Language is the main way of communication between people and this article presents the most popular, widespread and in demand languages of the peoples of the world.
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14. French
Even though this language is not among the ten most widespread languages in the world, in our short presentation it takes an honorable 14th place, opening our ranking. The French language, in addition to being one of the most widespread, is also one of the most beautiful languages in the world, which is very often called the language of love, just as the capital of France, the city of Paris, is called the city of love. This language is part of the Romance group of languages and has the status of an official language in 29 countries, in particular Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Monaco and, of course, France. It is one of the six official languages of the UN and is spoken in a number of African countries and former French colonies. According to some estimates, French is spoken by about 250 million people around the world, but 75 million speak it as a native language.
Many people learn French because of its beauty, others learn it because it is a fairly popular language in Europe and knowledge of such a language will be useful for work and travel. This language is not very difficult to learn as a foreign language. Of course, French will be easier for some, more difficult for others, but many agree that in terms of difficulty of learning it is somewhere between German and Spanish.
13. Korean
Korean is the native language of approximately 78 million people, is the official language of South Korea and the DPRK, and is partially spoken in China, Japan, the United States and Russia. This language is not very popular and not many people study it in other countries. However, in terms of the number of native speakers, it takes an honorable 13th place in our ranking of the most common languages on earth. Most researchers classify it as an isolated language, that is, a language that is not included in any known language family. However, some believe that the Korean language may be part of a hypothetical Altaic family. According to some linguists, the Korean language may have some degree of relatedness to the Japanese language.
Some people think Korean is easier to learn than Japanese and Chinese, but the grammar in Korean is still more difficult, in their opinion. Chinese and Japanese languages are studied mainly for romantic reasons, out of a desire to get closer to the culture of the East and learn about the centuries-old history of the region. Korean is taught mainly to earn money.
12. German
German is the most popular and in-demand language in Europe after English, and many people learn it not for cultural reasons or for travel, but for doing business and business negotiations. German is the official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Belgium. This language is native to 100 million people, and there are more than 120 million native speakers. The German language is part of the Germanic group, like English, but the German language is considered much more complex than English, like some other languages.
Beginners learning a language are frightened by words that are 2-3 times longer than their counterparts in other languages, many tenses, regular and irregular verbs conjugated differently, the presence of a definite and indefinite article, and genders of nouns that do not always match. However, the German language cannot be called one of the most difficult languages of the world, since with the right approach it can be studied without any problems, like any other European language.
11. Javanese
There are so many languages in the world, but not many of our citizens even know about the existence of this language, not to mention the fact that the Javanese language is one of the most widespread. The language is spoken by about 105 million people and is spoken mainly on the Indonesian island of Java and several neighboring islands. It is the largest Austronesian language in terms of speakers. This is a fairly developed language that has a rich literary tradition with different genres of poetry and prose, and many varieties of theatrical genres. Despite the fact that almost half of the Indonesian population actively uses the Javanese language in everyday life, it, like all other existing languages in the country, does not have official status.
10. Punjabi
This language belongs to the Indo-Aryan languages of the Indo-European language family and is one of the official languages of India. Punjabi is the language of the Punjabis and Jats, ethnic groups in India. The language is spoken in the eastern part of Pakistan, as well as in some parts of India. There are approximately 112 million Punjabi speakers in the world. There are approximately 105 million native speakers living in Pakistan and India. While the rest live in countries such as the UK, Canada, UAE, USA, etc. Among the features of the language, one can highlight the fact that it is a tonal language. In tonal languages, the height of a stressed syllable changes its meaning. In Punjabi, a stressed syllable can have three different pitches. This is very unusual for Indo-European languages.
9. Japanese
Ninth place in our list of the most common and popular languages in the world is occupied by another language from Asia. There are 130 million native speakers of this language. Japanese is studied mainly for two reasons. Firstly, the language is studied for doing business, since Japan is one of the strongest economies in the world. Secondly, Japan has a rich and interesting culture that attracts thousands of people and sooner or later makes them interested in the country's language. Japanese is by no means an easy language. One of the main difficulties in learning this language is the hieroglyphs, which came from Chinese, but have changed slightly over time as the language developed.
