Language is the main way people communicate, and this article presents the most popular, widespread and popular languages of the peoples of the world.
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14. French
Although this language is not among the ten most common languages in the world, in our small presentation it takes an honorable 14th place, opening our rating. The French language, in addition to being one of the most common, is also one of the most beautiful languages of the world, which is often called the language of love, just like the capital of France, the city of Paris, is called the city of love. This language is included in the Romance group of languages, has the status of an official language in 29 countries of the world, in particular in 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, former French colonies. According to some reports, about 250 million people around the world speak French, but it is native to 75 million.
Many people are studying 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 someone, more difficult for someone, but many agree that, in terms of learning difficulty, it is somewhere between German and Spanish.
13. Korean
Korean is the native language of approximately 78 million people, is official language South Korea and North Korea, partly distributed in China, Japan, the USA and Russia. This language is not very popular and not many people study it in other countries. Nevertheless, in terms of the number of native speakers, it takes an honorable 13th place in our ranking of the most widely spoken languages on earth. Most researchers consider it to be isolated languages, that is, languages that are not included in any known language family. However, some believe that Korean may be part of a hypothetical Altai family. According to some linguists, Korean may have some degree of relationship with Japanese.
Some people find Korean easier to learn than Japanese and Chinese, but Korean grammar is still harder in their opinion. Chinese and Japanese are studied mainly for romantic reasons, because of the desire to get closer to the culture of the East and learn the centuries-old history of the region. The Korean language is taught mainly for earnings.
12. German
German is the most popular and demanded 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, however German is considered much more difficult than English, as well as some other languages.
Beginners to learn a language are frightened by words that are 2-3 times longer than their counterparts in other languages, many tenses, conjugated in different ways, correct and Irregular Verbs, the presence of a certain and indefinite article, not always coinciding genders of nouns. Nevertheless, the German language cannot be called one of the most difficult languages of the peoples of the world, since with the proper approach it is studied without special problems like any other European language.
11. Javanese
There are so many languages in the world, but not many of our citizens, in principle, know about the existence of this language, not to mention the fact that the Javanese language is one of the most common. This language is spoken by about 105 million people and is spoken mainly on the Indonesian island of Java and a few neighboring islands. It is the largest Austronesian language in terms of the number of speakers. This is a fairly developed language that has a rich literary tradition with different genres of poetry and prose, many varieties of theatrical genres. Despite the fact that almost half of the population of Indonesia actively uses Javanese in everyday life, it, like all other existing languages in the country, does not have an 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 the Jats, an ethnic group in India. The language is spoken in the eastern part of Pakistan, as well as in some parts of India. There are about 112 million Punjabi speakers in the world. About 105 million native speakers live in Pakistan and India. While the rest lives in countries such as the UK, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, etc. Among the features of the language, one can single out 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. For Indo-European languages it `s very unusual.
9. Japanese
Ninth on our list of the most common and popular languages in the world takes another language from Asia. The native speakers of this language are 130 million people. The Japanese language 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 language of the country. 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 a little over time in the development of the language.
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, the most commonly used are about two and a half thousand hieroglyphs, while in China, at least 3,500 hieroglyphs are used. The Japanese language is simpler when 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 main one, it is used for purely Japanese words, grammatical marking, and sentence endings. Katakana is another Japanese alphabet and is used for foreign words and names.
8. Russian
Russia is one of the most important countries in the world, occupying a vast territory inhabited by many peoples. Rich, vibrant and saturated culture and most beautiful cities The country attracts 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 widely spoken Slavic language in the world and the most widely spoken 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. Russian is chosen when they want to get to know Russian culture, when there are Russian friends with whom you want to speak their language, when you move to live or work in Russia. Basically, they study the Russian language because they like it, like, in general, any other language. You cannot learn a language through force, it must be interesting and attractive, there must be a desire to learn it.
7. Bengali
The Bengali language is one of the languages of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is widely spoken and is the official language in Bangladesh and India. There are about 190 million people for whom it is their mother tongue 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 corresponds to the pronunciation. The writing of the 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 millennium, as evidenced by both the dating of the first literary monuments and the data of linguistic reconstruction.
