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Top World Languages

We have a list of the top 52 world languages by estimated number of native speakers. How many can you guess?
According to Ethnologue (2019) via Wikipedia. I made some common sense modifications.
Chinese and Hindustani languages need to be guessed separately
Quiz by
Quizmaster
Featured Quiz
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Last updated: December 28, 2019
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First submittedFebruary 22, 2012
Times taken768,361
Average score38.5%
Rating4.91
Quiz and answer stats >>
Friends stats >>
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#
Language
918 m
Mandarin
480 m
Spanish
379 m
English
341 m
Hindi
> 275 m
Arabic
221 m
Portuguese
228 m
Bengali
154 m
Russian
128 m
Japanese
125 m
Punjabi
90.2 m
German
(inc. Bavarian)
83.1 m
Marathi
82.0 m
Telugu
#
Language
81.4 m
Wu
79.4 m
Turkish
77.3 m
Korean
77.2 m
French
76.0 m
Vietnamese
75.0 m
Tamil
73.1 m
Cantonese
68.6 m
Urdu
68.3 m
Javanese
64.8 m
Italian
> 59 m
Malay /
Indonesian
56.4 m
Gujarati
52.8 m
Persian
#
Language
52.2 m
Bhojpuri
50.1 m
Min Nan
48.2 m
Hakka
46.9 m
Jin
43.9 m
Hausa
43.6 m
Kannada
39.7 m
Polish
37.8 m
Yoruba
37.3 m
Xiang
37.1 m
Malayalam
34.5 m
Odia
33.9 m
Maithili
32.9 m
Burmese
#
Language
32.4 m
Sundanese
31.8 m
Pashto
27.3 m
Ukrainian
27.0 m
Igbo
25.1 m
Uzbek
24.6 m
Sindhi
24.3 m
Romanian
23.6 m
Tagalog
23.1 m
Dutch
22.1 m
Gan
21.9 m
Amharic
20.7 m
Magahi
20.7 m
Thai
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101 Recent Comments
Quizmaster
+28
Level ∞
Nov 29, 2022
Common sense modifications include grouping the various dialects of Arabic together and grouping Bavarian with German.
cherrell410
+8
Level 42
Jun 19, 2020
half of these i typed and it didnt take them
Froststar101
+17
Level 73
Oct 19, 2021
I love this comment because it makes no sense.
aJPuser
+4
Level 50
Mar 22, 2024
it does make sense
CambodianQuizzer
+5
Level 74
Aug 17, 2020
Heh. I get the logo, it was in the Bible that stated that they all spoke different languages after all that quarreling, since they didn't understand what they're saying.
LegoBuilderOne
+1
Level 53
Aug 6, 2025
...logo?
ooftownroad
+1
Level 67
Oct 9, 2025
thumbnail
Tyler28
+2
Level 14
Aug 28, 2020
I typed in "Chinese" and "Catalan"
Cobby
+1
Level 56
Sep 12, 2020
Oh wow I didn't miss anything but the Asian languages what a surprise lol
Asterlan
+1
Level 57
Oct 4, 2020
Can you accept Amhara and Maratha?
Yrk
+17
Level 57
Oct 17, 2020
"Including Bavarian" is silly.
salvadoran
+12
Level 62
Feb 7, 2021
Bavarian is not a language of its own, it's only a dialect. Either take em all (Frisian, Alemann, Cologne-ian, Rhine-ian, Saxonian etc pp) or leave em all...
JesseFromThe6
+4
Level 70
Mar 7, 2021
The linked source has Oromo at 24 million speakers. I don't understand why it hasn't been included on this list.
Jaguin
+1
Level 14
Oct 10, 2025
native speakers
Ell1994
+2
Level 45
Mar 26, 2021
What about Azerbaijani? There are more than 50 million native speakers
HydratedMite
+2
Level 68
Mar 5, 2024
I doubt that... source?
pieman
+1
Level 57
Feb 4, 2025
he's wrong there's only about 20-30 million native Azerbaijani speakers, almost all of which live in Iran or azerbaijan
SpartanLlama
+1
Level 77
Jun 1, 2021
I feel bad because we were learning about Hausa Igbo and Yoruba for AP Comparative Government and Politics
IamTheSam
+2
Level 46
Aug 12, 2021
How does jetpunk define a native speaker? Does it include people who speak a second or third language fluently, or only those born to it?
eppek
+1
Level 67
Jun 9, 2022
Source
realhenryb
+2
Level 98
Sep 13, 2021
Missed my own first language and the wife's as well. Just figured there weren't enough of either of us to make it on the list but now I feel quite dumb
WannabeSwede
+1
Level 27
Sep 25, 2021
suprised there is no nordic/scandinavian languages like swedish
ooftownroad
+1
Level 67
Feb 28, 2025
The countries are too small
Canuckler
+3
Level 57
Jun 7, 2025
*Populations of countries. They are some of the largest by area in Europe.
5708skier
+6
Level 54
Sep 28, 2021
Shoutout to the 2% of people who missed Spanish.
thegeneral823
+3
Level 25
Nov 14, 2021
i got the badge lets go
mrzli86
+3
Level 98
Jan 20, 2022
and Croatian..:)
Melikesanmarino
+4
Level 59
Jan 23, 2022
WHAT ABOUT SWAHILI
SirPhilippines
+4
Level 73
Jan 9, 2023
WHAT ABOUT IT????
kogatora
+2
Level 95
Oct 8, 2025
AI answer: While Swahili has an estimated 200 million total speakers, only about 5 million are native speakers
Willuna
+1
Level 56
Mar 24, 2022
yo i swear i guessed yoruba
swordfern
+7
Level 31
Apr 2, 2022
This quiz highlighted my ignorance of world languages. Thank you!
daksh13
+1
Level 24
May 13, 2022
So many Indian languages here

