Most Spoken Languages In The World 2012

Most Spoken Languages In The World 2012

1. Mandarin

1,052 million including second language speakers (Ethnologue, 1999)/ 1,151 million (982 native, 179 second language) /It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.    

2. Spanish

417 million including second-language speakers (Ethnologue 1999)./ More than 500 million, as of 2009/ It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

3. English

508 million including second-language speakers. More than 900 million (as a total of first, second and foreign language spoken according to List of countries by English-speaking population). It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

4. Hindi/Urdu

487 million (366 million with all varieties of Hindi and Urdu + 120 million as a second language in 1999)/ 484.5 million (258 mill. properly Hindi, 422 million all varieties of Hindi and 51,5 of Urdu according to Indian Census 2001 + 11 million Urdu speakers in 1993 census of Pakistan)/ 552 million currently. 473.5 million of 1,028 million spoken some variety of Hindi or Urdu according to Indian Census (46%). In Pakistan 7.57% speak Urdu. Currently the population of India is 1,173 million and 168 million is currently the population of Pakistan. (294.4 million speak properly Hindi as a first language): 422 million of 1,028 million spoken Hindi according to the 2001 Indian census. 

5. Arabic

246 million including second language speakers (Ethnologue, 1999) It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

*Ethnologue further counts each of sixteen dialects. (144 million speakers in Asia)       

6. Bengali

211 million including second language speakers. Official language of Bangladesh (Ethnologue, 1999) and one of the official languages of India for state of West Bengal and Tripura.    

7. Portuguese

191 million including second language speakers (Ethnologue, 1999)/ 220 million native, 20 million second language = 240 million total     

8. Russian

277 million including second language speakers (Ethnologue, 1999)/ It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.    

9. Japanese

130 million native, 2 million second language = 132 million total

Source:

http://exploredia.com/most-spoken-languages-in-the-world-2011/

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