In 2025, there were around 1.53 billion people worldwide who spoke English either natively or as a second language, slightly more than the 1.18 billion Mandarin Chinese speakers at the time of survey. Hindi and Spanish accounted for the third and fourth most widespread languages that year. Languages in the United States The United States does not have an official language, but the country uses English, specifically American English, for legislation, regulation, and other official pronouncements. The United States is a land of immigration, and the languages spoken in the United States vary as a result of the multicultural population. The second most common language spoken in the United States is Spanish or Spanish Creole, which over than 43 million people spoke at home in 2023. There were also 3.5 million Chinese speakers (including both Mandarin and Cantonese),1.8 million Tagalog speakers, and 1.57 million Vietnamese speakers counted in the United States that year. Different languages at home The percentage of people in the United States speaking a language other than English at home varies from state to state. The state with the highest percentage of population speaking a language other than English is California. About 45 percent of its population was speaking a language other than English at home in 2023.

Context

After going through quite the verbal loop when ordering foreign currency through the bank, which involved a discussion with an assigned financial advisor at the branch the following day to confirm details, I noticed despite our names hinting at the assumed typical background similarities, communication by phone was much more difficult due to the thickness in accents and different speech patterns when voicing from a non-native speaker.

It hit me then coming from an extremely multicultural and welcoming city, the challenges others from completely different labels given to them in life must go through in their daily affairs when having to face communication barriers that I myself encountered, particularly when interacting with those outside their usual bubble. Now imagine this situation occurring every hour across the world in various sectors of business. How may this impede, help or create frustrations in minor or major ways as a result of increasing workplace diversity quota demands, customer satisfaction needs and process efficiencies?

The data I was looking for to explore this phenomena existed in the form of native and non-native speakers of the 100 most commonly spoken languages across the globe.

Content

The data in this database contains the following attributes:

• Language - name of the language
• Total Speakers - this assumes both native and non-native speakers
• Native Speakers - native speakers of the language
• Origin - family origin group of said language

Acknowledgements

The data was collected with the aid of WordTips visualization of the 22nd edition of Ethnologue - "a research center for language intelligence"

https://www.ethnologue.com/world https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/ethnologue200 https://word.tips/pictures/b684e98f-f512-4ac0-96a4-0efcf6decbc0_most-spoken-languages-world-5.png?auto=compress,format&rect=0,0,2001,7115&w=800&h=2845

Inspiration

As globalization no longer constrains us, what implications will this have in terms of organizational communications conducted moving forward? I believe this is something to be examined in careful context in order to make customer relationship processes meaningful rather than it being confined to a strictly detached transactional basis.

As of 2025, ***** was the most spoken Indian language worldwide and ranked third globally, with approximately *** million speakers. ******* was the second most spoken Indian language, with approximately *** million speakers globally.

In 2023, around 43.37 million people in the United States spoke Spanish at home. In comparison, approximately 998,179 people were speaking Russian at home during the same year. The distribution of the U.S. population by ethnicity can be accessed here. A ranking of the most spoken languages across the world can be accessed here.

Table from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year series on languages spoken and English ability related topics for City of Seattle Council Districts, Comprehensive Plan Growth Areas and Community Reporting Areas. Table includes B16004 Age by Language Spoken at Home by Ability to Speak English, C16002 Household Language by Household Limited English-Speaking Status. Data is pulled from block group tables for the most recent ACS vintage and summarized to the neighborhoods based on block group assignment.Table created for and used in the Neighborhood Profiles application.Vintages: 2023ACS Table(s): B16004, C16002Data downloaded from: Census Bureau's Explore Census Data The United States Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS):About the SurveyGeography & ACSTechnical DocumentationNews & UpdatesThis ready-to-use layer can be used within ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, its configurable apps, dashboards, Story Maps, custom apps, and mobile apps. Data can also be exported for offline workflows. Please cite the Census and ACS when using this data.Data Note from the Census:Data are based on a sample and are subject to sampling variability. The degree of uncertainty for

Data on first official language spoken, language spoken most often at home, age and gender for the population excluding institutional residents for Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations.

Data on first official language spoken, language spoken most often at home, age and gender for the population excluding institutional residents for census metropolitan areas, tracted census agglomerations and census tracts.