India is definitely leading

Lemondance
+1
Level 68
Sep 30, 2022
Got Yoruba, Igbo, Amharic... but forgot Japanese this time around. How.
yanis0312
+2
Level 61
Nov 19, 2022
Azeri languages is spoken by more then 30M
Nickelz
+1
Level 68
Dec 14, 2022
This is incorrect.
Jacktheguy
+6
Level 93
Jan 9, 2023
Well you certainly proved us wrong with that comment...
Azerk
+1
Level 64
Dec 21, 2022
How did I miss Dutch but get Jin?
gusstave
+6
Level 15
Jan 9, 2023
Zulu -> 27,8M but not present
rhinobaby
+4
Level 72
Jan 9, 2023
French is spoken as a first language by way more than 77 million people. That's such an absurdly low figure. More Jetpunk bias as usual I guess.
ddddan
+2
Level 85
May 22, 2023
🥹
Ainmclarach
+5
Level 69
Aug 31, 2023
The quiz only counts native speakers.
MistralW
+1
Level 65
Aug 13, 2025
Yes. So, you can add first the population of France, 68 million, of which you can estimate that the majority speak french as a first language. Then you can add 7.8 million native french speakers in Canada, 1.5 million people from Mali, 12 million from cameroon, also 12 million from the DRC, and others I am forgetting, but that is already way more than 70 ish million native french speakers.
vazilega
+1
Level 29
Jan 9, 2023
According to Wikipedia there are in the world 321 million people speaking french, not 77 !
LAlphy
+6
Level 65
Jan 10, 2023
not natively
LAlphy
+1
Level 65
Jan 10, 2023
i always forget bhojpuri
aJPuser
+5
Level 50
Mar 22, 2024
thx to ur comment i didnt
HydratedMite
+1
Level 68
Apr 3, 2024
Yeah, no state to associate it with, Magahi too
WonkyWater36
+1
Level 24
Jan 15, 2023
Igbo, Sudanese, Uzbek and Amharic I refuse to believe are more spoken than Swahili. There are roughly 71-135 million Swahili speakers, it is approximately the 13th most spoken language in the world.
Fianchetto
+3
Level 77
Mar 29, 2023
It's native speakers and Swahili is more of a lingua franca. And also it's Sundanese, completely different.
Pharley
+1
Level 75
Mar 2, 2025
The person qualifies as a "native speaker" of a language by being born and immersed in the language during youth, in a family in which the adults shared a similar language experience to the child.
Canuckler
+2
Level 57
Jun 7, 2025
Sundanese, not Sudanese. They are two completely different things, and Sudanese is not a language, it’s the dialect of Arabic spoken in Sudan. It’s like Javanese and Japanese, similar names, very different linguistic concepts.
NathanJifi
+1
Level 20
Feb 13, 2023
Guy I'm sorry but the numbers about french speakers are totally wrong just in Rd Congo who's a french country there is around 100 millions people
brandybuck96
+5
Level 83
Apr 21, 2023
But most French speakers in African countries speak it as a second language, and not everyone in countries with French as an official language actually speaks French
LuckyCat
+1
Level 71
Mar 28, 2023
Can you please accept Chinese for Mandarin!
Dollyfroggy
+1
Level 63
Oct 6, 2023
Please read the caveats.
platypus17
+2
Level 36
Apr 21, 2023
Forgot Korean and speak Korean
SpartanLlama
+1
Level 77
Aug 4, 2023
Couldn't spell Malayalam
LoganP25
+1
Level 74
Aug 27, 2023
Is there a version of this that's not just native languages (e.g. includes second languages)?
ooftownroad
+1
Level 67
Sep 26, 2023
Tried Fula, and when that didnt work, didnt try hausa.
ooftownroad
+2
Level 67
Sep 26, 2023
and where would Fula be anyway?
JustAZoomer
+2
Level 48
Dec 16, 2023
I know, I know, dialects differ, but couldn't we consider Chinese one language and make the quiz a thousand times easier?
DreamHorizon123
+6
Level 47
Dec 20, 2023
