linguistic communication in the world (backside only Mandarin). By total speakers, it'southward at number four.
The language at present known as Spanish originated in the Castile region of Spain. For this reason, it's sometimes referred to as "Castilian" – castellano in the language itself. Since and so, Spanish explorers and conquistadores have spread their language all around the globe. It's spoken all beyond South and Central America and the Caribbean, with pockets of speakers in Southeast Asia and fifty-fifty Africa.
(Trivia tidbit: Equatorial Guinea is the but state in Africa to have Castilian as an official linguistic communication.)
Spanish is likewise the second most-common language in the United States, which is home to a whopping 40 1000000 native speakers. This makes the U.S. the 2nd-biggest Spanish-speaking state in the world, behind only Mexico – and information technology's predicted that, within our lifetimes, information technology'll overtake Mexico and become the largest.
v. Arabic (422 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 290 million
Number of non-natives: 132 million
Total number of speakers: 422 million
Language family: Semitic, a sub-family of Afro-Asiatic.
Related to: Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic.
Name in the language itself: العَرَبِيَّة (al-ʻarabiyyah)
Standard arabic is the official linguistic communication of 26 countries, although some have argued that it'due south not really one linguistic communication, just several.
If we exit this aside and assume that in that location's a single tongue called "Standard arabic", then information technology's a massive language, with over 400 million speakers. It originated on the Arabian peninsula, and has since spread all across the Middle East and North Africa.
Arabic is too, of class, the language of Islam. While nearly Muslims are non native Arabic speakers, the language is of special importance to the globe's 2d-largest religion. Islam holds that God (via the angel Gabriel) literally spoke in Arabic when he dictated the Quran to Mohammed.
That was 1400 years ago, and modern Arabic dialects have changed a lot since the "Classical Arabic" of the Quran. Too as their local dialects, many Arabs also speak "Modern Standard Arabic", an bookish dialect that'south based on Classical Arabic.
6. Malay (281 one thousand thousand speakers)
Number of native speakers: 77 1000000
Number of non-natives: 204 million
Total number of speakers: 281 meg
Language family: Austronesian
Related to: Javanese, Tagalog
Proper name in the language itself: bahasa melayu
Malay is an official language in Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Yous can also hear information technology being spoken in parts of Thailand and the Philippines. It's past far the largest of the Austronesian languages – a family that's thought to take originated in Taiwan.
The area in which Malay is spoken is extremely linguistically various. Indonesia alone is abode to more than 700 living languages! Bahasa melayu, as information technology's known, has a long history in the region as a lingua franca, the language of government and trade.
Except Indonesians don't telephone call information technology bahasa melayu (Malay), they call it bahasa indonesia (Indonesian). Malaysians phone call it bahasa malyasia (Malaysian). These dialects are mutually intelligible, and shouldn't be considered dissever languages.
Just whatsoever you practice, don't call it "Bahasa"! For some reason, foreigners frequently call it this, only the discussion bahasa simply means "linguistic communication". Malay isn't chosen "Bahasa" whatever more than Castilian is called "Idioma". You have been warned.
vii. Russian (267 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 153 meg
Number of non-natives: 113 1000000
Total number of speakers: 267 million
Language family: Due east Slavic, a sub-family unit of Indo-European
Related to: Ukrainian, Belarusian
Name in the linguistic communication itself: ру́сский язы́к, (rússkiy yazýk)
The largest of the Slavic languages, Russian is the official linguistic communication of four countries (Russia, Republic of belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan). It's likewise widely spoken in many other countries of the quondam Soviet Marriage, and has official status in numerous sub-national territories.
Russian's closest relatives include Ukrainian and Belarusian. The three are all descended from the language that was spoken in the medieval land of the Kievan Rus. More distantly, they're related to other Slavic languages similar Smooth, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croat.
By number of native speakers, Russian is the biggest language in Europe. Like many of the Slavic languages, information technology'southward written with the Cyrillic alphabet (run across here for some tips on how you can learn it.)
viii. Bengali (261 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 242 million
Number of non-natives: 19 million
Total number of speakers: 261 million
Language family unit: Indo-Aryan, a sub-family of Indo-European.
Related to: Hindustani, Punjabi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Nepali
Proper noun in the language itself: বাংলা (Bangla)
Sometimes known in English by its native name Bangla, Bengali is the official linguistic communication of Bangladesh and of several Indian states. In fact, it'south the the second most widely spoken language in India.
