Top languages by population

Ethnologue (2021, 24th edition)

The following languages are listed as having 40 million or more total speakers in the 2021 edition of Ethnologue. Entries identified by Ethnologue as macrolanguages (such as Arabic, Persian, Malay, Pashto, and Chinese, encompassing all their respective variants) are not included in this section.

Rank Language Family Branch First language (L1) speakers Second language (L2) speakers Total speakers (L1+L2)
1 English Indo-European Germanic 369.9 million 978.2 million 1.348 billion
2 Mandarin Chinese
(incl. Standard Chinese, but excl.  other varieties)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 921.2 million 198.7 million 1.120 billion
3 Hindi
(excl. Urdu)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 342.2 million 258.3 million 600 million
4 Spanish Indo-European Romance 471.4 million 71.5 million 543 million
5 Standard Arabic
(excl. dialects)		 Afro-Asiatic Semitic — 274 million 274 million
6 Bengali Indo-European Indo-Aryan 228.7 million 39.0 million 268 million
7 French Indo-European Romance 79.6 million 187.4 million 267 million
8 Russian Indo-European Balto-Slavic 153.7 million 104.3 million 258 million
9 Portuguese Indo-European Romance 232.4 million 25.2 million 258 million
10 Urdu
(excl. Hindi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 69.0 million 161.0 million 230 million
11 Indonesian
(excl. Malay)		 Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian 43.6 million 155.4 million 199 million
12 Standard German Indo-European Germanic 76.6 million 58.5 million 135 million
13 Japanese Japonic — 126.3 million 121,500 126 million
14 Marathi Indo-European Indo-Aryan 83.1 million 16.0 million 99 million
15 Telugu Dravidian South-Central 82.6 million 13.0 million 96 million
16 Turkish Turkic Oghuz 82.2 million 5.9 million 88 million
17 Tamil Dravidian Southern 77.5 million 8.0 million 85 million
18 Yue Chinese
(incl. Cantonese)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 84.9 million 402,000 85 million
19 Wu Chinese
(incl. Shanghainese)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 81.7 million 63,000 82 million
20 Korean Koreanic — — — 82 million
21 Vietnamese Austroasiatic Vietic 76.1 million 745,000 77 million
22 Hausa Afro-Asiatic Chadic 48.6 million 26.3 million 75 million
23 Iranian Persian
(excl. Dari and Tajik)		 Indo-European Iranian 56.3 million 17.9 million 74 million
24 Egyptian Spoken Arabic
(excl. other Arabic dialects)		 Afro-Asiatic Semitic — — 70 million
25 Swahili Niger–Congo Bantu 16.3 million 52.9 million 69 million
26 Javanese Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian — — 68 million
27 Italian Indo-European Romance 64.8 million 3.1 million 68 million
28 Western Punjabi
(excl. Eastern Punjabi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan — — 65 million
29 Gujarati Indo-European Indo-Aryan 56.9 million 5.0 million 62 million
30 Thai Kra–Dai Zhuang–Tai 20.7 million 40.0 million 61 million
31 Kannada Dravidian Southern 43.6 million 15.0 million 59 million
32 Amharic Afroasiatic Semitic 32.3 million 25.1 million 57 million
33 Bhojpuri Indo-European Indo-Aryan 52.3 million 160,000 52 million
34 Eastern Punjabi
(excl. Western Punjabi)		 Indo-European Indo-Aryan 48.6 million 3.6 million 52 million
35 Min Nan Chinese
(incl. Hokkien)		 Sino-Tibetan Sinitic 48.4 million 387,000 49 million
36 Nigerian Pidgin English Creole — — — 48 million
37 Jin Chinese Sino-Tibetan Sinitic — — 47 million
38 Filipino
(excl. Tagalog)		 Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian — 45.0 million 45 million
39 Hakka Chinese Sino-Tibetan Sinitic — — 44 million
40 Yoruba Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo — — 43 million
41 Burmese Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman — — 43 million
42 Sudanese Spoken Arabic Afro-Asiatic Semitic — — 42 million
43 Polish Indo-European Balto-Slavic — — 41 million
44 Odia Indo-European Indo-Aryan — — 40 million