Talk:List of languages by number of native speakers/Archive 12

Archive 5

←

Archive 10

Archive 11

Archive 12

Persian language and Kurdish language

Dear Sir/Madam,I believe some of the information on this page about Persian language and Kurdish language is not right. there are three major countries in which people are speaking Persian: Iran (Persian), Afghanistan (Dari Persian) and Tajikistan ( Tajik Persian). If you consider their current population you will find the Persian spoken population very much more than what is written in this page. Also another thing which I believe is not right is what is written here about primary country of Kurdish language. It is kind of obvious that Kurdish is one of the Iranian languages and the primary country of Kurdish language should be Iran not Iraq. Thanks. Best Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maysam.Soltanian (talk • contribs) 12:17, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Chinese Language and Hindi Language

"The predominant language in China, which is divided into seven major language groups (classified as dialects by the Chinese government for political reasons), is known as Hanyu (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ) and its study is considered a distinct academic discipline in China.[5] Hanyu, or Han language, spans eight primary varieties, that differ from each other morphologically and phonetically to such a degree that they will often be mutually unintelligible, similarly to English and German or Danish. The languages most studied and supported by the state include Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang. China has 299 living languages listed at Ethnologue.[6]" As reported in wikipedia chinese language. Similar is the position of Hindi in ethnologue, but the credibility given to hindi is much lower.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 09:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The ethnologue while describing "Hindi", took 2011 census of Government of India.In the article of Ethnologue the L1 users and L2 users are given. However, the census 2011 of India do not have such categories of L1 and L2. It simply says that Hindi is spoken as native language or as mother tongue by 52,83,47,183 persons. Request you to kindly make the corrections.Source http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language-2011/Statement-1.pdfRajatbindalbly (talk) 09:21, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Nobody is debating on this issue. May I presume that my contention is admitted to all and I can proceed with editing the page.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 07:56, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

You can propose using other or more lists, but not falsifying existing ones. Besides, we have good (methodological) reason not to mix data from random sources. Also note that Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 11:55, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

The problem with this list is that we can't collect together data from various sources (which use different standards) to order the languages, because that would be original research. We need to take the whole of the list from the same reliable source. Currently we have a list from Ethnologue and another from Nationalencyklopedin, both of which are flawed. In the case of Hindi, the footnote attached to it in the Nationalencyklopedin list seems relevant. (I suspect Nationalencyklopedin has copied Ethnologue here.) Kanguole 16:08, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank You gentleman for discussing the issue. We have taken Ethnologue as a source for this article. My point is that as far as Hindi is concerned, Ethnogoue says that their source is Census 2011 of Government of India. However in Census conducted by Government of India Hindi is shown to have been spoken as mother tongue by 52,83,47,183.http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language-2011/Statement-1.pdf. When I questioned this with Ethnologoue, their director said that the languages clubbed under Hindi have their own ISO code, whereas no such thing is mentioned in Census Of Government of India.https://www.ethnologue.com/contribution/503151. Thereafter he he stopped responding. The Managing Director of Ethnologue appears to be a Chinese and thus he may be biased. I say that it is not good to keep Ethnologue as source to this article as it is quoting pertinently incorrect data.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 09:08, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2019

68 112.134.112.74 (talk) 22:09, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. - FlightTime (open channel) 22:11, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 July 2019

change viet nam to vietnam 165.225.50.214 (talk) 18:21, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

 Not done. Viet Nam is the spelling used in our source (and also in ISO 3166). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:34, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Removed 'macrolanguages' from Ethnologue list

A 'macrolanguage' is not a language. It's a language code. Specifically, it's a correlation between the Library of Congress definition of a language for library-cataloguing purposes (ISO 2) and the Ethologue definition of a language for Bible-translation purposes (ISO 3). If we want to use the LoC definition, that would be a separate list. Besides, ISO is phasing out the use of 'macrolanguages' since their DB's no longer need the correlation between ISO 2 and ISO 3, so whether an ISO 3 language belongs to a 'macrolanguage' or not has nothing to do with the language or its speakers. — kwami (talk) 04:17, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Bengali Language

I am surprised that Bengali is marked as a language of Bangladesh, while Bengali is spoken by 8.9% of the population of India making it second largest language spoken in the country by population. I shall be thankful, if this is included in the main content. Msourav01 (talk) 07:08, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Our table can't report anything that its one and only source doesn't report. The source is Ethnologue, and the entry for Bengali is here. You can request changes to the Bengali source at the Bengali feedback page. — See also the Primary country? thread above. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 07:28, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

It's listed as a language of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Singapore. I think we can leave out the latter two as relatively insignificant. But that column does say 'primary country'. — kwami (talk) 09:18, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Primary country?

I'm new here so I apologize in advance if I'm not doing things right.

I'm confused about the "Primary Country" column in this table, since the term isn't defined anywhere. Without a clear definition, I would assume "primary country" to mean the country where the language is primarily spoken, i.e. the country with the most speakers. But this is clearly not the case: for example, for Spanish, English, and Portuguese, the countries listen are Spain, the UK, and Portugal, rather than Mexico, the US, and Brazil. If what is meant is "country of origin" then I think the header should say that, because as is it is misleading.