Like Hindustani (mentioned higher up), Bengali is an Indo-Aryan linguistic communication. This is a branch of the Indo-European family; other branches include the Romance and Germanic languages. In other words, Bengali and Hindustani are (believe it or not) afar cousins of English.
Bengali is written in the Bengali alphabet, sometimes known as Eastern Nagari or Bengali-Assamese script. Information technology'due south related to Tibetan script. Natively, "bengali alphabet" translates to "bangla bôrnômala". In the alphabet itself, that looks similar this: বাংলা বর্ণমালা.
Bengali script is relatively unknown in the West, only it's actually the 5th nearly widely-used writing system in the earth. More people worldwide write in Bengali script than in Cyrillic!
9. Portuguese (229 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 218 million
Number of non-natives: xi meg
Total number of speakers: 229 meg
Language family: Romance, a sub-branch of Indo-European.
Related to: French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian
Name in the language itself: português
Portuguese developed from Latin and is closely related to modern Spanish. The proper noun comes from "Portugal", whose name in plough comes from Porto, the second-largest city in that state. Only the discussion porto in Portuguese simply ways "port".
Someone who speaks Portuguese is called a Lusophone. This discussion comes from "Lusitania", the Roman proper name for the surface area that's now Portugal. The vast majority of Lusophones live in Brazil, which has more than twice every bit many Portuguese speakers than the rest of the earth put together!
The Portuguese empire once stretched far and wide, from South America to Africa to as far every bit India and Southeast Asia. Today, Portuguese is an official linguistic communication in 9 countries, likewise every bit in the Chinese territory of Macau.
Personally, I find Brazilian Portuguese to be an extremely cute language. That's just ane of many keen reasons to learn it.
ten. French (229 million speakers)
Number of native speakers: 76 one thousand thousand
Number of non-natives: 153 million
Total number of speakers: 229 million
Language family unit: Romance, a sub-branch of Indo-European.
Related to: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian
Name in the language itself: le français
Rounding up the top 10 is French, another Romance language. Information technology'south the official language of 28 countries, with the highest number of speakers in France, Canada, Belgium, so Switzerland (in that order). It's also widely spoken in parts of Western and Central Africa, on several Caribbean islands, and fifty-fifty on the South American mainland (in the French overseas department of French Guiana.)
French is a Romance language, but over the centuries information technology's taken on heavy influence from Celtic and Germanic tongues. In fact, the language (and country) are named after the Franks, a drove of tribes from the Middle Ages whose language, Frankish, was Germanic, not Romance.
Frankish is now extinct, but it's believed to have contributed many words to modern French vocabulary. French, in plow, contributed many words to English vocabulary, largely thanks to the Norman invasion of United kingdom in 1066.
As well as the countries and territories that speak French today, many people worldwide speak French-based creoles – especially in Republic of haiti, where well-nigh of the population speak Haitian Creole as their only language. Haitian Creole is heavily influenced past French, but unlike enough to exist considered a separate linguistic communication.
v Huge Languages That You Didn't Realise Had So Many Speakers
Did whatever of the tiptop x virtually spoken languages surprise y'all?
While researching this post, I spotted a few languages whose size surprised me – including some I'd never even heard of before. Allow'south finish off with a quick expect at some languages which don't get much global attending, but withal have a big number of speakers.
(Annotation that this isn't a listing of the 11th to 15th largest languages overall, although some of them are in that category.)
1. Hausa
Number of native speakers: 85 million
Number of non-natives: 65 1000000
Total number of speakers: 150 million
Linguistic communication family: Chadic, a sub-family of Afroasiatic
Related to: Ron, Bole. More distantly: Standard arabic, Somali
Name in the language itself: Yaren Hausa or Harshen Hausa
Hausa but barely missed inclusion in the above list. By some estimates, it'due south the 11th most speech worldwide – although Punjabi may be bigger (encounter below). By number of native speakers (85 million), Hausa is in twelfth place.
A member of the Chadic family, Hausa is the biggest linguistic communication in Nigeria, and a national linguistic communication of Niger. There are also many native speakers living in Chad. Across wide swathes of western and primal Africa, Hausa is used as a trade language.
The Chadic languages are a sub-branch of the Afroasiatic family, meaning that Hausa is distantly related to Arabic. Information technology'due south ordinarily written in a Latin-based alphabet called boko, although you tin sometimes see information technology written in ajami, an alphabet that's based on Arabic script.