In Japanese, almost all hieroglyphs have not one, but two or more sounds, depending on the words in which they are used. Today in Japan, about two and a half thousand hieroglyphs are the most commonly used, while in China at least 3,500 hieroglyphs are used. Japanese is a simpler language compared to Korean and Chinese, but Japanese grammar is very complex. There are no tones in Japanese, but there are two alphabets. The Hiragana alphabet is the basic alphabet, used for purely Japanese words, grammatical markings, and sentence endings. Katakana is another Japanese alphabet and is used for words of foreign origin and names.
8. Russian
Russia is one of the most important countries in the world, occupying a vast territory where many people live. The country's rich, vibrant and vibrant culture and beautiful cities attract many foreigners who are also interested in the “mighty” Russian language. There are about 160 million people for whom Russian is their native language. In total, there are about 260 million Russian speakers. Russian is the official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It is the most widespread Slavic language in the world and the most widespread language in Europe in terms of the number of native speakers. Russian is one of the working languages of the UN. It is quite difficult to learn, its grammar is complex but logical. Russian can be called one of the simple “complex” languages.
Many foreigners choose French or German because they are common in Europe. People choose Russian when they want to experience Russian culture, when they have Russian friends with whom they want to speak their language, when they move to live or work in Russia. Basically, people study Russian because they like it, like, in general, any other language. You cannot learn a language through force, it must interest and attract, there must be a desire to learn it.
7. Bengali
The language of Bengalis, one of the languages of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is widespread and is the official language in Bangladesh and India. There are about 190 million people for whom it is their native language and about 260 million people who speak it. Some aspects of the language are often different in India and Bangladesh. The letter in most cases fully matches the pronunciation. The written language is based on Sanskrit and does not always take into account the changes and mergers of sounds that have occurred in the language over time. The history of the Bengali language dates back at least a thousand years, as evidenced by both the dating of the first literary monuments and linguistic reconstruction data.
6. Portuguese
Portuguese is the mother tongue of approximately 230 million people, and the total number of speakers is approximately 260 million. It is the official language in Portugal, Brazil, Angola and some other countries. Most of the native speakers live in Brazil. The Portuguese language is comparable in difficulty to learning to Spanish, French and Italian, as it is in the same group of Romance languages. There are two main varieties of the language, European Portuguese and Brazilian, as well as a number of varieties in African and Asian countries, differing from each other at the level of phonetics, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. African countries use the European version of Portuguese with a large number of lexical borrowings from African languages.
5. Arabic
Arabic is spoken in 60 countries around the world, such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt and Libya, and is official in 26 of them. One of the working languages of the UN and belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family of languages. The number of native speakers of the language exceeds 245 million people, and the total number of people speaking it is more than 350 million. Arabic is of great importance in the political and economic spheres, in the fields of energy and security. This is a very popular language and people who know it will always be able to find a good job. Arabic is one of the five most difficult languages in the world; there are many dialects of Arabic that differ significantly from each other.
4. Hindi
The language is one of the 23 official languages of India and is also spoken in Pakistan and Fiji. There are 260 million people who speak Hindi as their mother tongue, and the total number of Hindi speakers is approximately 400 million. At the colloquial level, Hindi is virtually indistinguishable from India's other official language, Urdu. The latter is distinguished by a large number of Arabic and Persian borrowings, as well as the fact that it uses the Arabic alphabet, while the traditional Hindi script is the Devanagari syllabary. English is one of the official languages of India, but, nevertheless, according to some sources, Hindi is quite a promising language and it can become one of the most popular languages by 2050.
3. English
The top three of our list of the most popular and widespread languages is opened by English, which is the most common language for learning as a foreign language. This language is native to 350 million people, and the total number of speakers is about 1.4 billion. English is one of the working languages of the UN, the official language of Australia, New Zealand, USA, England, Canada and some other countries. The English language in the modern world plays a huge role in many areas of life, from politics and business, to culture and travel. This is explained by the colonial policy of the British Empire in the 19th century and the global influence of the United States of America at the present time.