6. Portuguese
Portuguese is the native language of approximately 230 million people, with a total of approximately 260 million speakers. 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 complexity to Spanish, French and Italian, as it is in the same group of Romance languages with them. There are two main variants of the language, European Portuguese and Brazilian, as well as a number of varieties in Africa and Asia, differing from each other at the level of phonetics, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. In African countries, the European version of Portuguese is used with big amount lexical borrowings from African languages.
5. Arabic
Arabic is spoken in 60 countries of the world, such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt and Libya, and in 26 of them it is official. One of the working languages of the UN and belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasian family of languages. The number of native speakers exceeds 245 million people, and the total number of people who speak it is more than 350 million. Arabic plays great importance in political and economic spheres, in energy and security. This is a very popular language and people who know it will always be able to find Good work. 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
This language is one of the 23 official languages of India, and is also spoken in Pakistan and Fiji. The mother tongue is spoken by 260 million people, and total number Hindi speakers is approximately 400 million people. At a colloquial level, the Hindi language is almost indistinguishable from the other official language of India, Urdu. The last one is different a large number Arabic and Persian loanwords, as well as those that use Arabic alphabet, while traditional writing Hindi - Devanagari syllabary. English is one of the official languages of India, but, nevertheless, according to some reports, Hindi is quite a promising language and it may become one of the most popular languages by 2050.
3. English
The top three of our list of the most popular and common languages opens English, which is the most common language to learn as a foreign language. This language is native to 350 million people, and the total number of speakers of it is about 1.4 billion people. English is one of the working languages of the UN, the official language of Australia, New Zealand, the USA, England, Canada and some other countries. English in modern world plays huge role in many areas of life from politics and business, to culture and travel. This is due to the colonial policy british empire in the 19th century and the world 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 has been taught in schools for almost primary school like a foreign one.
2. Spanish
In second place is a very beautiful language, which is official in Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba and most countries. South America. Spanish is very similar to Italian and Portuguese, as it is in the same Romance group with them. relatives Spanish is considered by approximately 420 million people, and there are about 500 million people who speak it all over the world. It is the most widely spoken Romance language, with 9/10 of its speakers living predominantly in the Western Hemisphere. It's pretty easy language to study, which in addition to the Spanish culture and the 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 to be the real, original Spanish language. Spain has Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician dialects, while South America has 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 in Peru, Chile and Ecuador. Third 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 conditionally called Highland Latin American Spanish. This language is spoken by the inhabitants of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, belonging to the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela, Quito (located at an altitude of 2800 m, the capital of Ecuador), 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, albeit related, language and dialect groups. Actually, Chinese consists of many other languages. But at the same time, the hieroglyphs are one. Since the middle of the 20th century, after the reform in China, the writing of basic hieroglyphs has become much more simplified. 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 consider Chinese the most difficult language to learn, more difficult than Japanese and Arabic. Mainly because it uses more than 3,000 characters, which are noticeably more difficult to write than Japanese or Korean. The use of tones in the language also makes it difficult to learn. Despite all the difficulties of learning, Chinese remains one of the most promising and sought-after languages in the world. It is native to 1.3 billion people and has over 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 terms of population. Nowadays, the Chinese language is very popular and interesting, both for doing business and for understanding. ancient culture on the planet.
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We are all used to the fact that the second foreign language must be English. The entire IT industry, all areas of science, as well as most foreign forums are held at English language. At present, knowing English, great opportunities are opening up for a person for his development. We are used to what exactly English is international language.
But few people know that in addition to English, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and French are also international languages - these languages are the official languages of the UN.
But what is the most widely spoken language in the world? This question was answered by "Ethnologue" - the most famous guide to the world's languages, published annually since 1951. According to the results of research by specialists from Ethnologue and the supplement released in 2016, the site has prepared the twenty most common languages in the world.
1. First place Chinese. This language is spoken by 1.284 billion people. The language is used by 37 countries of the world, the main country is of course China.
2. In second place, as it is not surprising, Spanish. Thanks to the active colonial activity of Spain in the Middle Ages, Spanish is the official language in almost all countries of South and Central America. Spanish is the mother tongue of 437 million people in 31 countries.