2. Punjabi
Number of native speakers: 148 million
Number of non-natives: negligible
Total number of speakers: 148 meg
Linguistic communication family: Indo-Aryan, a sub-family of Indo-European.
Related to: Hindustani, Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri, Nepali
Name in the language itself: ਪੰਜਾਬੀ or پنجابی (panjabi)
Punjabi is named for the Punjab, a region in northern India and Eastern Islamic republic of pakistan. It has close to 150 million native speakers – more Hausa, although by total number of speakers it's non clear whether Hausa or Punjabi is bigger.
The most usually spoken language in Pakistan, Punjabi is a member of the Indo-Aryan family. It's also spoken by a wide diaspora – information technology's the 4th nigh common language in the Britain!
Punjabi, along with its boyfriend Indo–Aryan languages similar Hindi/Urdu and Bengali, is a very afar cousin of English language (All are part of the wider Indo-European language family). What makes Panjabi very unusual among its Indo-European relatives is that it's a tonal language.
3. Telugu
Number of native speakers: eighty million
Number of not-natives: 12 million
Total number of speakers: 92 meg
Language family: Dravidian
Related to: Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada
Name in the linguistic communication itself: తెలుగు (Telugu)
I've already mentioned 3 Southward Asian languages: Hindustani, Bengali, and Punjab. Those are all from the Indo-European family. The next biggest South Asian language is Telugu, which is a Dravidian language (meaning that, unlike the outset 3, it has no known relation to English language).
Telugu is the third well-nigh-common linguistic communication in India, spoken mainly in the southeast of the country. It has virtually 75 one thousand thousand native speakers. That's more the population of the U.Yard.!
Telugu is the fifteenth near-spoken language worldwide, and has its own rather beautiful writing system. In the language itself, the alphabet is called "తెలుగు లిపి" (Telugu lipi).
four. Javanese
Number of native speakers: 84 one thousand thousand
Number of non-natives: negligible
Total number of speakers: 84 million
Linguistic communication family unit: Austronesian
Related to: Malay, Tagalog
Name in the language itself: basa Jawa
I covered bahasa republic of indonesia above. Merely Indonesia, with 260 million people spread over more than than 17,000 islands, is home to some extraordinarily diverse cultures, and has over 700 living languages.
Most Indonesians speak a local language besides as Indonesian. The most mutual of those local languages is Javanese, which is spoken on (you lot guessed it) the isle of Java. More than than half of Republic of indonesia's population lives on Java, making information technology the most populous island not just in Indonesia but in the entire world.
Javanese is related to Indonesian, but not super-closely; they're very much separate languages. As the Indonesian government only recognises Indonesian as the official language, this makes Coffee the largest language in the globe non to have official status in any country.
5. Southern Quechua
Number of native speakers: half dozen million
Number of non-natives: 1 one thousand thousand
Full number of speakers: seven million
Language family: Quechua
Name in the linguistic communication itself: Quechua
Southern Quechua has about 7 million speakers, which means information technology's not nearly as big every bit some of the other languages I could take included. For example, Gujarati and Malayalam have far more speakers but I've covered enough Indian languages already.
So what makes Southern Quechua interesting? In my listen it deserves an honourable mention, considering it'south the biggest of all indigenous American languages. Sadly, the Western hemisphere isn't near every bit linguistically various every bit it used to be, but Southern Quechua is still going strong.
Note that people often call this language only Quechua – but, to be precise, "Quechua" is more of a linguistic communication family than one specific language. "Southern Quechua" is used to refer to the largest grouping of mutually intelligible dialects in the Quechua family. Its native speakers mostly live in Peru and Bolivia.
Another honourable mention should go to Guaraní. Information technology has about 6 million speakers, then it'south non huge. Just it has the stardom of beingness the only native American language to have official status in any country (specifically, Paraguay.) It'due south also the but such language that's widely spoken past a large number of not-native people – many Guaraní-speaking Paraguayans are of European, non indigenous, descent.
In that location are many other languages I could include on this list – such every bit Sundanese (spoken by 15% of the population of Java), or Kannada, which is spoken not in the land whose name it resembles merely India. (Seriously, Republic of india is huge.) This all goes to show – you'll never run out of languages to learn!
Source: https://www.fluentin3months.com/most-spoken-languages/
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