English is also considered one of the easiest languages to learn, if not the easiest. However, this language also has its difficulties. In many countries around the world, English is taught in schools almost from primary school as a foreign language.
2. Spanish
In second place is a very beautiful language, which is official in Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba and most countries in South America. Spanish is very similar to Italian and Portuguese, as it is in the same Romance group with them. Approximately 420 million people speak Spanish as their native language, and there are about 500 million speakers around the world. It is the most widely spoken Romance language, with 9/10 of its speakers living primarily in the Western Hemisphere. It is a fairly easy language to learn, which, in addition to the Spanish culture and beauty of the language, adds to the desire of foreigners to learn Spanish.
There are several dialects of the Spanish language, but Castilian is considered the true, original Spanish language. Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician dialects are common in Spain, while in South America there are five main dialect groups. The first group is used primarily in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Mexico. The second is in Peru, Chile and Ecuador. The third is in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The fourth group is the Argentine-Uruguayan-Paraguayan variant, which includes Eastern Bolivia. The fifth group is conventionally called Mountain Latin American Spanish. This language is spoken by the inhabitants of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela, Quito (the capital of Ecuador located at an altitude of 2800 m), the Peruvian mountain range and Bolivia.
1. Chinese
The Chinese language is a collection of very different dialects, and therefore is considered by most linguists as an independent language branch, consisting of separate, although related, language and dialect groups. In fact, Chinese is made up of many other languages. But at the same time, the hieroglyphs are the same. The writing of basic characters has become much simpler since the mid-20th century, after the reform in China. The unified Chinese language is called Mandarin or simply Mandarin, which is called Putonghua in China. The Chinese language has 10 dialect groups and seven main traditional dialects.
Many people consider Chinese to be the most difficult language to learn, more difficult than Japanese and Arabic. Mainly because it uses over 3,000 characters, which are noticeably more difficult to write than Japanese or Korean. The use of tones in a language also makes it difficult to learn. Despite all the difficulties of learning, Chinese remains one of the most promising and popular languages in the world. It is the mother tongue of 1.3 billion people and has more than 1.5 billion speakers. China is one of the strongest countries in many areas, one of the largest in terms of territory and the largest in population. Nowadays, the Chinese language is very popular and interesting, both for doing business and for understanding the most ancient culture on the planet.
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It is very difficult to calculate the total number of languages existing in the world, since there is no uniform approach to identifying dialects of the same language. Conventionally, there are about 7,000 languages, although their number is much larger.
From the entire set, we can highlight the most common languages in the world, which are included in our rating. They are spoken by approximately 66% of the total population of the planet.
113 million people
(29 countries) opens the ranking of the most popular languages in the world, and is native to 57 million Iranians. This is one of the languages that has a rich, centuries-old tradition, including popular masterpieces of world literature. The largest part of Persian speakers is concentrated in Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE and other countries. In addition, Persian is widely used in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Persian is spoken in approximately 29 countries around the world. The total number of speakers is about 113 million people.
140 million people
(10 countries) is one of the ten most popular languages on earth. Officially, it is distributed in 10 countries of the world, but as statistics show from these countries, there are many more. Among them are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Egypt and others. About 70 million people in Italy are native speakers of Italian, and approximately the same number of people speak it in other countries. Italian is recognized as the official language of the Vatican, Switzerland, San Marino, and is also a second language in some districts of Slovenia and Croatia. In total, about 140 million people speak Italian.
180 million people
(12 countries) occupies the eighth position in the ranking of the most common languages in the world. More than 80 million Germans are native speakers. In addition to the Germans, Austrians, Liechtensteiners and many Swiss are fluent in the language. It is one of the official languages of countries such as Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. In addition, German is one of the working languages of the European Union. It is spoken by the peoples of 12 countries around the world. It is owned by over 80 thousand Australians, 400 thousand Argentines, 1.5 million Brazilians, 225 thousand Italians, 430 thousand Canadians. In the USA, about 1 million Americans own it - there it is quite common and is studied in schools. In Russia, about 2.5 million residents speak German, among whom only 400 thousand are Germans. There are 180 million German speakers in the world.
