The 30 Most Spoken Languages of the World

The 30 Most Spoken Languages of the WorldPos LanguageFamilyScript(s) UsedSpeakers(Millions)Where Spoken (Major)1 MandarinSino-TibetanChinese Characters1051China, Malaysia, Taiwan2 EnglishIndo-EuropeanLatin510USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand3 HindiIndo-EuropeanDevanagari490North and Central India4 SpanishIndo-EuropeanLatin425The Americas, Spain5 ArabicAfro-AsiaticArabic255Middle East, Arabia, North Africa6 RussianIndo-EuropeanCyrillic254Russia, Central Asia7 PortugueseIndo-EuropeanLatin218Brazil, Portugal, Southern Africa8 BengaliIndo-EuropeanBengali215Bangladesh, Eastern India9Malay, IndonesianMalayo-Polynesian Latin175Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore10 FrenchIndo-EuropeanLatin130France, Canada, West Africa, Central Africa11 JapaneseAltaicChinese Characters and 2 Japanese Alphabets127Japan12 GermanIndo-EuropeanLatin123Germany, Austria, Central Europe13Farsi (Persian)Indo-EuropeanNastaliq110Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia14 UrduIndo-EuropeanNastaliq104Pakistan, India15 PunjabiIndo-EuropeanGurumukhi103Pakistan, India16 VietnameseAustroasiaticBased on Latin86Vietnam, China17 TamilDravidianTamil78Southern India, Sri Lanka, Malyasia18 WuSino-TibetanChinese Characters77China19 JavaneseMalayo-Polynesian Javanese76Indonesia20 TurkishAltaicLatin75Turkey, Central Asia21 TeluguDravidianTelugu74Southern India22 KoreanAltaicHangul72Korean Peninsula23 MarathiIndo-EuropeanDevanagari71Western India24 ItalianIndo-EuropeanLatin61Italy, Central Europe25 ThaiSino-TibetanThai60Thailand, Laos26 CantoneseSino-TibetanChinese Characters55Southern China27 GujaratiIndo-EuropeanGujarati47Western India, Kenya28 PolishIndo-EuropeanLatin46Poland, Central Europe29 KannadaDravidianKannada44Southern India30 BurmeseSino-TibetanBurmese42Myanmar