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This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect . For example, Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages, but each includes several mutually unintelligible varieties , and so they are sometimes considered language families instead.
Today, Indo-European languages are spoken by billions of native speakers across all inhabited continents, [73] the largest number by far for any recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of speakers according to Ethnologue , 10 are Indo-European: English , Hindustani , Spanish , Bengali , French , Russian ...
Bengali: Bangladesh [16] ... Namibia (Afrikaans, German, and Oshiwambo are spoken regionally) [38] Nauru ... second most spoken Indian Language) Andaman and Nicobar ...
With about 226 million native and about 300 million total speakers worldwide, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages, ranked sixth in the world, [141] [142] and is also used a lingua franca among other ethnic groups and tribes living within and around the Bengal region.
Conversely, many commonly accepted languages, including German, Italian and English, encompass varieties that are not mutually intelligible. [1] While Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centred on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors consider its mutually unintelligible varieties separate languages. [3]
The German language area is characterized by a range of different dialects. [12] There is a written and spoken standard language but there are also large differences in the usage of the standard and the local dialects. [12] The flight and expulsion of Germans broke down the isolation of dialect areas.
Germanic languages and main dialect groups in Europe after 1945. Germanic languages in the World. Countries and sub-national entities where one or more Germanic languages are spoken. Dark Red: First language; Red: Official or Co-Official language, Pink: Spoken by a significant minority as second language.
A language that uniquely represents the national identity of a state, nation, and/or country and is so designated by a country's government; some are technically minority languages. (On this page a national language is followed by parentheses that identify it as a national language status.) Some countries have more than one language with this ...