240 million people
(12 countries) is native to the 203 million inhabitants of Portugal. It ranks eighth in the ranking as the most widely spoken language in the world. Portuguese speakers are called Lusophones. Portuguese is the official language of Brazil and is spoken by about 200 million Brazilians. It is also spoken by the peoples of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Macau and East Timor. Fewer native speakers can be found in countries such as the USA, France, Canada, Japan and Argentina. About 240 million people speak Portuguese. It is one of the most important languages due to Brazil's increased economic and global status.
260 million people
(16 countries) – one of the most popular and sought-after languages in the world, which is spoken in 16 countries. About 166 million people living in the Russian Federation speak Russian. This is one of the official languages of Belarus. Russian is also official in the countries of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Around the world, about 260 million people speak Russian. Among all the states that were part of the USSR, the largest number of Russian speakers are concentrated in Ukraine - about 40 thousand Ukrainians. There are about 730 thousand people in the United States whose native language is Russian. In Germany, the language is considered native, second or foreign for 350 thousand people. Russian is one of the international languages of the world.
280 million people
(51 countries) are among the most widespread and popular languages in the world. About 80 million French speakers are its speakers, and a total of 280 million people in the world can speak French. Apart from France, the largest number of Francophones are concentrated in Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, many African countries, and Luxembourg. French speakers can be found in 51 countries around the world. It is one of the six working languages of the UN and one of the most studied languages, after English.
320 million people
(60 countries) is the native language of 242 million inhabitants, and in total about 320 million people in the world speak it. Arabic is spoken by the peoples of Israel, Somalia, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Iraq, Egypt, the Comoros Islands and others. The language is the oldest in the world and is spoken in 60 countries. It is the third most difficult language to learn, after Chinese and Japanese. The language of the Koran is spoken by millions of Muslims in all corners of the planet.
550 million people
(31 countries) opens the top three. About 550 million people around the world speak it, and for 400 million it is their native language. Spanish is the official language of Mexico and is spoken by about 120 million Mexicans. In addition to Mexico, countries with significant Spanish-speaking populations include the United States (41 million people), Argentina (42 million people), Colombia (45 million people) and others. According to official data, the working language of the UN is most common in 31 states. Spanish is considered the easiest to learn.
1.3 billion people
(33 countries) – one of the most widespread languages on the entire planet. About 1.2 billion people in China own it, and more than 1.3 billion people worldwide own it. Chinese is one of the official languages of Singapore and Taiwan, as well as the official working languages of the UN. In Russia, the number of Chinese speakers is approximately 71 thousand people. In addition to its prevalence, Chinese is considered one of the most difficult languages in the world, which was listed in the Guinness Book of Records.
1.5 billion people
(99 countries) is the most popular language that covers 99 countries of the world. It is carried by 340 Englishmen, and 1.5 billion people own it throughout the world. The United States is home to the largest number of Anglophones, numbering approximately 215 million. In the UK, 58 million people speak English, Canada – 18 million, etc. It is one of the working languages of the UN. About 90% of all the world's information is stored in English, and about 70% of scientific publications are also published in this language. It is an international language of communication and the most studied in the world. According to some forecasts, in about 50 years every second inhabitant of the planet will speak English.
Did you know that the world's most popular language is spoken by 1/7 of the world's population? And this is not English at all! There are more than 7,000 languages in the world, but 10 of them are the most popular. Is there Russian in this top ten? The answer is under the cut...
No. 10 French - 150 million speakers
French is spoken in 53 countries around the world, the main one being France. About 150 million speakers in the world. French is the official language of many international organizations: the European Union, the International Olympic Committee, the UN, etc.
No. 9. Indonesian language - 200 million speakers
Indonesian is spoken in 16 countries, including Indonesia, and has working language status in East Timor. Indonesia is an island state with more than 13 thousand islands.