The Primary Country column is in the table that reproduces information gathered by Ethnologue, and definitions are provided on their Language Information page. The one you are looking for is: "Ethnologue designates one of the countries [where a language is spoken] as primary, usually the country of origin of the language or the country where most of the language users are located." — In certain cases considerable discretion is exercised as to which a language's primary name and primary country is. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 00:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

If we are going to use the label here, we need to explicitly state somewhere on the page that the term (and what countries are considered primary) is defined by Ethnologue. --Khajidha (talk) 15:29, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Alternatively we could link to Ethnologue's Language Information page that also provides information on how speaker population figures were estimated. After all, those figures are the topic of this article. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:04, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

I propose we remove the Primary Country and Total Countries columns altogether, as they are simplistic at best and misleading at worst. Sometimes Ethnologue include diaspora countries for their Total Countries, but they often do not. If readers are interested in where a language is spoken, I trust they will follow the link to its Wikipedia page for more nuanced information. We could replace these columns with other information, such as writing systems, languages' native names, number of L2 speakers, etc. --IvanhoeIvanhoe (talk) 22:06, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

1. @IvanhoeIvanhoe: Yes, we could remove the country columns. And we could also add columns for language autonyms and writing systems, though we should stick to the information provided by Ethnologue on those matters that are highly political for users of some languages; people have been killed for using the "enemy's" language name or script.
2. Ethnologue now sells a "list of the top 200 languages in the world". The current version, 2019 Ethnologue 200, contains the following information for each language: ISO 639-3 code, language name (in two formats), number of native speakers, number of total speakers. I think Wikipedia should buy that list and base the first list of this article (as well as the list in article List of languages by total number of speakers) on it. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 22:48, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

New map for language distribution

I usually visit the page "List of languages by number of native speakers" and I saw that the distribution map was recently changed.

I would like to point out that the map for Brazil largely underestimates the presence of the Portuguese language in the north of Brazil. The state of Amazonas, and the capital Manaus, has by far a majority Portuguese speaker. The same is valid for the centre-west region, around the area of Goias.

I hope you take this data into observation and, if possible, correct the map. I posted the same comment in the Wikipedia Commons page for the map because I didn't know where is the best place to discuss this.

Best regards,

Dudeduba. Brazilian Wikipedia contributor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.98.222.70 (talk) 06:47, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 November 2019

Origin of the language 'Urdu' is not Pakistan in the table, row 21. By your own sources, "Some linguists have suggested that Urdu evolved from the medieval (6th to 13th century) Apabhraṃśa register of the preceding Shauraseni language, a Middle Indo-Aryan language that is also the ancestor of other modern Indo-Aryan languages." Shauraseni language is inherently in modern India.

Also, please refer to this source - http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/srf/earlyurdu/01chap01.pdf

Please update if you need more sources to change it to correct origins. Ashkumar2665 (talk) 00:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template.--Goldsztajn (talk) 14:50, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Central Kurdish

I wounder why they don't include Central Kurdish in the "List of languages by number of native speakers" which is spoken around 12 millions in north of Iraq and west of Iran. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rebwar slemani (talk • contribs) 10:23, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Because the sources we use give slightly above 7 millions Sorani-speakers. If Ethnologue and/or NE update their information to increase that number, we will of course include it. Jeppiz (talk) 13:31, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Remove country information altogether?

This is a continuation of #Primary country? above (with users Khajidha and IvanhoeIvanhoe), see also #Bengali Language.

Meanwhile user Hank Snuffin renamed the Primary Country column to Country of Origin, which isn't quite correct, witness user Ashkumar2665's edit request (as well as Ethnologue's definition of primary country, of course). Today user SpacemanSpiff reverted that edit, then self-reverted.

In view of the problems the country columns cause I am now in favour of removing them altogether, i.e., I support user IvanhoeIvanhoe's proposal. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 06:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

• I don't know of the utility of this country column, but if English = UK, Spanish = Spain, then Urdu =/= Pakistan and so on. Just examples that I thought of. Anyway, it was too confusing for me and I possibly don't understand this well enough, so I self reverted. —SpacemanSpiff 13:38, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

To avoid ambiguity (and even UK is ambiguous, because English did not originate in Wales) either rename as country with most speakers (knowing that there will be a number of cases of languages not matching "their" countries or delete. My preference would be delete. --Goldsztajn (talk) 21:37, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

After another 4+ days of waiting for more reactions I removed the country information columns today. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 05:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Reduce precision to nearest million people

Currently numbers are given to the nearest 100000 people. This is false precision, in actuality some of these numbers are inaccurate by millions or even tens of millions of people. The current precision gives the false impression that the data is accurate. I propose to reduce precision to the nearest million, which would do a better job of communicating the large uncertainties in the numbers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alextgordon (talk • contribs) 17:18, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree. — Note that Ethnologue now gives the number of total speakers in full millions on their free What are the top 200 most spoken languages? page. (For languages that are not among the top 20, use the Search for a language in the Ethnologue 200... field. It is sufficient to input the first letter, either of the language's English or its local name, so 26 searches cover all top 200 languages.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:19, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Ethnologue (2020, 23rd edition)

Populations according to Ethnologue (2020, 23rd edition) be added. please.182.186.29.69 (talk) 09:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 April 2020

In Iran only there are 80 million speakers, let alone if you add Afghanistan and Tajikistan it will be more than 100 Milion speakers.