3. English language takes only third place. 372 million people speak this language in 106 countries of the world.
4. Arabic language occupies the fourth position. 295 million people speak this language in 57 countries around the world. Most major countries, this Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Syria.
5. Top five Hindi, from India. Despite the fact that almost 1.3 billion people live in India, there are 447 common various languages, 2 thousand dialects. The most common of them is Hindi, which is spoken by only 260 million people.
Hindi. 6. bengali, 242 million people in 4 countries, the main carrier state is Bangladesh.
7. Portuguese, 219 million people in 13 countries, the main carrier state is Portugal.
8. Russian, 154 million people in 19 countries, the main carrier state is Russia.
9. Japanese, 128 million people in 2 countries, the main carrier state is Japan.
10. Punjabi(languages of the Indian West Punjab and adjacent areas of Pakistan), 119 million people in 6 countries, the main carrier state is Pakistan.
11. Javanese, 84.4 million people in 3 countries, the main carrier state is Indonesia.
12. Korean, 77.2 million people in 7 countries, the main carrier state is South Korea.
13. German, 76.8 million people in 27 countries, the main carrier state is Germany.
14. French, 76.1 million people in 53 countries, the main carrier state is France.
15. Telugu, 74.2 million people in 2 countries, the main carrier state is India.
16. Marathi, 71.8 million people, distributed mainly in India.
17. Turkish, 71.1 million people in 8 countries, the main carrier state is Turkey.
18. Urdu, 69.1 million people in 6 countries, the main carrier state is Pakistan.
19. Vietnamese, 68.1 million people in 3 countries, the main carrier state is Vietnam.
20. Tamil, 68.0 million people in 7 countries, the main carrier state is India.
Thus, in order for every third inhabitant of the earth to understand you, it is enough to know Chinese, Spanish and English. Despite everything, English still occupies a leading position among highly developed countries, but Chinese is already "sneaking on the heels."
It is difficult to say how many languages there are in the world. According to various experts, from 2 to 5-6 thousand. Most likely, it is simply impossible to count them, since there are a great many dialects and modifications of various languages. Some African tribes speak languages that no one in the neighboring village knows.
For example, in a country Papua New Guinea there are over 800 languages. It is believed that this is the largest figure in the world for a single country.
The UN has six official languages - English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic and Chinese.
The most commonly spoken languages are either Asian countries from large population(China, India, Indonesia), or the languages of countries that were once empires and had colonies all over the world (France, Spain, Great Britain).
10 Punjabi
- Used by 102 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 1.44%.
The language is official in India, and in Pakistan it has the status of a regional one in the province of Punjab. It is spoken by about half the population of Pakistan. The number of native speakers will grow, as the distribution area falls on regions with high level fertility.
9. Japanese
- Used by 125 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 1.9%.
Has an official status in Japan, native to 125 million, about 140 million people speak Japanese fluently.
8. Russian
- Used by 155 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 2.33%.
It has state status in the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus (together with Belarusian) and some unrecognized republics - Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia. It is also widely distributed in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and partially in other former republics of the Union.
7. Bengali
- Used by 205 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 3.11%.
Bengali official in the Republic of Bangladesh and widely used in India. It is spoken by over two hundred million inhabitants of the world.
6. Portuguese
- Used by 215-220 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 3.27%.
Portugal is the smallest country on this list, but the language is one of the most widely spoken. Portuguese, in addition to the homeland, is used in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique and a number of smaller countries in Africa and Asia.
5. Arabic
- Used by 295-300 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 4.43%.
Arabic has official status in 27 countries, including Israel and some non Arab countries Africa - Chad and Somalia. One of the most dynamically spreading languages in the world due to the high birth rate in the Arab countries.
- Used by 310-450 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 4.7%.
Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India out of 20 officially used in this state. The exact number of people using Hindi is as difficult to calculate as the population of India, according to various estimates, it is used from 260 to 490 million people.
3. English
- Used by 400 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 5.43%.
English is spoken in Great Britain, the USA, Australia, Canada, a number of African countries and other lands - in total about 75 territories around the world with the exception of South America. As a second language, it ranks first in terms of use - up to 1.5 billion people.
2. Spanish
- Used by 410 million people;
- The prevalence in the world is 6.15%.
