The 100 Most Spoken Languages in the World

…and why you should speak more than one

Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash

I like to consider myself a global citizen. Certainly, on some criteria I qualify.

But I fail on language.

Only English, I am rather ashamed to say. And that is after living in Thailand for over a decade.

When asked if I speak Thai, I often respond by saying ‘no, unfortunately not, I am a specialist in English’. Eases my ego a little, though not a lot in truth.

So, I am in awe of those who speak multiple languages: it shows not only a good brain but also a high degree of cultural assimilation.

Apparently, there are over 7,000 languages or ‘regularly spoken vernaculars’, and all have ancient roots. But how did English come into being?

According to this informative infographic, English has its roots in Germanic, Anglo-Frisian and Anglic, and is part of the massive ‘indo-European’ language tree which itself covers 42 languages from Russian to Bengali, Nepali to Afrikaans.

No matter what language you speak, you can now easily trace its origins. But which language has no origins? Or to put it another way, which language is unique in the world, and has never changed or been adulterated since first spoken, many thousands of years ago?

There is only one in the whole world. Answer at the bottom.

This fascinating infrographic also answers another question about language: which are the most popular ones?

Well, the answer depends on whether we judge it by Total Speakers (English, 1,132,366,680) or Native Speakers (Mandarin Chinese, 917,868,640).

But, in truth, the most popular global language is most definitely English. Take another look at the figures and you’ll see that English ‘only’ has 379 million Native Speakers, but dominates the Total Speaker list. Which means that an awful lot of people are learning English around the world.

This global surge to learn English is certainly part of globalisation, but it is also connected very strongly to self-actualisation. That is, the desire of the individual to better themselves, advance their prospects, acquire new knowledge and connect with other races, cultures, ethnicities, places.

In other words, English = Cultural Capital.

Certainly, more people are now learning Mandarin. But English remains the language of global citizenship and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future.

And talking of the future, will there be 7,000 unique vernaculars in a hundred years’ time, or will we all be speaking one of just a handful of languages? Well, the trend is certainly towards a reduction in languages, and that is a pity because once a language is rendered extinct it isn’t coming back.

But, taking the bigger view, one can see that globalisation is creating uniformity. We may even be heading towards a single dominant global culture, and if we are then it’s a good bet the language of that culture will be English.

But then again, as someone who only speaks English, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Answer = Japanese

By Dr Stephen Whitehead (views are author’s own)

This article originally appeared in the Educational Digest International.