Persian langualge groups % Totoal Population Persian First language ( Estimate) Persian Second language( Estimate) Total Persian language speakers Iran Persians 55% 83,183,741 45,751,058 37,432,683 Afghanistan Non Pashton 40% 32,225,560 12,890,224 0 Tajikistan Tajikis 84% 9,275,827 7,791,695 0 66,432,976 37,432,683 103,865,660

Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan#Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajikistan#Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Languages Rshahrad (talk) 05:59, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: Wikipedia is not a reliable source. The table is built from Ethnologue's data; establish a consensus for the change with reliable sources. Goldsztajn (talk) 11:20, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

The ranking is outdated

For many languages, there are many big changes now. The data should be updated. Alphama (talk) 03:18, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Egyptian Arabic

Aside from the fact that the Egyptian Arabic is spoken by the people of the great metropolis of Cairo ( Cairo, Giza, Daqahelya ), the current population count in Egypt is over 100 million, the table shows only 64 million speaker. Taiko 911 (talk) 04:14, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

1. So-called Egyptian Arabic is by no means the only variety of Arabic spoken in Egypt. Others include Saʽidi Arabic (=Upper Egyptian Arabic), Libyan Arabic, and Northwest Arabian Arabic (Bedouin/Bedawi Arabic). See also Varieties of Arabic as well as Ethnologue's classification of Arabic languages. 2. Not everyone in Egypt speaks a form of Arabic as their mother tongue, of course there are also L1 speakers of minority and foreign languages. See Languages of Egypt. 3. It seems you don't take account of groups like babies and the deaf, who don't master any spoken language. 4. Anyway, original research is a no-no here. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 05:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

The numbers are from an Evangelical Christian Institute, and cannot be taken seriously. --2A01:C22:344F:E000:2CB1:328B:24E1:3A32 (talk) 20:17, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Arabic is one language

It is misguiding to fragment Arabic into its numerous dialects to consider them as the native tongues of their respective speakers. Arabic is one language, with a variety of spoken dialects and accents, and it ranks as the 5th most natively spoken language with about 300 million speakers according to Unesco. And if the list addresses different dialects as distinct languages, then mandarin should not be the first as it includes many dialects under its umbrella, and the Southwestern Mandarin dialect (Which itself groups 11 smaller dialects within) which "is only about 50% mutually intelligible with Standard Chinese", should be considered as the most natively spoken language in China, and German should be fragmented into many sublanguages, if we narrowed our definition of what a language is. And every other language will follow the pattern, which will turn the list into a list of dialects instead. To understand how Arabic functions and its relation with its various spoken dialects, one needs to grasp The Diglossic Situation in Arabic. محمد الصيفي (talk) 23:51, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Please read WP:OR. We go by sources, not by opinions. If you are aware of a reliable ranking of languages that isn't included in the article, you're more welcome to suggest it. Jeppiz (talk) 00:22, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

This is ridiculous & racist. Facts are not opinions. Facts don't need sources. While ridiculous claims that Arabic is multiple languages are the ones that you should ask sources for. All Arab countries have one formal Arabic for the official documents, the official news in the official TV channels & newspapers. Also all schools in Arab countries have the same formal Arabic for school text books. All Arabs use one formal Arabic besides their on local accents. BTW, according to Wikipedia, the sum of populations in Arab countries is about 433 millions including Palestinians. And when we add to them other Arabic native speakers in the neighboring countries such as Turkey, Iran, Chad & other Sahara countries plus other Arabic native speakers worldwide we will find out that Arabic is being a native language for about half a billion people. This means that Arabic is the 2nd largest language worldwide. If you would fragment a language just because its people use besides it local accents, then why don't you fragment English to (American English), (British English) and (Australian English) then fragment Spanish to (Mexican Spanish), (Argentinian Spanish) and (European Spanish) then the same thing with all languages?! But, since you asked for a source that Arabic (as a one language) is among the largest six languages in the world, here you go: https://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/official-languages/index.html

Semi-protected edit request on 28 November 2020

can i edit it please Prof.snaype (talk) 23:17, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

When your account is at least 4 days old and you have at least 10 edits, yes. See WP:AUTOCONFIRM. Remember to provide citations for any changes. RudolfRed (talk) 01:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

How did Portuguese suddenly jump from 221 to 346?

