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You are here: Home / Geography / What Are the Most Widely Spoken Languages In the World and How Do Languages Become Extinct?

What Are the Most Widely Spoken Languages In the World and How Do Languages Become Extinct?

June 21, 2020 by Karen Hill

Mandarin Chinese tops the list of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with about 885 million people who speak it as a first language.

On average, one world language begins to die out every 10 days because children are no longer speaking or learning it.

Here’s a list of the top 10 languages and the countries or regions in which each is a leading language:

  1. Mandarin Chinese: China, Taiwan, Singapore
  2. Spanish: Spain, parts of North, Central, and South America
  3. English: Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, numerous former British colonies in Asia and Africa
  4. Hindi: India
  5. Portuguese: Portugal, Brazil
  6. Russian: Russia, several former Soviet republics
  7. Japanese: Japan
  8. German: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg
  9. Wu Chinese: China

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Filed Under: Geography

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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