major languages

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major languages There are more than 5000 languages in the world, 845 of them in India alone. The tables below give the approximate numbers of native speakers (their ‘mother tongue’) and the populations of countries where the language has official status.

Language

Millions

Native speakers

Chinese

1,070

Mandarin

864

English

443

Hindi

352

Spanish

341

Russian

293

Arabic

197

Bengali

184

Portuguese

173

Malay-Indonesian

142

Japanese

125

French

121

German

118

Urdu

92

Punjabi

84

Korean

71

Official populations

English

1,420

Chinese

1,070

Hindi

800

Spanish

290

Russian

275

French

220

Arabic

190

Portuguese

185

Bengali

177

Malay

165

Japanese

140


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