A month ago, the number for Portuguese was 221, and then it jumped to 346. It doesn't appear any of the other numbers changed on the list. Here is the archive from a month ago: http://web.archive.org/web/20201116215218/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

The number for native speakers given on another page is very close to 221: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers

The population of Brazil is 210 million, and the population of Portugal is 10 million, so I'm not sure where the extra 120 million speakers are coming from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goonsliltscap (talk • contribs) 18:39, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Goonsliltscap: Good spot, thank you for that. The whole list is sourced to Ethnologue who report 221M native speakers and 252M total (=first plus second language) speakers. I have reverted user:Brasilisthebetter's edit. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:17, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Oromo language speaker

Moved from User talk:LiliCharlie § Oromo language speaker

Hi LiliCharlie,

I have seen you reverted the change to oromo language. according Ethnologue, oromo has 34mil speakers which is updated on the oromo language page. south, west, central,east oromo speakers are under one Oromia state of Ethiopia. oromo has One language in spite of little dialect within the some of 21 administrative zones of oromia, they all mutually intelligible. The 2011 census reported the population of Oromia as 35,000,000; this makes it the largest regional state in population. Oromia is also the largest regional state and the world's forty-second most populous subnational entity, and the most populous subnational entity in all of Africa. In the following source oromo speakers is 34 million Oromo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) Borana–Arsi–Guji–Wallaggaa-Shawaa Oromo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) Eastern Oromo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) Orma at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) West Central Oromo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) Waata at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) MfactDr (talk) 09:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

little bit background of the language. With 33.8% Oromo speakers, followed by 29.3% Amharic speakers, Oromo is the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia. It is also the most widely spoken Cushitic language and the fourth-most widely spoken language of Africa, after Arabic, Hausa and Swahili. Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by more than 35 million Oromo people in Ethiopia and by an additional half-million in parts of northern and eastern Kenya. It is also spoken by smaller numbers of emigrants in other African countries such as South Africa, Libya, Egypt and Sudan.

Oromo serves as one of the official working languages of Ethiopia and is also the working language of several of the states within the Ethiopian federal system including Oromia, Harari and Dire Dawa regional states and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region. It is a language of primary education in Oromia, Harari, Dire Dawa, Benishangul-Gumuz and Addis Ababa and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region. It is used as an internet language for federal websites along with Tigrinya. Under Haile Selassie's regime, Oromo was banned in education, in conversation, and in administrative matters. thanks.MfactDr (talk)

@MfactDr: We cite lists to ensure the language classification (what is a separate language?—see article's lead section) and speaker counts follow a uniform methodology throughout. The talk page archives are filled with complaints, but we haven't found better lists yet. — In the present case Ethnologue and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 639-3) split Oromo into five separate languages, see https://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/oromo for their classification. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 11:28, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

oromo live in kenya, somalia and Ethiopa. however 95% percent in live in Ethiopia recognised largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. you mentioned five category of oromo language. oromo has many clans namely arsi, tulama,, macha, wallaga, hararge. each has at least 3 or 4 subgroups. all this group live different zone under one state. Viewing oromo language as separate language and ethnic group is wrong since they are not living separate state. despite category oromo speak the same language. for instance here:

• Orma [orc], (A Waata [ssn) and some borona living in kenya- they are not more than 500,000
• Oromo, Borana-Arsi-Guji, eastern(hararghe, bale), west(wallaga, illubabor), central(tulama,mecha, wallo, raya)
• all this division of zone of oromia region not the language.
• except in kenya(500,000), somalia(87,000), the rest in Ethiopia oromia region. Please do research.

Ethiopia's Population is 109,224,414. out of this 34.9% is oromo People. my question is how come people living under one state viewed as separate ethnic group while they are speaking the same langauge? How come oromo language divided along clans,subgroup of oromo people? it suppose to viewed one group. they are all oromo how come Oromo are viewed as a different ethnic groups? Oromo language has varieties and dialects, viewed as separate language is completely wrong. in the past Under Haile Selassie's regime, Oromo was banned from education, speaking, and administration .MfactDr (talk)

References

Pashto Language Shouldn't Be Separated Into Two

While Pashto language is listed separately into Northern (No. #56) and Southern (No. #85) languages, both of these are accents with minor differences. If this list is also trying to represent a language's accent then why isn't the case for other languages for example: Persian has many accents with big differences such as Dari, Tajiki, Hazaragi among others. but they aren't listed. I think its a logical and clear matter that Northern and Southern Pashto should be edited into a one single Language. This matter could be proven by other Wikipedia articles written about Pashto language as well as their references. So, I request dear editors to consider my petition and act as soon as possible. Regards --Nasratullah Faqiri (talk) 01:02, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

The lists on these articles are taken directly from the mentioned sources, to change them we would require a new list source. CMD (talk) 01:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

As above, the whole ranking is based on a single source. We may not agree with some of the judgements of what is a language, who counts as a speaker, etc, but we use a single source to get consistent criteria across the whole list. If we start making piecemeal adjustments, the whole basis of the ranking is removed. Kanguole 08:21, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Why Is SWAHILI Missing?