Find out which are the top 10 most spoken languages in the world according to GeoNames and preserve the data containing the information needed, as some countries get split or merged, some languages get extinct, etc.

The American Community Survey, Table B16001 provided detailed individual-level language estimates at the tract level of 42 non-English language categories, tabulated by the English-speaking ability. Two sets of languages data are included here, with population counts and percentages for both:the tract population speaking languages other than English, regardless of English=speaking ability, identified by the language name, and the languages spoken other than English by the tract population who does not speak English 'very well', identified by the language name followed by "_Enw".The default pop-up for this service presents the second of these data: languages spoken other than English by the tract population who does not speak English 'very well'.In part because of privacy concerns with the very small counts in some categories in Table B16001, the Census changed the American Community Survey estimates of the languages spoken by individuals. In 2016, the number of categories previously presented in Table B16001 was reduced to reflect the most commonly spoken languages, and several languages spoken in Massachusetts were grouped into generalized (i.e., "Other...") categories.Table B16001 has been renamed Table C16001 with these generalized categories. Therefore, although the information presented in this datalayer is not current, and these data cannot be updated.

As of February 2025, English was the most popular language for web content, with over 49.4 percent of websites using it. Spanish ranked second, with six percent of web content, while the content in the German language followed, with 5.6 percent. English as the leading online language United States and India, the countries with the most internet users after China, are also the world's biggest English-speaking markets. The internet user base in both countries combined, as of January 2023, was over a billion individuals. This has led to most of the online information being created in English. Consequently, even those who are not native speakers may use it for convenience. Global internet usage by regions As of October 2024, the number of internet users worldwide was 5.52 billion. In the same period, Northern Europe and North America were leading in terms of internet penetration rates worldwide, with around 97 percent of its populations accessing the internet.

Data on language spoken most often at home by age for the population excluding institutional residents of Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations.

Data on mother tongue, first official language spoken, language spoken most often at home and other language(s) spoken regularly at home for the population excluding institutional residents.

Hindi, with over *** million native speakers was the most spoken language across Indian homes, followed by Bengali with ** million speakers, as of 2011 census data. English native speakers accounted for about *** thousand during the measured time period. The colonial rule in India One of the most remarkable and widespread legacies that the British colonial rule left behind was the English language. Before independence, the English language was the solely used for higher education and in government and administrative processes. Post-independence, however, and till today, Hindi was claimed as the language with official government patronage. This lead to resistance from the southern states of India, where Hindi did not have prominence. Consequently, the Official Languages Act of 1963, was enacted by the parliament, which ensured the continued use of English for official purposes in conjunction with Hindi. Multi-linguistic cultures India has approximately ** major languages that are written in about ** different scripts. While the country’s official languages are both, English and Hindi, Hindi remains the most preferred language used online especially in the northern rural areas. The use of English is becoming increasingly popular in the urban areas. In addition, almost every state in India has its own official language that is studied in primary and secondary school as an obligatory second language. Among the most prominent are Bengali, Marathi, and Telugu.

Data on language spoken most often at home, other language(s) spoken regularly at home and age for the population excluding institutional residents for Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations.

Data on languages spoken at home by mother tongue, immigrant status and period of immigration and first official language spoken for the population in private households in Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and parts.

This dataset contains estimates of the number of residents aged 5 years or older in Chicago who “speak English less than very well,” by the non-English language spoken at home and community area of residence, for the years 2008 – 2012. See the full dataset description for more information at: https://data.cityofchicago.org/api/views/fpup-mc9v/files/dK6ZKRQZJ7XEugvUavf5MNrGNW11AjdWw0vkpj9EGjg?download=true&filename=P:\EPI\OEPHI\MATERIALS\REFERENCES\ECONOMIC_INDICATORS\Dataset_Description_Languages_2012_FOR_PORTAL_ONLY.pdf

This table is part of a series of tables that present a portrait of Canada based on the various census topics. The tables range in complexity and levels of geography. Content varies from a simple overview of the country to complex cross-tabulations; the tables may also cover several censuses.