The Indonesian language evolved from Malay in the 20th century and is the most widely spoken dialect of the Malay language.
No. 8. Portuguese language - 240 million speakers
Portuguese is spoken in 12 countries around the world. Portuguese is the official language of Brazil.
In the 12th century, Portugal became independent from Spain and expanded its possessions around the world thanks to seafarers. Having founded colonies in Brazil, Angola, Macau, Mozambique, Venezuela and other countries, the Portuguese made their language one of the most common languages in the world. Portuguese is one of the official languages of the European Union and other international organizations.
No. 7. Bengali language - 250 million speakers
Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh and some states in India. For Bangladesh, Bengali is the official language, and for India it is the second most popular language.
No. 6. Russian - 260 million speakers
Russian is spoken in 17 countries around the world. Russian is the official language of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Widely distributed in Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia. To a lesser extent in countries that were part of the Soviet Union.
Russian is one of the six official languages of the UN, the most widely spoken language in Europe and the most widely spoken Slavic language in the world.
No. 5. Arabic - 267 million speakers
Arabic is spoken in 58 countries around the world. The largest number of Arabic speakers is concentrated in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.
The Arabic language is also spreading around the world thanks to the main book of Muslims - the Koran. Arabic became the sixth official language of the UN in 1974.
No. 4. Spanish - 427 million native speakers
Spanish is spoken in 31 countries around the world. The Spanish language originated in Spain in the Middle Ages and spread throughout the world during the Great Geographical Discoveries. Spanish is the official language of international organizations: the UN, the European Union, the Union of South American Nations, etc.
No. 3. Hindi - 490 million speakers
Hindi is spoken in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Many predict that Hindi will soon become the most spoken language in the world, overtaking China, but when or if this will happen remains unknown.
No. 2. English language - 600 million native speakers
English is the most widely spoken language in the world in terms of the number of countries it covers - 106 countries. English is the official and main language in Great Britain. Countries such as India, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and the Philippines use English as their official language, but in addition to it they also have their own official languages.
No. 1. Chinese language - 1.3 billion speakers
Chinese is the official language of the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and Singapore. It is spoken by over 1.3 billion people around the world and therefore ranks first on the list of the most widely spoken languages in the world.
Chinese is considered the most difficult language in the world. Chinese is one of the six official languages of the UN.
Have you ever wondered what the most common languages are in the world?
If you asked me about this, I would put Chinese first. After all, there are the most Chinese on our planet. Learn Chinese and you can freely communicate with every fifth inhabitant of the planet. It’s just a pity, they often live somewhere far away, and I don’t know what to talk about with the Chinese. Using the same principle, I would give second place to the second most populous country - India with its billion Indians. What language do they have there? Hindi? Although I have never come across any inscriptions in Hindi, this billion must somehow communicate with each other. Then comes the turn of the universal and ubiquitous English. He is in third place. Was it in vain that he was taught at school?! Then, probably, comes Spanish, because in addition to Spain, almost all of Central and South America also speak it. Well, the fifth place should definitely be occupied by ours, the Russian, great and mighty. Although it is spoken only here, we are, it seems, the largest state in the world, as we were taught while we consisted of 15 republics, and they still say now after all the republics fled from us. Again, Russian is one of the official languages of the UN.
Well, these five should probably be followed by German, which is spoken by half of Europe, and French, the language of diplomats, which, in addition to France and Belgium, is spoken by half of such a large country as Canada. Some Kazakh should also be in the top ten, since almost all of our Central Asian republics speak it with slight differences. Well, we shouldn’t forget Africa. What are they speaking? - Who can make them out in the dark? It seems like there is some kind of Afrikaans language? Let him also have a place in the top ten. Does it seem logical?
In fact, the places in the prevalence table are distributed slightly differently:
1. Chinese - first place guessed correctly. It is also the official language of Thailand and Singapore. Good to know. But there are so many dialects in Chinese and they are so different from each other that residents of two neighboring villages may not understand each other at all until they take up the hieroglyphs.