Swahili has over an estimated 100 million speakers. This would put it among the top languages by population. As a first language, estimates are from 16 to 20 million. This would put it at least in the top 60. So then, what can be done about this oversight? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.206.40.141 (talk) 03:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed this is a list by number of native speakers, so the first figure isn't relevant. The Ethnologue entry for Swahili says 16 million native speakers (and another 2 million for Congo Swahili, which it considers a separate language). So it should be somewhere in the 60s, but it is indeed missing. It shows that the list is unsafe.

The citation for the Ethnologue-based list refers to the Ethnologue "Summary by language size" page, and says "For items below #26, see individual Ethnologue entry for each language." That is, that Ethnologue page gives the ranking down to #26, and the rest has been filled in by Wikipedia editors finding Ethnologue language pages with large speaker numbers, probably by looking up languages from the Nationalencyklopedin list. The figures for each language can be cited to Ethnologue, but the ranking beyond #26 depends on these editors not missing any. It seems they missed Swahili. We can't know whether they missed more.

I've no idea why Nationalencyklopedin omitted Swahili. I guess it's also not very reliable as we get to smaller languages. We already know that #80 is an error copied from Ethnologue. Kanguole 10:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 June 2021

Your article excludes swahili, where by in Africa swahili is one of the most used if not the most used language 197.250.229.191 (talk) 18:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. -- DaxServer (talk) 18:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Punjabi

Both Western Punjabi and Eastern Punjabi link to same article i.e. Punjabi language. Then why they are listed separately? Waxila (talk) 20:24, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Because they are listed separately in the 2019 edition of Ethnologue. CMD (talk) 01:19, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Arabic shouldn't be considered more than a one language

According to the article "While Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centred on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors describe its mutually unintelligible varieties as separate languages." some say that the dialects are unintelligible yet the divisions are too precise for it to be unintelligible like North and South Levantine are so close that there is no real distinction between southern Syrian regions and Jordan or Palestine most of the differences are pronunciation related rather than any grammatical or structural difference and the same can by said on Algerian and Tunisian San'ani and Adeni Egyptian and Saidi but I chose the Levantine as it's mine. And even regional differences don't make the dialects unintelligible, Like every Arab can understand Egyptian and Levantine and most can easily understand the Gulf dialects. Of all dialects probably only Moroccan can be unintelligible. So what are the bases for such absurd divisions especially since English does not meet similar treatment — Preceding unsigned comment added by RedWn (talk • contribs) 13:41, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I support this. Arabic is one language that has different dialects; just like English, Spanish, and French.

In fact many Spanish speakers in Latin America don’t understand Spanish speakers in other Latin countries or Spain itself. JasonMoore (talk) 12:46, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Problematic in date

data problem 1 . first problem: this is very worrying, because the data used for the number of Indonesian language users data is from data in 1971, namely 118,367,850, BI: 48,275,879 (40.78%) while now the total population of Indonesia is 268,583,016 and of course education and internet networks regarding information about the Indonesian language are very widespread and are taught especially in schools in every region in Indonesia because of its position as the national language of the Indonesian state, I don't think it is possible if the number is ±40%, as stated in the reference below: https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/219587-dinamika-penutur-Bahasa-indonesia-studi.pdf

I also see a difference between the Indonesian Wikipedia data (Id) and (en) , which states that Indonesian language users are 176 M , reference: WAM = World Almanac (2005).

2. why can Javanese be a language that is higher than Indonesian, Javanese: 68.3 M, Indonesian 43.4 M, even though Indonesian is a mandatory language for all Indonesian citizens to communicate, including the Javanese, which incidentally is wrong one tribe in Indonesia.Munajad.MH (talk) 06:37, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi Munajad.MH, the information on this page is based on the single external sources. In the Ethnologue case you refer to, Ethnologue classifies Arabic as a "macrolanguage" encompassing the various specific languages. Regarding Indonesian and Javanese, the tables refer to first language speakers only. CMD (talk) 09:42, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi CMD, WTH, this is a bug, I didn't Type any comment about Arabic before, Try to believe me.. check the edit history... Munajad.MH (talk) 08:58, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, the comment above you was unsigned so it looked like part of your message. I've fixed that. CMD (talk) 09:04, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank , CMD Munajad.MH (talk) 12:01, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

I support Munajad’s bid for update. This page should reflect native speakers. JasonMoore (talk) 12:51, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Persian or Dari

When we talk about a language, it means all people who speak that language understand each other. It is called Persian (Farsi) in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan and Tajiki in Tajikistan are one language titled Persian or Dari which there is no difference in between but accent. The total number of people who speak this language are over 200 million. In addition to being official in three countries of Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran, this language has large number of speaker in about 30 countries except places just mentioned. According to the source (Dari - Year 11 - Page 57 (Afghanistan school book)) I have read, Persian ranks 11th in this table. A language just like climate can't be divided by political divisions, if you disagree with me then you have to divide English in 59 parts, Arabic in 26 parts and same with others. PLEASE BE LOGICAL NOT PREJUDICED.

Zaki Frahmand Wednesday, 2 June 2021

I support this. Arabic, Persiatic, and other languages need to be conglomerated together. JasonMoore (talk) 12:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Page needs a massive update:

- Arabic needs to be conglomerated to one (Spanish, English and French are not separated by dialects, and if we are doing that then the other languages need to see the same treatment as well).

