FX.co ★ World’s five most widely spoken languages

1 - English

According to Ethnologue, the world's most famous online language resource, English is currently the most popular language in the world. Today, more than 1.4 billion people speak English. This stands for about 17.5% of the world’s population. English has long been an international language of communication in many spheres such as business, tourism, and technology. In addition, there are 374 million native English speakers.

2 - Mandarin

In China, the Mandarin language, also called Northern Chinese, is the most widely spoken form of Chinese. Today, there are almost 930 million Mandarin native speakers. The dialect is recognized as an official language in mainland China and Taiwan. It is also one of the four official languages of Singapore. In the world, more than 1.1 billion people speak Mandarin.

3 - Hindu

Today, India boasts the world's greatest linguistic diversity with 121 languages. At the same time, only 22 of them are official. In India, official languages include Hindi, the most widely spoken in India. Notably, 40% of the local population speaks it. In addition, Hindi is the main language of more than 25% of Nepalis. Today, 344 million Indians are native speakers. Across the globe, Hindi is used by more than 602 million people.

4 - Spanish

Spanish colonial expansion brought the Spanish language not only to the Americas but to Africa and Asia. Today, there are 21 Spanish-speaking countries and dozens of other countries where the majority of the population speaks this language. Nowadays, Spanish is the most widely spoken among the Romance languages. There are 475 million native speakers and more than 548 million speakers in the world.

5 - French

Like Spanish and English, French spread around the world along with French colonial expansion. Today, there are 29 French-speaking countries. Almost 80 million people are native speakers, and 280 million people can speak French. While English is the language of business, French is considered the language of culture. It has international status in such fields as fashion, theater, choreography, architecture, and arts.