List of Most Spoken Language

We know there are many languages in the world. But do you know their rank for most spoken language?  Based on different source, we find different ranking of most spoken language, due to their different criteria to create the lists. 

Top 20 of most spoken language according to Wikipedia:

1. Chinese – 1,205m (1999). Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia, Singapore. This figure includes all varieties of Chinese such as Mandarin and Cantonese, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible
2. Spanish – 438.3m (2009). Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, United States, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Costa
3. English – 309.4m (1984). United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia, Bermuda, Belize, Northern Mariana Islands, The Bahamas, Guam, Cayman Islands, The Philippines, Gibraltar, India, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, United Arab Emirates, Cyprus. Does not include significant populations in countries such as Jamaica and Guyana, where speakers are said to speak creoles.
4. Arabic – 206m (1999). Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Mauritania, Palestinian territories, Israel, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Chad, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Djibouti, Somalia, Western Sahara. Figure from all varieties of Arabic, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible
5. Hindi – 180.8m (1991) (Khariboli dialect only). India, Fiji, Singapore. Speakers of the main Khariboli dialect (1991). Indian census (2001) figure is 422m, and represents all Hindi dialects, which the Ethnologue deems mutually unintelligible. Hindi and Urdu are considered as separate languages although they are mutually intelligible when used in everyday conversation. They are written in two different scripts.
6. Portuguese – 177.5m (1998). Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola.
7. Bengali – 171m (1994). Bangladesh, India.
8. Russian – 145m (2000). Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Israel, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan
9. French – 135m (2009). France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, French Guiana, French Polynesia, New Caledonia and other overseas territories and departments of France. 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.
10. Italian – 125m (2009). Italy, San Marino, Switzerland, Serbia-Croatia. Population includes some of whom are native bilinguals of Italian and regional varieties, and some of whom may use Italian as second language. Includes 1st and 2nd language speakers as of early 2009. Sicilian is included.
11. Japanese – 122m (1985). Japan
12. Standard German  - 95.4m (1994). Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein. 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.
13. Javanese – 75.5m (1989). Indonesia, Suriname
14. Telugu – 69.7m (1997). India
15.  Marathi – 68m (1997). India
16. Vietnamese – 67.4m (1999). Vietnam
17. Korean –  67m (1986). South Korea, North Korea
18. Tamil – 66m (1997). India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives
19. Western Panjabi – 60.8m (2000). Pakistan. Figure does not include Eastern Panjabi, spoken in India, 27.1m
20. Urdu 60.5m – (1997). Pakistan, India, Afghanistan. Standard Hindi and Urdu are considered as separate languages although they are mutually intelligible when used in everyday conversation. They are written in two different scripts. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/)

 Top 30 according to The KryssTal Web Site

Pos	Language	Family	Script(s) Used	Speakers	Where Spoken (Major)
				(Millions)
1	Mandarin	Sino-Tibetan	Chinese Characters	1120	China, Malaysia, Taiwan
2	English	Indo-European	Latin	510	USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand
3	Hindi	Indo-European	Devanagari	490	North and Central India
4	Spanish	Indo-European	Latin	425	Mexico, Central and South America, Spain
5	Arabic	Afro-Asiatic	Arabic	255	Middle East, Arabia, North Africa
6	Russian	Indo-European	Cyrillic	254	Russia, Central Asia
7	Portuguese	Indo-European	Latin	218	Brazil, Portugal, Southern Africa
8	Bengali	Indo-European	Bengali	215	Bangladesh, Eastern India
9	Malay, Indonesian	Malayo-Polynesian	Latin	175	Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore
10	French	Indo-European	Latin	130	France, Canada, West Africa, Central Africa
11	Japanese	Altaic	Chinese Characters and 2 Japanese Alphabets	127	Japan
12	German	Indo-European	Latin	123	Germany, Austria, Central Europe
13	Farsi (Persian)	Indo-European	Nastaliq	110	Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia
14	Urdu	Indo-European	Nastaliq	104	Pakistan, India
15	Punjabi	Indo-European	Gurumukhi	103	Pakistan, India
16	Vietnamese	Austroasiatic	Based on Latin	86	Vietnam, China
17	Tamil	Dravidian	Tamil	78	Southern India, Sri Lanka, Malyasia
18	Wu	Sino-Tibetan	Chinese Characters	77	China
19	Javanese	Malayo-Polynesian	Javanese	76	Indonesia
20	Turkish	Altaic	Latin	75	Turkey, Central Asia
21	Telugu	Dravidian	Telugu	74	Southern India
22	Korean	Altaic	Hangul	72	Korean Peninsula
23	Marathi	Indo-European	Devanagari	71	Western India
24	Italian	Indo-European	Latin	61	Italy, Central Europe
25	Thai	Sino-Tibetan	Thai	60	Thailand, Laos
26	Cantonese	Sino-Tibetan	Chinese Characters	55	Southern China
27	Gujarati	Indo-European	Gujarati	47	Western India, Kenya
28	Polish	Indo-European	Latin	46	Poland, Central Europe
29	Kannada	Dravidian	Kannada	44	Southern India
30	Burmese	Sino-Tibetan	Burmese	42	Myanmar

(Source:  http://www.krysstal.com/)