- Numbers are severely outdated.

- Numbers do not add up to population numbers (I.e 64 million Arabic speakers in Egypt when their population has surpassed 100million).

I will do it if I can find the time to update all the numbers, but I hope an honest individual can do so. JasonMoore (talk) 12:49, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The page contains two lists, each from a single source. This is done so that consistent criteria are applied in each list, which is necessary to compare different languages, and to provide an externally-sourced ranking. More recent editions of both sources are available, and could be used to update the lists. Both lists are flawed, but updates to individual entries based on information from elsewhere would destroy the consistency and turn the ranking into original research. Kanguole 13:18, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 November 2021

The amount of some african language speakers need to be updated like hausa, yoruba, fula, igbo and many more. Jackson134 (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:46, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Rubbish

How is it possible that Swahili isn’t in the table when it has more than 150 million speakers and more than 50m native speakers? And what’s with this Diff Arabic for this country that country and not English? There’s South African English, Nigerian, American, British, Irish, Canadian and Australian. Total nonsense 156.157.241.64 (talk) 16:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

It's a result of the difficulty of finding consistent sources for a list like this (rather than lots of sources for each language). For Swahili, see Talk:List of languages by number of native speakers/Archive 12#Why Is SWAHILI Missing? – it is an omission, but it reflects the limitations of our sources. The handling of Arabic reflects the sources, which consider that speakers of South African English can understand Canadian English, but speakers of Egyptian Arabic can't understand Moroccan Arabic. Kanguole 17:18, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

South Azerbaijani???

We don't have south Azerbaijani language we have azerbaijani and Azerbaijani has at least 25 million speakers. By doing so, you are distorting the population of azerbaijanis!! please repair this article. Gökhan eloglu (talk) 15:37, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Egypt has 120 million citizen (all of them speak arabic) then how it has only 64.6 million egyption arabic speakers?????

Please change it Muhanad3ssam (talk) 06:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Arabic

Arabic is one language that has different dialects but it spoken by roughly bu 460 million natives so it’s not correct to have Egyptian arabic because it is a dialect of Arabic 100.43.20.133 (talk) 03:42, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Most linguists consider that each Arabic dialect is a language of its own. That's why they each have an ISO 639-3 code. A455bcd9 (talk) 09:03, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

German

This page lists the number of native German Speakers (Standard German only) as 76.1 million. "Standard German" is linked there. Clicking that link takes you to the page on Standard German, which lists it as having 132 million native speakers. Why the wide discrepancy? Kevinatilusa (talk) 08:00, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi, you're right there was an issue in the Standard German article. I've just fixed it. Indeed, according to Ethnologue (source): "Total users in all countries: 134,624,440 (as L1: 75,572,140; as L2: 59,052,300)." A455bcd9 (talk) 08:45, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Why use "Standard German" in this list but count everyone speaking "English" or worse "Italian" and "Spanish" towards one "language"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:E4:8F00:D079:F95F:8170:F03:C259 (talk) 18:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Because that's the convention used by the source (Ethnologue). A455bcd9 (talk) 19:14, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Then why use that one when it obviously uses double standards that aren't appropriate for the topic at hand? Its like making a list of countries by population and using a source that insists on only counting male inhabitants for the USA but everyone for every other country out there and then listing the USA behind Bangaldesh.

Catalan???

In all est o Spain, southeast of France, Andorra and de city of Alguer (Alghero) in Sardinia (Italy), Catalan is the official and most spoken language, where about 11 million people speak it, please correct this information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peresadurnipic (talk • contribs) 13:37, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

According to Ethnologue, there were 4,077,310 native Catalan speakers (inc. 3,710,000 in Spain) in 2021. A455bcd9 (talk) 14:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

All of whom are counted as native "Spanish" speakers... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:E4:8F00:D079:F95F:8170:F03:C259 (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

No, in Ethnologue's data each person only has one native language. So native Catalan speakers aren't counted as native Spanish/Castillan speakers (but the vast majority of them are counted as L2 Spanish/Castillan speakers). A455bcd9 (talk) 19:15, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Need to change and update numbers of Kannada speakers

Hi, the current number of Kannada speakers consider only Karnataka but not the worldwide population of Kannadigas whose survey was carried out recently so the numbers need to be changed. Please request edit access. 2601:40B:8402:4920:6961:441B:EEA1:71B2 (talk) 17:31, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Could you please provide the link to this survey? A455bcd9 (talk) 18:21, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Swahili

Has 16 million native speakers but not on list 104.37.63.125 (talk) 04:41, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Arabic !!!

