This is alist of languages by number of native speakers.
All such rankings of human languages ranked by their number ofnative speakers should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in adialect continuum.[1] For example, a language is often defined as a set of mutually intelligiblevarieties, but independent national standard languages may be considered separate languages even though they are largelymutually intelligible, as in the case ofDanish andNorwegian.[2] Conversely, many commonly accepted languages, includingGerman,Italian, andEnglish, encompass varieties that are not mutually intelligible.[1] WhileArabic is sometimes considered a single language centred onModern Standard Arabic, other authors consider its mutually unintelligible varieties separate languages.[3] Similarly,Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language.[4] It is also common to describe various Chinese dialect groups, such asMandarin,Wu, andYue, as languages, even though each of these groups contains many mutually unintelligible varieties.[5]
There are also difficulties in obtaining reliable counts of speakers, which vary over time because of population change andlanguage shift. In some areas, there is no reliablecensus data, the data is not current, or the census may not record languages spoken, or record them ambiguously. Sometimes speaker populations are exaggerated for political reasons, or speakers of minority languages may be underreported in favour of a national language.[6]
Top languages by population
Ethnologue (2025)
According toEthnologue, the following languages have more than 50 million first-language speakers as of 2025.[7] This section does not include entries thatEthnologue identifies asmacrolanguages encompassing all their respectivevarieties, such asArabic,Lahnda,Persian,Malay,Pashto, andChinese.
Languages with at least 50 million first-language speakers[7]
^Kaye, Alan S.; Rosenhouse, Judith (1997). "Arabic Dialects and Maltese". In Hetzron, Robert (ed.).The Semitic Languages. Routledge. pp. 263–311.ISBN978-0-415-05767-7.