2. Arabic - unexpected surprise! We forgot about Arabic. Another official language of the UN, and in addition having official status in Egypt, Algeria, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia and many others countries.
3. Hindi - further so far everything is according to assumption
4. English
5. Spanish
6. Bengali - oops! Another language of India and the official language of Bangladesh, which not so long ago was part of India. Numerous Indians do not want to settle for just third place.
7. Portuguese - another surprise! In addition to little Portugal, as many know, it is also the official language of Brazil (5th largest in the world in terms of population), and, as few know, Angola, Mozambique, and several other African countries.
8. Russian - our “great and mighty” is only in 8th place.
9. Japanese - oh, we forgot about the small but densely populated Japan, only slightly inferior to Russia in terms of the number of inhabitants.
10. German - his turn has come. In addition to Germany, it has official status in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
11. French
12. Korean - who would have thought!
13. Javanese - and this language does not have the status of a state language at all, although it is spoken by most of the inhabitants of Indonesia, the 4th largest country in the world by population. The official language of Indonesia is Indonesian, one of the easiest languages to learn, however, it is not even among the thirty most common.
14. Telugu - have you heard of this one? The official language of one of the states of India, also common in Sri Lanka.
15. Marathi -- Hindus do not give up! The official language of several states of India.
16. Vietnamese
17. Tamil is another gift from the Indian people. The official language of the Indian state of Tamil, as well as Sri Lanka and Singapore. We got the word “catamaran” from this language, which literally means “tied logs.”
18. Italian is the language of Italy, the Vatican, Switzerland and San Marin, one of the six official languages of the UN.
19. Turkish - language of Turkey and Cyprus
20. Urdu - it is spoken by 7 percent of the population of Pakistan, as well as the population of several other Indian states where it has official status.
Further after this twenty places are distributed as follows: Punjabi (India), Ukrainian, Gujarati (India), Thai (Thailand), Polish, Malayalam (India), Kannada (India), Oriya (India), Burmese (Burma, which is now called Myanmar), Azerbaijani, Farsi (also Persian, the language of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Sundanese (Indonesia), Pashto (Afghanistan), Romanian (Romania, Moldova), Bhojpuri (India, Nepal).
Please note that among the 35 most common languages of the world there is no Afrikaans (which, by the way, is very similar to Portuguese) or Kazakh, not a single Scandinavian language, no Yiddish with Hebrew, Tatar, Czech, Hungarian, which we encounter quite often, but there is a good half of India's 23 official languages.
Here's another interesting table. What is characteristic is that the number of websites in Russian is the second in the world. The first and undisputed leader is of course English.
According to various estimates, there are up to 7,000 languages in the world, but only a few dozen of them have global significance or are used officially. Below is a table of the world's major languages, with data on the number of native speakers, the number of countries in which the language is an official language, the percentage of websites that use these languages, and the total contribution of native speakers to global GDP.
1.3 billion people
This unique language, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most difficult, became the official state language in the PRC, Singapore and Taiwan. It is the working language of the UN. In total, there are more than 1.3 billion of its speakers, living mainly in Southeast Asia. This is precisely the popularity that the historical language of the Han people, who are the main language in China, has achieved over thousands of years. Chinese is one of the oldest languages on the planet. The first information about its existence appeared in the 4th-11th centuries BC. in fortune-telling inscriptions made on the bones of animals for sacrifice.
Interestingly, you can say hello in Chinese by saying "nihao", and say goodbye by saying "zaizen"
Spanish language 450 million people
It is considered the second most popular language in the world. Today there is no exact information about how many people on the planet speak Spanish. According to the roughest estimates, the number of speakers has already exceeded 450 million people. They inhabit almost all countries, including the USA, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the territory of Gibraltar. This language has a second name - Castilian, derived from the kingdom of Castile, where this language group, which belongs to the Romance, originated. Chronologically, Spanish began to take shape in the 3rd century BC. and received its widespread distribution in the era of navigation, the development of trade and foreign relations. Today it is the official language of the UN.