Arabic is one language I can understand all dialect

If you mace dialect a language you should saperate Spanish and mandarin !! Too weird

Arabic now scanned language by L1

I hope this by mistake not by porpoise or race aginst 77.232.123.129 (talk) 11:20, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

New data

New data should be enterd, according to ethnologue 2022.182.186.78.243 (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

They haven't updated yet the dedicated page (the graph "Top 10 most spoken languages, 2022" on the right is up-to-date but not the list below ("Search the 2021 list below, or purchase the full list as a downloadable file."): https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/ethnologue200 A455bcd9 (talk) 07:54, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

kindly use avaible data of 200 language, which is searchable in the site. 182.176.86.72 (talk) 05:27, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

The Ethnologue 200 list is based on total usage, adding together native-language and second-language speakers, which is not suitable for this list. Kanguole 11:02, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

This may be collected from ethnologue site, old data is not acceptable. Kindly update, anyway182.186.10.58 (talk) 11:17, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

This means going through every single language and ranking them. It would contravene Wikipedia:No original research. A455bcd9 (talk) 17:44, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

New data should be enterd, according to ethnologue 2022. Here old data is entered. Kindly correct.39.37.98.12 (talk) 11:44, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Isan languages

Isan language is so language which have over 15 million native speakers Nguyenquoctinh1309 (talk) 16:54, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

2,700,000

Punjabi 2401:4900:5C90:382E:0:0:83B:1C93 (talk) 05:04, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Telugu and Turkish Order

On list, Telugu seems 82.0 (million) and Turkish 82.2 but Telugu is above Turkish because its percentage is more than Turkish. I think speaker number of percentage is wrong or we should change order (which I did and reverted) Tulpar05 (talk) 06:26, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Merhaba @Tulpar05,

I checked the original source (Ethnologue) and there was an issue (on Wikipedia) in the number of Telugu speakers (82.7 is the correct number). So the order was correct. I fixed the problem. A455bcd9 (talk) 11:53, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Error in data (Swahili missing)

There seems to be an error in the Ethnologue (2022, 25th edition) section. It claims to show all languages with at least 10 million first language speakers, but Swahili is missing, though it has 16.1 million native speakers according to List of languages by total number of speakers, which is based on the same source. I didn't check whether there are any other differences, but this one, at least, seems highly suspicious.

Also there is something wrong with the reference at the start of the section. While the text claims the "2022 edition of Ethnologue" as source, the subsequent footnote gives 2019-03-12 as archive-date. This is clearly not the 2022 edition, but an earlier one, which cannot be the true source of the listed data. Krissie (talk) 11:37, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like there may be other mistakes... For instance, according to Ethnologue there are 21,834,630 L1 Somali speakers (vs 16.2 in our list). The 2022 list was added by @Wolfman5678 (in this edit). But I don't know how they generated that list as Ethnologue doesn't offer a list of the most spoken L1 languages (they only have this page for L1+L2). A455bcd9 (talk) 19:21, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

OK, I found the source and fixed the table. But we only have languages with more than 50M speakers now (so, not Swahili). A455bcd9 (talk) 19:52, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 June 2023

It says persian have 50-60milion but its more then 150 million only the country of iran have more then 80 million so that's incorrect 89.219.40.240 (talk) 00:09, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. NotAGenious (talk) 05:36, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Bahasa?

Bahasa seems to be ignored with <>300 million native speakers. Rustygecko (talk) 16:28, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

There are 300 million speakers, but Ethnologue says 42.8 million of these are native speakers. Kanguole 17:27, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

!

Having lived in Indonesia, and knowing the country well and Malaysia where they also speak the same language, this shocks me.

I think what you are referring to is there could be 42 million that speak exclusively bahasa Indonesia, but they all speak bahasa as their native language. Rustygecko (talk) 23:38, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

To say it’s not their first language is like saying someone from the Basque Country in Spain or a Catalan in Spain are not native speakers of Castilian Spanish - they grow up speaking both languages. The same with bahasa - they speak it at home and here it from the day they’re born. Rustygecko (talk) 23:47, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

There are 77 million speakers of bahasa Malaysia. You are obviously not counting those as native speakers.

do you therefore not count quebecois as not speaking French (bahasa Malaysia and bahasa Indonesia are much closer than quebecois and French) NB I speak French fluently. Following the same logic American English and British English, Scots English and Irish English and Australian English should be classified as separate languages. Rustygecko (talk) 00:01, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

This reflects the reality:

“ The number of Indonesian native speakers of the Indonesian language is generally underestimated. An extreme case is Ethnologue which until recently maintained that the Indonesian language has 23 million native speakers. The prevailing picture is that the vast majority of Indonesians speak a regional language as their mother tongue and begin to learn Indonesian when they go to school. As the result of the relative late exposure to the national language, most Indonesians cannot be considered as native speakers of bahasa Indonesia.

In this paper it will be argued that the above-mentioned scenario may have been true in post-independence Indonesia and probably up into the 1980ies, but does no longer reflect the linguistic reality of Indonesia in the 21st century. Today Indonesian is universally understood, even in the most remote parts of Indonesia, and the majority of Indonesians grow up bilingually. While many Indonesians still continue to speak regional languages within their families, they typically switch to Indonesian as soon as the discussion extends beyond familiar topics.” Rustygecko (talk) 00:04, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

We have to rely on the sources. As the article notes in the introduction, criteria for delimiting languages and counting speakers vary widely, so each of the lists here is cited to a single source, to ensure consistent criteria. So any change to this list awaits a change in Ethnologue. Kanguole 09:57, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Rustygecko,

If you go to List of languages by total number of speakers, you'll see that Indonesian is listed there with 199.0 million of speakers.

