The 10 Most Spoken Languages In The World (2023)

FAQs

Which is the world no 1 spoken language? ›

1. English (1,452 million speakers) According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers. Like Latin or Greek at the time, English has become the world's common language.

Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.

Which are the most widely spoken languages in the world? Some, such as English and Spanish seem obvious, but others may surprise you. Around 7,139 languages are spoken in the world, 90% of which are used in communities of less than 100,000 people, such as tribes or dialects within certain populations.

‍The clear winner from the 7 easiest languages to learn is Spanish. Everything from writing, grammar, and speaking will come more naturally to the English speaker. Similar rules, structure, and Latin roots. If you are interested in learning Spanish or any other of these easy languages, we can help you at Jumpspeak.

As we've already mentioned, Japanese is considered the fastest language in the world. It is always mentioned as the first on the list. So, here are 6 of the fastest spoken languages in the world, based on the average number of syllables spoken per second (SPS): Japanese - 7.84 SPS.

7000 Languages is a non-profit that helps Indigenous communities around the world teach, learn and sustain their languages through technology. We create free online language-learning courses in partnership with Indigenous, minority, and refugee communities so they can keep their languages alive.

What are the 4 universal languages? ›

Universal language is the language that everyone can use to communicate with others without considering their spoken language. Nonverbal communication is an effective, universal method of successful communication.

Most English language learners will find it challenging to learn English verb tenses, phrasal verbs, articles, spelling, pronunciation, and idioms. This is because these are features of English that are very different from most other languages in the world, or which simply require a lot of memorization.

Multilingual is fluent in more than four languages, and they are only 3% of the entire population. Some people can speak more than five languages, and they are known as polyglots. They are less than one percent of the population. Hyperpolyglots are fluent in more than 12 languages, and they are sporadic to find.

Language extinction

Many of the languages ​​spoken today are in constant extinction. Linguistic predictions say that of 6,000 languages that are globally ​​spoken today, around 600 of them after 100 years will have simplified versions or will not exist at all.

The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.

Of these, Spanish and Italian are the easiest for native English speakers to learn, followed by Portuguese and finally French.

Except for Frisian, Dutch is linguistically the closest language to English, with both languages being part of the West Germanic linguistic family. This means many Dutch words are cognates with English (meaning they share the same linguistic roots), giving them similar spelling and pronunciation.

What is the 5 hardest language to learn? ›

1. French (Français) French is the most popular foreign language in India, and the reasons to learn French are apparent. With over 30 Francophone countries around the globe, It is spoken by roughly 300 million French speakers globally.

Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.

According to a UNESCO survey, Bengali has been classified as the sweetest language in the world. As a language, Bengali is widely spoken all over India, including Assam and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The sweetest language in the world is also recognized in the Constitution of India.

Spanish is in second place with around 8-9 syllables spoken per second, whereas, English is in eight place with around 6-7 syllables spoken per second. In other words, Spanish native speakers speak 25% more quickly than English native speakers.

The most difficult languages — Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Japanese — require, on average, 1.69 years (88 weeks), or 2,200 class hours, to reach speaking and reading proficiency. Each of the four "hard" languages is difficult for its own reasons.

That metaphorical process is at the heart of Toki Pona, the world's smallest language. While the Oxford English Dictionary contains a quarter of a million entries, and even Koko the gorilla communicates with over 1,000 gestures in American Sign Language, the total vocabulary of Toki Pona is a mere 123 words.

English is by far the most prominent spoken language in the U.S., with over 239 million English-speaking people across the country.

1. Spanish. It's only natural that Spanish would come in at number one as Mexico is right next to the US. Again, unsurprising is the fact that over 50% of university students choose to study in Spanish in order to hone their language skills.

Currently, there are 573 known extinct languages. These are languages that are no longer spoken or studied. Many were local dialects with no records of their alphabet or wording, and so are forever lost. Others were major languages of their time, but society and changing cultures left them behind.

What is the most extinct language? ›

Esperanto (/ˌɛspəˈrɑːntoʊ/ or /ˌɛspəˈræntoʊ/) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L.

Originally spoken by small groups of people living along the lower Tiber River, Latin spread with the increase of Roman political power, first throughout Italy and then throughout most of western and southern Europe and the central and western Mediterranean coastal regions of Africa.

Korean includes many words of Chinese origin, and borrows words from English and other languages as well. Still, it's a stretch to say that Korean has the most words of any language in the world because one of its dictionaries has over a million headwords.

There may be no official language, but there are at least 350 different languages spoken in the United States.

The United States does not have an official language at the federal level, but the most commonly used language is English (specifically, American English), which is the de facto national language. It is also the language spoken at home by the great majority of the U.S. population (approximately 78.5%).

English will most likely not become the dominant world language as more people speak more than one language, a language expert reports. The world faces a future of people speaking more than one language, with English no longer seen as likely to become dominant, a British language expert says in a new analysis.

There are six official languages of the UN. These are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Bilingual – Two different languages. Trilingual – Three different languages. Polyglot – (Three)/Four+ different languages. Hyperpolyglot – Six+ different languages.

What are the 23 most spoken languages in the world? ›

The Top 23 Languages On Earth

Chinese, English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Persian, German, Russian, Malay, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, Lahnda, Tamil, Urdu, Korean, Hindi, Bengali, Japanese, Vietnamese, Telugu, and Marathi. Chances are you speak at least one of these languages fluently.

You cannot help but be impressed when you meet someone who is able to speak several languages. It is already impressive when a person can speak two or three languages, but when an individual can speak four or more, then it is something amazing.

English takes the crown as the most common second language around the world with 55 countries speaking it as a second language. France and Russia are second and third with 14 and 13 respectively. The languages are grouped and colour-coded by language family (languages with a common ancestor).