Language list by number of speakers (Number of speakers in millions, as of midyear 1991; includes native and non-native speakers)

 1. Mandarin (China)		885
 2. English			450
 3. Hindi			367
 4. Spanish			352
 5. Russian			294
 6. Arabic			202
 7. Bengali			187
 8. Portuguese			175
 9. Malay-Indonesian		145
10. Japanese			126
11. French			122
12. German			118
13. Urdu (India, Pakistan)	 94
14. Punjabi (India, Pakistan)	 87
15. Korean (Koreas, China)	 72
16. Telugu (India)		 69
17. Tamil (India, Sri Lanka)	 66
18. Marathi (India)		 65
19. Cantonese (China, 
	Hong-Kong)		 64
20. Italian			 63
21. Wu (China)			 63
22. Javanese (Java, Indonesia)	 60
23. Vietnamese			 59
24. Turkish			 56
25. Min (China, Taiwan, 
	Malaysia) 		 49
26. Thai			 48
27. Ukrainian (Ukraine, Russia,
	Poland)			 46
28. Swahili (Kenya, Uganda, 
	Tanzania, Zaire)	 45
29. Polish			 43
30. Kannada (India)		 42
31. Gujarati (India, Pakistan)	 39
32. Tagalog (Phillipines)	 39
33. Hausa (Nigeria, Niger, 
	Cameron) 		 35
34. Malayalam (India)		 34
35. Persian (Iran, Afghanistan)	 33
36. Hekkan (China)		 32
37. Burmese			 30
38. Oriya (India)		 30
39. Rumanian (Romania, Moldova, 
	Russia) 		 25
40. Sudanese (Indonesia)	 24
41. Assamese (India)		 22
42. Dutch-Flemish (Netherlands, 
	Belgium) 		 21
43. Serbo-Croatian (Serbia, 
	Croatia, Bosnia) 	 20
44. Yoruba (Nigeria, Benin)	 18
45. Amharic (Ethiopia)		 17
46. Sindhi (India, Pakistan)	 17
47. Igbo (Niger, Nigeria)	 16
48. Hungarian 			 14
49. Zhuang (China)		 14
50. Nepalese 			 13
51. Sinhalese (Sri Lanka)        13

Source: ed. Mark Hoffman, World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1991, Pharos Books, New York

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Living Indo-European Languages of the World

Branch		Group		Languages

Germanic	North		Icelandic, Faeroese, Norwegian, Swedish,
				Danish

		West		German, Yiddish, Low German, Dutch,

				Afrikaans, Flemish, Frisian, English

Celtic		Goidelic	Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic

		Brythonic	Welsh,  Breton

Italic		Romance		Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan,

				Provencal, French, Haitian Creole,

				Italian, Rhaeto-Romanic, Sardinian,

				Rumanian

Albanian			Albanian

Hellenic			Greek

Balto-Slavic	Baltic		Lithuanian, Latvian

		Slavic South	Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian,

				Bulgarian

		Slavic West	Czech SLovak, Polish, Kashubian, 

				Wendish	

		Slavic East	Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian

Armenian			Armenian

Indo-Iranian	Iranian West	Persian, Kurdish, Baluchi, Tajiki

		Iranian East	Pashto, Ossetic

		Dard		Shina, Khowar, Kafiri, Kashmiri

		Sanskritic	Lahnda, Sindhi, Punjabi, Rajasthani,

				Gujarati, Marathi, Konkani, Oriya,

				Bengali, Assamese, Bihari, Hindi,

				Urdu, Nepali, Sinhalese, Romany

Source: Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1981, Thomas Allen 
and Sons Ltd, Toronto, Ontario

by Jugal Kalita