The 10 most spoken languages in the world

[amadeus]

To revive a thread that's over two months old? I guess so

 

[Lord_Sidious]

shut up!.....

 

[Bast]

How many people speak hindi?

This is the frustrating thing about Hindi or should be Hindi/Urdu. If it weren't for the politics this language as Hindustani should have a much higher profile in the world than it does today. My guess would be around 3rd or 4th ranked in the world right now in terms of total speakers.

Is that old arabic in the same sense of reading Shakespeare in old English?

Yes, sort of. It's like the classical Hebrew found in the Tanakh as opposed to the modern Hebrew spoken in Israel. Except on top of that standard modern language, Arabic also as many colloquial dialects. It in effect is a group of many languages united by a written language.

By the way, Shakespeare is not Old English, it's actually early Modern English.

 

[Mirc]

Whoa, necro! 5 years!!

As it has been said before, I don't think "Hindustani" is "one" language. But then again, the line between language and dialect is so blurry that there's never a "correct" way of judging.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

shut up!.....

Worked for 5 years.

 

[Bast]

Whoa, necro! 5 years!!

As it has been said before, I don't think "Hindustani" is "one" language. But then again, the line between language and dialect is so blurry that there's never a "correct" way of judging.

Well they're mutually intelligible so I guess you have to count as one. The script is different yes but that's like writing Chinese in English (Pinyin?) a Chinese person with no knowledge of English would be illiterate. Other than that, it's all POLITICS. Why is it that they can understand each others movies but not news or political programs...

 

[Xyan]

I speak both Mandarin and English. I'm set for communicating with the world.

 

[bhsup]

I speak both Mandarin and English. I'm set for communicating with the world.

And the crew of Serenity!

 

[scherbchen]

And the crew of Serenity!

shiny.....!

 

[Cutlass]

How does India manage if less than 1/2 it's population speaks 1 language?

 

[Mirc]

How does India manage if less than 1/2 it's population speaks 1 language?

Ask any empire in history...

Well they're mutually intelligible so I guess you have to count as one. The script is different yes but that's like writing Chinese in English (Pinyin?) a Chinese person with no knowledge of English would be illiterate. Other than that, it's all POLITICS. Why is it that they can understand each others movies but not news or political programs...

Mutually intelligible doesn't mean it's the same language. Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible. Same goes for Bulgarian and Serbian. And many others...

 

[Godwynn]

Wiki

1. Mandarin
2. Hindustani
3. Spanish
4. English
5. Arabic
6. Portuguese
7. Bengali
8. Russian
9. Japanese
10. German (hurray!)

Ethnologue

1. Chinese
2. Spanish
3. English
4. Arabic
5. Hindi
6. Portuguese
7. Bengali
8. Russian
9. Japanese
10. Standard German

The Ethnologue list is dated.

 

[Mad Man]

Pennsylvania Dutch and Klingon should be on the list.

 

[Japanrocks12]

To say "hello" in Bengali, say "Ei Je" (EYE-jay).

okay, so I speak Bengali and can confirm that that's absolutely not the right way to say hello to a Bengali (or any) person. Use namashkar instead.

 

[gangleri2001]

Spanish is spoken in just about every South American and Central American country

I didn't know that people speak Spanish in Brazil, French Guyana and Belize.

In the 12th Century, Portugal won its independence from Spain

I didn't know that there was a thing called "Spain" in the 12th Century and I've always thought that Portugal gained its independence in the 17th Century.

 

[Mad Man]

Now you know and knowing is half the battle!

 

[gangleri2001]

Now you know and knowing is half the battle!

Totally true. Now I'm gonna take a trip to Belize and will speak Spanish with the people there and I'm gonna burn my books on history of Catalonia and Spain, since they're full of lies.

 

[Mad Man]

Belize is a English speaking country but spanish is still useful. And what does Catalonia have to do with Latin America?

 

[Masquerouge]

I have trouble believing more people speak German than French.

EDIT: particularly when it says "Standard German" and the figures include Swiss German.

THis is totally screwed up. Look at the notes:
on Wiki:

101 million native (88 million Standard German, 5 million Swiss German, 8 million Austrian German), 60 million second language in EU[13] + 5–20 million worldwide

113 million “native and real speakers”[15] (includes 64,473,140 French people), 250 million second language (worldwide including Africa and North Africa) = 363 million (as a total of first and additional language spoken) and up to 500 million total with significant knowledge of the language (2008).[16]

I mean... 113 million native French speakers vs 101 million native German speakers? Isn't that contradictory with the rankings?

Form Ethnologue:

[for german] This figure seems to include Swiss German, even though this is listed under a different code. Ethnologue divides "German" into 18 dialects[1] (Middle and Upper German, not including Low German and Yiddish), totalling to 114.2 million. Including Yiddish and Northern Low Saxon, the total is 118 million.

[for French]Figure does not include significant populations in countries such as Haiti and Mauritius, where speakers are said to speak creoles. 14th edition (2000) gives 77m total.

I am saying the figures Godwynn quoted are BS.

 

[innonimatu]

I didn't know that there was a thing called "Spain" in the 12th Century

And there wasn't (which is your point).

and I've always thought that Portugal gained its independence in the 17th Century.

No, that time the portuguese just kicked a spanish king out and put a local idiot on the throne.

It was an improvement.