As a Chinese, I'd say that Cantonese, Hakka and Wu can indeed be seen as languages for they have unique words, characters, grammers and sounds (what is Wu remains to be discussed), but Xiang, Jin, Min Nan and Gan are definitely dialects, for they just pronounce a little bit different from Mandarin, and they don't have unique grammers and characters. Name of these dialects are also typical Mandarin pinyin. Compared with them, Chuan (Sichuan) dialect and Shaanxi dielect are no less different from Mandarin.

Just a little suggestion❤

Vlastimir
+4
Level 72
Jan 21, 2024
Serbocroatian?
CharlieBlue
+1
Level 23
Feb 26, 2024
Dam! I just can't spell Amharic! It's ok if you don't remember all the Chinese/Indian regional languages, but l just don't quite know how l remember Tagalog and Nigeria's big three tongues yet forgot Japanese, Javanese, Korean and Ukrainian... Pressure, pressure.
CharlieBlue
+3
Level 23
Feb 26, 2024
Was also surprised by the exclusion of Swahili.
VincentCanQuiz
+1
Level 56
Mar 14, 2024
I thought 26/52 was bad until I saw how much people got that many right.
liamjwilkinson
+8
Level 44
Apr 30, 2024
You missed Nauruan! It has over 1 billion native speakers
SuperGrouper
+2
Level 46
Nov 1, 2024
very humorous... I giggled profusely!
teejbx2
+1
Level 43
May 22, 2024
dari should count as pashto
HydratedMite
+3
Level 68
Oct 11, 2024
completely different languages
cyceryx
+3
Level 61
May 23, 2024
27/52! very proud of getting pashto, uzbek, and amharic, especially as an american :3
ChickenGuy
+2
Level 55
Sep 12, 2024
29/52 I give up, without cheats I cant make it past 30
TheLonelyAlula
+1
Level 57
Aug 4, 2024
Is there a version of this quiz that includes L2, L3, etc speakers?
JamesK2477
+2
Level 49
Oct 16, 2024
Google tells me swahili has 125m speakers. Any reason this isn't included?
Quizmaster
+8
Level ∞
Oct 16, 2024
Yes.
TomatosRaafatos
+3
Level 75
Feb 28, 2025
Which is? Even discounting non-native speakers, wouldn't the number still be higher than 20 million? You also omitted Oromo, which according to Ethnologue via this Wikipedia page (same source you cited), has more native speakers than Amharic.
ooftownroad
+5
Level 67
Feb 28, 2025
If you're not going to provide an actual answer don't bother answering the question
Pharley
+1
Level 75
Mar 2, 2025
The person qualifies as a "native speaker" of a language by being born and immersed in the language during youth, in a family in which the adults shared a similar language experience to the child.
HuseynM5
+1
Level 50
Nov 24, 2024
Why does Azerbaijani language is not included on the list?
Ilhan
+4
Level 66
Dec 6, 2024
there are 24 million native speakers of Azerbaijani, 45.5 million native speakers of Oromo, 24 million native speakers of Somali, 25 million native speakers of Malagasy, 21 million speakers of Lingala and 26 million native speakers of Kurdish.
IvoRobotnik
+2
Level 50
Dec 18, 2024
I have to point out that Hindi and Urdu aren't separate languages, just different registers/dialects of Hindustani. Having them separate would be like counting American English as a totally separate language from Canadian English.
TomatosRaafatos
+4
Level 75
Feb 28, 2025
Not exactly, because Canadian English isn't written using a totally different writing system than American English, and the difference between them in vocabulary is negligible. However, you're right, linguists generally consider Hindi and Urdu two registers of the same language. Some sources, like the one used here, still separate them due to the writing system and vocabulary differences, but also mainly for political reasons in my opinion. Like Max Weinreich once said, "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy."
ColinShadow
+3
Level 55
Jan 7, 2025
Me: (looking at comments) Wow how do you miss Japanese.....