More than 400 million people speak Spanish or Castilian. The largest countries are Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, and more than 35 million people speak it in the United States.
1. Mandarin Chinese (Mandarin Chinese)
- Used by 1 billion people;
- The prevalence in the world is 14.4%.
Northern Chinese (Mandarin Chinese) is the most widely spoken of the Chinese languages, with about a billion people speaking it. There is nothing surprising here, since the Chinese are the largest ethnic group in the world.
Human speech skills have evolved over many centuries. Until now, there is no reliable data that reveal the secrets of the origin speech communications. Language statistics show that some types of speech have long disappeared, while others are actively spreading and becoming in demand.
History of occurrence
The role of languages in the world is very great. They help people communicate. Today, more than 6 thousand types of speech are known. However, no one can say exactly how they appeared.
There are many theories about the origin of speech communications. Some believe that everything happened as a result of evolution. Others believe that such a skill was given by God. However, the available theories do not provide exhaustive answers to the questions. For example, evolutionists cannot explain how the simplification of speech communications occurred. After all, the most ancient languages (Latin, Sanskrit) are much more complicated than modern ones.
This pattern is contrary to the principles of the theory biological evolution. modern science about languages of the world among various versions most accepts the theory of gestures. According to scientists, people constantly developed and improved the sign system. Gestures began to be used, sounds were added in the process. but lexicon was not rich.
So, there are many versions - from creation by God to a sudden appearance. Each of them has the right to exist. But no one knows exactly what contributed to the spread of languages in the world.
Number of media
The statistics of languages has 6-7 thousand types of speech. Many of them speak only small part. Scientists classify types of speech into groups according to their characteristics. The similarity of languages implies the same sound, similar words. One of the main ones is the genealogical group.
The number of languages in the world is constantly decreasing. On average, one species disappears every two weeks. As a result, the number of forgotten languages is gradually increasing. What are the statistics of languages in the world? There are 80 languages for 80% of the world's population. The rest is distributed among the remaining inhabitants of the planet.
The uneven distribution of speech types among - threatens with complete disappearance. According to UNESCO, 50 types of speech are under threat in Europe alone. Globalization also contributes to the decline.
Most populous area by number of speakers different types speech - Papua (New Guinea). Many tribes live here. At the same time, the territory of the region is smaller in area than Ukraine. About 6 million people live in Papua. The statistics of languages has from 800 to 1000 dialects common among the tribes.
The most common
The most widespread is:
- Chinese- ranks first in the TOP-10, as it is used by 1.3 billion people in 35 countries. The Chinese language is one of the most ancient in the world. It has 85,568 characters. It is also considered the most difficult language in the world.
- English- the second most common. It is official in the UK, India, Canada, Ireland. It is in 1st place among the most popular languages in the world. It is used by about 600 million people in 106 countries. In terms of the number of words, he is also in the lead - 490 thousand. However, a person's vocabulary is no more than 60 thousand words. Knowledge of English in the modern world helps many to get a well-paid job. International business is also conducted on it.
- Hindi- takes the third place. Language statistics has 490 million native speakers in 4 countries.
- Spanish– the language is used in 31 countries. It is considered official in the European Union, the UN. Spanish is the easiest language in the world. It is spoken by about 437 million people.
- Arab– it is used by 290 million people in 58 countries. The Arabic language is rapidly spreading in the world thanks to the Quran. Until 1924, the Arabic alphabet was used in Kabardian. Today, its carriers are especially in demand on. Most energy negotiations do not get around this type of speech.
- Russian- the most popular in Russia and Europe. It is used by about 270 million people in 17 countries.
French is ranked 10th in the world. The number of speakers is 150 million people in 53 countries. It is also considered one of the most beautiful. The list shows how many languages are spoken in the world most of all.
Separate languages spread and become in demand in different countries peace. The main factors are political and economic influence, as well as ease of study. So they gradually become the international languages of the world. The graph shows what type of speech websites use on the Internet:
State standards
Among the official languages of the world, English occupies the first place. Official languages in other countries of the world:
The most ancient dialects
It is technically impossible to single out the most ancient of existing languages peace. They were used long before writing appeared on earth. List of the most ancient languages of the world (some are no longer used):
However, some scientists claim that the Pramir language is the founder of other types of speech on planet earth. Many have long gone out of use and exist only according to written monuments. They are called dead languages peace.
