What is the most widely spoken language in the world?
The Top 5 most widely spoken languages in the world and number of speakers are:
Chinese - 1,197,000,000
Spanish - 414,000,000
English - 335,000,000
Hindu - 260,000,000
Arabic-237,000,000
Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many other ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people (around 16% of the world's population) speak some form of Chinese as their first language.
More Info:
en.m.wikipedia.org
What are your thoughts on this subject?
264 Comments
Buck R Deal
Bad question! English is spoken by many millions way beyond American borders.. It is the language of business, airline pilots, and many native speakers of other languages. English is taught in many countries as a second language. You didn't qualify the question as native speakers... we all know China and India have over a trillion native speakers...what would the number be if all the former British empire and second language English speakers were included???
110
Jul 10, 2017 4:50PM
Val Wilkinson
Badly worded question - widely spoken suggests the range of countries
40
Jul 10, 2017 9:20PM
Marion David Mooney
Adrian Pedley, You are right. They only listed the population of the US as English speakers. What about England, Australia, Belize and several African nations where English is the official language, plus all the millions who speak English as a second language? It's a bad question.
24
Jul 15, 2017 3:24AM
allanc
the question asked for the most WIDELY use language Not the most used I think Spanish and English are used Most Widely
19
Jul 15, 2017 8:45AM
stormejohn
If you get a bunch of Chinese together and found out that they really couldn't understand each other is it fair to say they are speaking the same language?
19
Jul 15, 2017 2:37AM
rudreshwar sen
Hindu is a religion not a language, Hindi is. Similarly there is no Chinese language, there are numerous languages spoken in China, believe Cantonese and Mandarin are the most popular
17
Jul 15, 2017 4:41AM
William Laughlin
The figures are way off.
1. There is no language called "Chinese".
Among the approximately 56 ethnic groups in China, there are as many languages and dialects ranging from Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Xiang, and many more. Each of these languages make up a portion of the 1,197,000,000.
2. The figures for English account for the US alone, discounting the other English speaking nations of the world including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and others. Together, the English speaking nations total over 500,000,000 speakers using English as a first language, not to mention those who are conversant in English as a second language.
I'm sorry to say, Sandra Ziesmer, this submission should be scrapped.
9
Jul 15, 2017 3:57PM
terry seale
Interesting you use the number for Chinese for all speakers and for English the number of native speakers. Chinese is still first but English is a very close second
8
Jul 10, 2017 7:13PM
DannyBoy
Good thing they didn't give, 'forked tongue' as a choice!
8
Jul 15, 2017 2:27AM
Alicia M Okwoma
Hindu is not a language it's a religion hindi is a language
5
Jul 15, 2017 11:06AM
johnbheymann
Sandra Ziesmer ... not a well thought out question and you gave the incorrect answer .
0
Dec 27, 2023 7:27AM
johnbheymann
English is spoken by 1,452 billion people in the world . Mandarin 1,118 billion .
A very badly phrased question and an incorrect answer given . Chinese has many variants .. not all of which are intelligible to all Chinese .
0
Dec 27, 2023 7:26AM
Sanjay Kumar
Bad Question. The most widely spoken language in the world is the language spoken in the most countries across the world and NOT the one that has the most people speaking a language.
0
Dec 21, 2023 1:50AM
Donald McBurney
they blew this answer.english is the most widely spoken language in the world.also there are many chinese languages.
0
Sep 14, 2023 9:43AM
Georgia Kemp
I assumed widely spoken meant spoken the most.
0
Aug 18, 2023 3:31AM
Sue McGregor
Player, Hindu isn't a language, its a religion. Hindi is a language
0
Jan 19, 2022 7:10PM
Sue McGregor
rudreshwar sen, true Hindi is the language
0
Jan 19, 2022 7:08PM
Sue McGregor
I had to choose between Spanish and English as the most widely spoken, Mandarin Chinese has the most speakers but that wasn't the question
0
Jan 19, 2022 7:06PM
Player
Chinese is not a language the primary language of China is Mandarin. Many languages are spoken in China. We never say India speaks Indian, do we?
1
Mar 12, 2021 7:10AM
Carla Prima
Misleading question..
1
Mar 6, 2020 9:51PM
Toni Tanouye
Love this question. Mandarin, specifically.
3
Jan 29, 2020 1:11AM
nmcgirt
This question was a tough one for me . I though surely Spanish was the right answer but was surprised to see Chinese was the right one
0
Mar 31, 2019 6:31PM
Suzy Whoo
Even the explanation indicated there is no Chinese language only a bunch of local dialects
Boo
1
Mar 31, 2019 3:33PM
David William Sheppard
thought widely meant throughout the world.
0
Mar 30, 2019 5:59PM
William G. Fry
Obviously this depends on how you define “widely spoken”. English is by far the most widely spoken language of the three recognized as universal languages ( English French and Spanish). Neither of major Chinese language is spoken much beyond china or south eastern Asia. This answer is BS
1
Mar 1, 2019 1:11AM
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