World Languages

Languages: Mandarin Chinese 12.44%, Spanish 4.85%, English 4.83%, Arabic 3.25%, Hindi 2.68%, Bengali 2.66%, Portuguese 2.62%, Russian 2.12%, Japanese 1.8%, Standard German 1.33%, Javanese 1.25% (2009 est.)
note: percents are for "first language" speakers only; the six UN languages - Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian, and Spanish (Castilian) - are the mother tongue or second language of about half of the world's population, and are the official languages in more than half the states in the world; all told, there are about 6,900 languages spoken in the world

Definition: This entry provides a rank ordering of languages starting with the largest and sometimes includes the percent of total population speaking that language.

Source: CIA World Factbook - Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of February 21, 2013