Most Popular Languages

The 10 Most Popular Spoken Languages in the World

By Matt Rosenberg, About.com

Here's a listing of the ten most popular languages spoken worldwide, along with the approximate number of primary or first language speakers for that language.

1. Mandarin Chinese - 882 million
2. Spanish - 325 million
3. English - 312-380 million
4. Arabic - 206-422 million
5. Hindi - 181 million
6. Portuguese - 178 million
7. Bengali - 173 million

8. Russian - 146 million
9. Japanese - 128 million
10. German - 96 million

There are two reasons why English is almost certainly going to be the world language of the future, even though two other languages, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, have more native speakers than English. The first, and major, reason is that English became the main language of science and technology at about the turn of the century. At that time it was possible that German might have taken the lead, taking over from English and French but, by this time, the Americans were already beginning to forge ahead as the major industrial nation and thus, as a consequence, the progenitor of most scientific papers and technological know-how.
The second reason is a consequence of the first in that English is now not only the language of science and technology but also of all the cultural and managerial offshoots that occurred during the remainder of the twentieth century, such as the media, telecommunications, multinational corporations, international freight and air transport, and international tourism, banking, politics and sports.

Most spoken language worldwide:
The result of all this is that the global status of English has nothing to do with the number of people who speak it as a native language -- a mere 300 million -- but of the other billion who speak English as a second language and of a further billion or more who are likely to do so well within a generation.

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