Latin, although not included in this list, is also one of the most ancient. Latin language It has a large number of fans in the world. They are trying to introduce the method of teaching Latin in different countries. As a result, its popularity is not decreasing.
From complex to simple
Many foreign languages come easily to people. However, studying other species requires a lot of effort and time. Sometimes it may take several years. Top 10 complex types speech։
- Basque- the dictionary contains about 500 thousand words. Due to its complexity, it was used by US cipher radio operators during the .
- Navajo- it is unique in that, in addition to vowels / consonants, it has 4 more tones (high, low, ascending, descending). As one of the most difficult types of speech, it was also used during.
- Tabasaran- one of the active state languages Dagestan. He is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.
- Eskimo(Wikipedia - Eskimo. ᐃᓄᐃᑦ) - as such, linguists do not distinguish. It provides 63 forms of the present tense. Apparently this applies to the entire Eskimo branch.
- Chippewa belongs to the Chippewa Indians. Has 6 thousand verb forms.
- Chinese- in order for a person to be able to read at least a little, it is necessary to learn how to draw 1500 hieroglyphs out of 85568.
- Finnish- has 15 cases and more than 100 conjugations. Verbs are also inflected like a noun. However, it is easy to pronounce.
- Kosinsky- there is a threat complete disappearance. It is spoken by 370,000 people in southern Africa.
- Abkhazian- In 1862, an alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet was created. It is also used in Turkey.
- Bale- it is used by the inhabitants of the Amazon basin. Here one word sometimes means a whole phrase.
Of the union republics of the USSR, Kazakh, Armenian, Russian and Persian can be called complex.
Study statistics foreign languages in the world shows that Spanish, English, French and Italian are among the most requested. At the same time, after English, German is often studied. It is usually used in business communication. Among the studied languages of the world, Russian is also recommended.
Turkish is also included in the list of the world's easiest languages. One of the new types of speech was Esperanto. It was created by the Warsaw ophthalmologist Lazar Markovich in 1887.
Unusual types of speech
To the most unusual languages world can be attributed to gestures. They are mostly used by people who are hard of hearing. In Iceland, sign language is official. Language statistics show that there are several types of such speech. For example, American and English are very different from each other.
There are also funny languages of the world. For example, chalkatongo-mixtek. There is no distinction between interrogative and affirmative proposals. The peculiarity of the berik (Papuan) is that when they say something, it is imperative to indicate where and when they did it. The phrase "I was in the store" in lordly will be "I was in the store after lunch."
What is the place of the Russian
Russian is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is also used as a working one - by the UN, UNESCO. It is included in the list of the richest languages in the world. However, not all native speakers use Russian words correctly.
This language is spoken in 17 countries of the world. It is considered state for Russians, Belarusians, Kirghiz, as well as residents of Ingushetia. In Kyrgyzstan, the language is used by about 48% of the population. Most of the technical terms in Ingush are borrowed from Russian. He along with Chechen language distributed in the North Caucasus. It ranks sixth in terms of the number of speakers.
What are the statistics of the Russian language in the world? There are about 270 million people who speak it. Of these, 137.5 million speakers live in Russia.
They also know Russian well - in Ukraine and Latvia. Language statistics show that 92% of Ukrainians and 81.2% of Lithuanians are fluent in Russian. Interesting Facts:
- The alphabet is similar to the Latin version.
- It has a word with three letters "E" - long neck.
- The English, to learn in Russian "I love you" use the phrase in English Yellow-blue bus.
- Originally Russian words beginning with the letter "A" do not exist.
The great importance of the Russian language in the world lies not only in its wide distribution. It is also applied in international relations. Great literary works make the Russian language even more popular in the world. This contributes to the spread of the culture of the Russian people.
Study Methods
What is the most best language peace? No one can give a definite answer. Language statistics highlights only the most popular of them. One of the most popular is English.
There are also different methods to study them. You can study with a teacher or study on your own. The main thing is to practice every day. There are many that provide the necessary training materials. Audio courses are also sold to help solve pronunciation problems. And by country it will only consolidate the knowledge gained.