(takes quiz)

Me: (after looking at missed answers) Hmm I missed Russian... and... JAPANES-

Noivern
+7
Level 65
Jan 19, 2025
i don’t think you’re supposed to read the comments before taking a quiz…
ColinShadow
+1
Level 55
Feb 28, 2025
Lmao valid point though

I think I got some of the order wrong :-)

Amin1992
+1
Level 36
Feb 23, 2025
I got 35/50

Odia.....

CapeIndependence
+3
Level 44
Feb 28, 2025
Bahasa, or at least Bahasa Indonesia, should be accepted for Indonesian.
Raissac
+1
Level 37
Mar 19, 2025
Can anyone explain why it isn't? I'm very confused
thecrow
+2
Level 55
Jun 16, 2025
well, it would be like accepting "language" for english, since that's all that bahasa means
ooftownroad
+1
Level 67
Oct 9, 2025
Bahasa Indonesia is the language's common name in Indonesian technically, so it really should be accepted
AlexanderdG
+3
Level 54
Mar 2, 2025
Hm, Serbo-croatian should qualify for the list.
eurotec
+1
Level 55
May 29, 2025
I tried Sindh and missed Sindhi.. perhaps accept Sindh too? But anyways, great quiz anyway.

This is a surprisingly difficult quiz.

as3be14
+3
Level 31
Jun 9, 2025
shouldn't bengali and portuguese be swapped?
sumguy
+1
Level 87
Nov 17, 2025
Yes.
Isssa
+1
Level 50
Aug 5, 2025
I missed Italian. And I speak Italian.
iamsushiiii
+1
Level 39
Sep 3, 2025
Kannada has about 80 million speakers pls update it as it is the oldest living language on earth
Churning
+1
Level 46
Dec 4, 2025
*Tamil is the oldest living language
Jugler
+1
Level 60
Sep 7, 2025
why you mention Bavarian? xDDD
Basaball
+1
Level 49
Oct 15, 2025
I definitely didn’t forget Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese… went through a world map in my head and of course I forgot all of east Asia.
LooserFromIndia
+1
Level 45
Nov 17, 2025
Yeah magahi is also more commonly known as magadhi? Please accept it too.

Being indian definitely helped me in finishing this quiz within 1 try.

Imagine people getting confused sundanese for (Sudan)ese which isn't even a language, kannada for Canadian 🤣 and how many more

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