Regarding native languages, Wikipedia uses two sources: Ethnologue and the CIA World Factbook. None of them mention Bahasa among the most spoken native languages. For consistency, we don't modify individual counts: we keep the ranking of each source as it is.

Please also note that, according to the ISO 639-3 standard, the Indonesian language (code: ind) and Malaysian Malay (code: zsm) are two different languages part of the Malay macrolanguage (code: msa). Wikipedia doesn't make the rules and isn't related to the organization that maintains that classification.

According to Ethnologue there are 82 million native speakers of the Malay macrolanguage (msa). You can see the details here.

So if you think the count for Bahasa is incorrect then please join Ethnologue's Contributor program and submit your feedback. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 11:37, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, please note that Ethnologue acknowledges that: local or vernacular Malay varieties [are] not well differentiated from each other, and [...] further research is needed to clarify differentiation from mainstream dialects. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 11:41, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I have joined their program, but frankly if you are going to classify Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malayu as different languages the British and American English should go the same route, and Scottish English definitely counts as another language. Equally Spanish, Mexican, Ecuador Ian should also not be the same languages. Thanks again. Rustygecko (talk) 19:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia follows what "experts" say. And sometimes "experts" are wrong unfortunately... a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 20:12, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Persian Language

there are 80 Million Persian native speaker in Iran that persian is their mother language and there are 38 Million Afghan people that at least 50% of them speak Persian. i think persian language should be placed after Japanese. could you please tell me Which information source did you use? Mehdi Damshenas (talk) 14:08, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

The sources are given in the article. Kanguole 14:12, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Sure that all of the 80 million inhabitants of Iran have Persian as their mother tongue? I think only about half of the population speaks Persian at home, the other speak languages like Aseri, Kurdish, Arabic and so forth as their native language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A04:9740:97:3200:B85C:6A03:24AC:A70E (talk) 08:13, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Everyone in Iran speaks Persian fluently. I am ethnically Azeri from Iran and I'd argue that most speak it even better than their supposed "native tongue" because it is the only language of education and many prefer to use it also in daily life. What is weird about that article is that for Turkish this differentiation wasn't done, and all Kurds, Laz, Zaza, etc. were lumped together with the ethnic Turks, otherwise the number which is stated (84 million) makes no sense because there are by far not even 84 million Turks in the world. Why? Furthermore it makes absolutely no sense that is was separately listed as "Iranian Persian" since all Persian variants are fully mutually intelligible, the only difference is that in Tajikistan another script is used. In Iran and Afghanistan orthography, etc. is exactly the same. But stil, even if an Iranian and a Tajik meet who were never exposed to each others dialects, everybody would understand each other with absolutely no problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.233.35.210 (talk) 23:47, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

numbers Persian vs. Turkish

Everyone in Iran speaks Persian fluently. I am ethnically Azeri from Iran and I'd argue that most speak it even better than their supposed "native tongue" because it is the only language of education and many also prefer to use it in daily life. What is weird about that article is that for Turkish this differentiation wasn't done, and all Kurds, Laz, Zaza, etc. in Turkey were lumped together with the ethnic Turks, otherwise the number which is stated (84 million) makes no sense because there are by far not even 84 million Turks in the world. Why?

Furthermore it makes absolutely no sense that is was separately listed as "Iranian Persian" since all Persian variants are fully mutually intelligible. They are not separate languages. Only major difference is that in Tajikistan another script is used. In Iran and Afghanistan orthography, etc. is exactly the same. But still, even if an Iranian and a Tajik meet who were never exposed to each others dialects, everybody would understand each other with absolutely no problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.233.35.210 (talk) 23:51, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 September 2023

There is a typo in the first sentence; they likely meant to write “ranked,” not “raked.” 166.198.34.57 (talk) 18:31, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. Kanguole 19:03, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Kannada is not yet ranked even wiki itself marked 60+ millions of speakers

Even Wiki page itself marks kannada speaking numbers are more than 60 million, kannada is not listed in the rank table in the page we are talking about. ಹಂಸರವಿನಿತ್ಯಾ (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source. This article builds on Ethnologue. If you think Ethnologue is incorrect, I agree with you - but the consensus is to use it as the source for this article. Jeppiz (talk) 20:00, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

THIS ARTICLE IS NONSENSE : FRENCH SHOULD BE IN THE TOP 5 AND IS NOT EVEN LISTED HERE

https://www.berlitz.com/blog/most-spoken-languages-world

https://www.berlitz.com/blog/french-speaking-countries

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:fa49:ce40:8d00:10af:8a10:ea09:916c (talk • contribs) 12:15, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Even according to this source, French has "First language speakers: 79.9 million", which is less than several of the other languages listed, and some not listed. For comparisons of total speakers, see List of languages by total number of speakers. Kanguole 12:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)