Census Tract (CT) level data from the 2021 Census Program. Includes most of the information released as part of the Complete Profiles for the Languages release. Due to the complexity of the data, changes were made to the field names in order to accommodate the limitations of the database. This makes some uses harder as it requires careful use of the field names and totals to provide accurate values and analysis.Knowledge of official language - means that the person can have a simple conversation in either or both English and French.Language spoken most often at home - what a person uses most often in their house when conversing with someone else in their home. For a child that can't yet speak, it's the language that's most often spoken to the child.Mother tongue - is the language first learned in childhood and still understood by the person.

This table is part of a series of tables that present a portrait of Canada based on the various census topics. The tables range in complexity and levels of geography. Content varies from a simple overview of the country to complex cross-tabulations; the tables may also cover several censuses.

Data quality:Hamilton, City (C)Total non-response (TNR) rate, short-form census questionnaire: 2.5%Total non-response (TNR) rate, long-form census questionnaire: 3.5%Notes: 36 Knowledge of official languages refers to whether the person can conduct a conversation in English only French only in both or in neither language. For a child who has not yet learned to speak this includes languages that the child is learning to speak at home.For more information on language variables including information on their classifications the questions from which they are derived data quality and their comparability with other sources of data please refer to the Languages Reference Guide Census of Population 2021. 37 First official language spoken refers to the first official language (English or French) spoken by the person.For more information on language variables including information on their classifications the questions from which they are derived data quality and their comparability with other sources of data please refer to the Languages Reference Guide Census of Population 2021. 38 Mother tongue refers to the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the person at the time the data was collected. If the person no longer understands the first language learned the mother tongue is the second language learned. For a person who learned more than one language at the same time in early childhood the mother tongue is the language this person spoke most often at home before starting school. The person has more than one mother tongue only if they learned these languages at the same time and still understands them. For a child who has not yet learned to speak the mother tongue is the language spoken most often to this child at home. A child who has not yet learned to speak has more than one mother tongue only if these languages are spoken to them equally often so that the child learns these languages at the same time.n.i.e. = not included elsewhere n.o.s. = not otherwise specified For more information on language variables including information on their classifications the questions from which they are derived data quality and their comparability with other sources of data please refer to the Languages Reference Guide Census of Population 2021. 39 Users should be aware that estimates associated with Indigenous languages are more affected than most by the incomplete enumeration of certain reserves and settlements in the Census of Population. 40 All languages spoken at home refers to all languages that the person speaks at home on a regular basis at the time of data collection.n.i.e. = not included elsewheren.o.s. = not otherwise specified For more information on language variables including information on their classifications the questions from which they are derived data quality and their comparability with other sources of data please refer to the Languages Reference Guide Census of Population 2021. 41 Language spoken most often at home refers to the language the person speaks most often at home at the time of data collection. A person can report more than one language as "spoken most often at home" if the languages are spoken equally often.For a person who lives alone the language spoken most often at home is the language in which they feel most comfortable. For a child who has not yet learned to speak this is the language spoken most often to the child at home. Where more than one language is spoken to the child the language spoken most often at home is the language spoken most often. If more than one language is spoken equally often to the child then these languages are included here. n.i.e. = not included elsewhere n.o.s. = not otherwise specified For more information on language variables including information on their classifications the questions from which they are derived data quality and their comparability with other sources of data please refer to the Languages Reference Guide Census of Population 2021. 42 Other language(s) spoken regularly at home refers to the language(s) if any that the person speaks at home on a regular basis at the time of data collection other than the language(s) they speak most often at home.Comparisons to previous Census data is not recommended for the 'Other languages spoken regularly at home' variable. For more information on language variables including information on their classifications the questions from which they are derived data quality and their comparability with other sources of data please refer to the Languages Reference Guide Census of Population 2021. 43 Knowledge of official languages refers to whether the person can conduct a conversation in English only French only in both or in neither language. For a child who has not yet learned to speak this includes languages that the child is learning to speak at home.Knowledge of non-official languages refers to whether the person can conduct a conversation in a language other than English or French. For a child who has not yet learned to speak this includes languages that the child is learning to speak at home. The number of languages that can be reported may vary between surveys depending on the objectives of the survey. n.i.e. = not included elsewhere n.o.s. = not otherwise specified For more information on language variables including information on their classifications the questions from which they are derived data quality and their comparability with other sources of data please refer to the Languages Reference Guide Census of Population 2021.