Interestingly, the greeting in Spanish would sound like this: "Hola!", but farewell - how "Adyos!"
400 million people
It is an international language of communication and is recognized as the official state language in many countries of the world - the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Malta. There are more than 400 million native speakers, and even more people speak English - approximately one billion. English belongs to the Germanic language group. And for many centuries it has maintained its reputation as the most sought-after on the planet. This is partly associated with the colonial policy of Great Britain, during which many continents came under the country's subordination.
And now in every corner of the planet such words as "Hello"(hello) and "Good Bye"(Goodbye).
260 million people
This is, without exaggeration, the most musical language on the planet, since words in it are distinguished by duration and vocalism. Hindi is one of the most ancient languages. However, it is not known exactly when it arose. Approximate data also exists regarding the number of native speakers - there are more than 260 million of them in the world. At the same time, Hindi is recognized as the official language in India, partly in Fiji, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Hindi has incorporated both local dialects and has Arabic and Persian roots.
By the way, in Hindi, farewell and greeting can sound the same - "Namaste!", which literally means an abstract wish for all the best.
240 million people
This language is now spoken by more than 240 million people in the world. In addition, Arabic became one of the official languages of the UN General Assembly in Israel, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somaliland, Somalia, and the Comoros Islands. It is recognized as a state language in absolutely all Arab countries, because the Holy Quran is written in classical Arabic. By its origin, Arabic is considered almost the most archaic representative of the Semitic language branch and the Afroasiatic language family.
Like many centuries ago, Arabs greet each other with the phrase "Assailam alaikum", and in parting they say - "Mea assaylam".
Portuguese 203 million people
In terms of its popularity and distribution in countries around the world, it is not inferior to Spanish. Now this is the state recognized language of Angola, Portugal, Brazil, East Timor, Macau, Princely, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome, Mozambique. The number of Portuguese speakers has exceeded 203 million people; in total, there are now more than 300 million people speaking it on the planet. Despite its progressiveness, Portuguese, in comparison with the closely related Spanish, is much more archaic and conservative, because the language supposedly originated earlier than the 8th century BC. And many linguistic cultures, including Arabic, left their mark on it.
The Portuguese say hello like this: "Bon Dia!", and when they want to say “Goodbye” they say - "A te avishta!".
193 million people
Bengali has received official status in West Bengal and Bangladesh. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The history of the origin of the Bengali language stretches back to the 10th-12th centuries and is associated primarily with the division of Bengal. This left its mark on the language vocabulary, the majority of which are words in Sanskrit.
What’s interesting is that Bengalis say hello and goodbye in the same way, saying just one word - "nomoskar".
Russian language 137 million people
The most widespread language in terms of geography of use, which is the eighth in the world in terms of the number of speakers and the fifth in the number of speakers. In pure numbers, this is about 260 million people. Russian belongs to the eastern group of Slavic languages. And today it is among the workers at UN meetings, since it is recognized as a global world language. Now Russian has also become the second most popular language on the Internet. In Russia, it is Russian that is recognized as the state language, and in other countries - Belarus, Moldova and partly in South Ossetia it is considered official. Modern Russian is the result of the influence of some East Slavic languages and dialects, multiplied by Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic languages.
Japanese language 125 million people
The most mysterious language, because its genetic roots have not yet been established by scientists. Its main feature lies in its original writing. This language is native to 125 million people. According to one of the most famous versions, the Japanese language has Altai roots and took root at a time when the Altaians subjugated the Japanese islands. This is approximately 3rd century BC.
The sounds of words in Japanese are unique. So, the greeting looks like "oh" or "cannitiva", but the Japanese say goodbye like this - "Saoonara".
Javanese 100 million people
Javanese closes the list of the most common languages. A paradoxical story has happened with this language. Despite being spoken by more than 100 million people and by the majority of Indonesians, it has never received its official state status. In addition, it is also considered the most widespread Austronesian language. It is used by the Javanese living on the island of Java. It is studied in schools during lessons by primary school students; newspapers, magazines and television and radio programs are published on it.