Hello everyone. Welcome to the Langfocus
channel and my name is Paul. Today, I'm going to be remaking a video that I made back in the
early days of this channel because, well, a lot of the
data in that video is wrong. The topic is the 10 most widely
spoken languages in the world. We can measure the number
of speakers a language has by looking either at native speakers, or by looking at the total
number of speakers, including second language speakers. First, we'll look at the number of
native speakers for each language, and later on, we'll include second language
speakers and see how the numbers change. Based on the number of native speakers, the most widely spoken language
in the world is Mandarin. It has somewhere between 900 million
and 955 million native speakers That makes it the most widely spoken
native language in the world by far Mandarin is the most widely spoken
of the Chinese languages, and it's the official language
of China and of Taiwan. The number of native speakers
does not include native speakers of other Chinese
languages, only of Mandarin. Number 2 is Spanish with somewhere between 405 million and 470 million
native speakers, depending on which source you consult. Number 2 used to be English, but the number of native Spanish-speakers
has been growing much more quickly than the number of native
English-speakers in recent years. And, that brings us to
number 3 which is English, with around 360 million native speakers. And, an interesting side note: On my previous version of this video, I got a lot of comments saying there's
no way that the number is that low because the population of the United States
alone is about 320 million. Well, keep in mind that a lot
of people in the United States, a very large percentage of the population, are actually immigrants who do not speak
English as their first language. And, that's also true of other countries
where English is the main language. Number 4 is Hindustani
meaning Hindi and Urdu, with around 355 million native speakers Hindi and Urdu are spoken in the Indian
subcontinent in India and Pakistan, and they are very similar
in their spoken forms, and they can be considered one language, even though their literary
forms are quite different. For more information on Hindustani, check out my video on that
subject right here. Number 5 is Arabic with around
293 million native speakers. Now, I should note that Arabic
has many different spoken varieties, many different dialects, and some of them are harder
to understand than other, some of them are kind of unintelligible. For example, Moroccan Arabic, lots of people from other Arabic countries
say it's hard to understand them. But, Arabic does have a standard language. Standard Arabic unites
all of the different dialects, and people can use it to communicate
with speakers of the other dialects. So, even though some of
those dialects are fairly different, they can be considered one language. If we include all varieties of Arabic,
there are 293 million native speakers. Number 6 is Portuguese with
somewhere between 215 million and 225 million
native speakers. A lot of people are surprised to
hear that Portuguese is on this list, but remember Portuguese is not
only the language of Portugal. It's also spoken in Brazil,
which has a population of 200 million Number 7 is Bengali with around
206 million native speakers, mostly living in Bangladesh, and in some of the eastern
provinces of India. Number 8 is Russian with around
155 million native speakers. Number 9 is Japanese with around
126 million native speakers. Number 10 is Punjabi with around
102 million native speakers. It is spoken mainly in Western
India and in Pakistan. In fact, it's the most widely spoken
native language in Pakistan, even though it's not the
official language there. Those were the top ten languages based
on the number of native speakers, but the situation is somewhat different
if we include second language speakers. That's because some languages are much
more widely spoken as a lingua franca than they are as a native language. So let's see what the list looks like
if we include non-native speakers. Number one is English. English has a lot fewer native speakers
than Mandarin Chinese does, but if we include all the
people around the world who learn English as a second
language or as a foreign language, that brings the numbers up to around
1.4 to 1.5 billion speakers. Some people estimate the number
to be as high as 2 billion, but, of course, there is some disagreement
about what level of proficiency is necessary in order to be included
as a speaker of English. English is the de facto global lingua
franca, the international language. Sorry, Esperanto lovers. Number 2 is Mandarin with somewhere between
1.1 billion and 1.15 billion speakers, if we include the 190 million people
who have learned it as a second language. Those people are mostly in China and
mostly speakers of other Chinese languages. Number 3 is Spanish with somewhere between
500 million and 570 million speakers. There are about 90 million people who
speak Spanish as a second language, including linguistic minorities in
a lot of Spanish-speaking countries. And there are also a lot of people who
learn Spanish as a foreign language. Number 4 is Hindustani with
around 540 million speakers. That means that there are about 200 million
second language speakers of Hindustani. Hindi and Urdu function as a lingua francas
in much of northern India and Pakistan. In Pakistan, for example, Urdu is spoken as a second language
by around 94 million people, and it's only the native language
of around 9% of the population. Number 5 is Arabic with around
422 million speakers. That means that there are around 130
million second language speakers of Arabic. A lot of these people are non-Arabs living in countries where Arabic
is an official language. For example, many speakers of
the Berber languages in North Africa learn Arabic as a second Language Varieties of Arabic are also
used as lingua francas throughout different parts of Africa. Number 6 is Russian with
around 260 million speakers. Russian jumped from number 8 on the
first list to number 6 on this list. That's because Russian is
widely spoken as a lingua franca throughout much of the former Soviet Union. For more information on Russian, check out my video on that
subject right here. Number 7 is Portuguese with between
250 million and 260 million speakers. There are about 35 million second
language speakers of Portuguese, mainly in African countries
like Angola and Mozambique, countries where Portuguese is
the former colonial language. Today, there are some native speakers
living in those countries, but Portuguese is also
used as a lingua franca between the diverse linguistic communities. Number 8 is a language that didn't even
appear on our original top 10 list, and that is the Malay language, including
Indonesian which is a variety of Malay. It is spoken by around 77 million people,
as a native language, and there are an additional
173 million second language speakers, for a total of 250 million speakers
of Malay and Indonesian. One of the reasons that it was spoken so
much more widely as a second language is because it is widely learned as
a second language in Indonesia. There, it is the official language,
but it's mainly used as a lingua franca because there are hundreds of
languages spoken in Indonesia Number 9 is Bengali with
around 226 million speakers. And, number 10 is French, another language that didn't appear
on our original top 10 list. While French has around
80 million native speakers, there are around 140 million
second language speakers, for a total of about 220 million. The majority of those
speakers are in Africa, where French is spoken in
around 31 different countries Some researchers project that
the Francophone population will be as high as 500 million in the year
2025, and 700 million in the year 2050. So, which list do you think
is more meaningful? I tend to think that the second list is
more meaningful because, in my opinion, the importance of a language depends on
how many people use it for communication, and not on how many
people speak it perfectly, and with the perfect native accent. And, I think that another thing
that makes a language important is how many countries it is spoken in and over how wide of a
geographic area it is spoken. I think we have to balance
these two different factors in order to determine how
important the language is. So, even though Mandarin has the
largest number of native speakers, and even though it has the second
largest number of total speakers, it might not be the most important or second most important
language in the world. The most important language
in the world is, right now, clearly English because it is widely spoken
by so many people around the world. I would say that number 2 is Spanish
because it's spoken by a large population, and it's spoken in dozens of
countries around the world. And, because the Spanish-speaking
population is growing quickly. I would say that French might
be another one in the top 5 because of its fairly large
total number of speakers, because it's widely spoken
in Europe and Africa, and because of the projected growth
in the Francophone population. Another might be Arabic because
it's spoken throughout many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and by a growing population in
Europe and around the world. And, another one is probably Chinese, even though it's not an official
language in many places, China is an important country with
a huge population and a large economy, and Chinese might become more
important in the future. So, the question of the day is:
What do you think? What are the most important
languages in the world? Leave your opinions and your reasons
in the comments down below. Be sure to follow Langfocus
on Twitter, on Instagram and on Facebook. And again, I'd like to say thank you
to all of my patreon supporters for your continuous support. Thank you for watching,
and have a nice day!
