"Nations, one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station and the third most widespread language on the Internet after English and German. Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. Spanish was used in the Spanish Empire and today is in use in Spain, in Latin American countries (except Brazil, French Guyana, Suriname, Guiana, Haiti and other Caribbean islands), and is spoken in many parts of the United States, particularly in Florida and the states which border Mexico. Indeed, by 2013 Spanish was the most widely taught non-English language in American secondary schools and schools"
"World language A world language is spoken internationally and is learned and spoken by a large number of people as a second language. A world language is characterized not only by the total number of speakers (native and second language speakers), but also by its geographical distribution, as well as use in international organizations and diplomatic relations. One of the most widely spoken and fastest spreading world languages today is English, which has over 980,000,000 first- and second-language users worldwide. Arabic gained international prominence because of the medieval Islamic conquests and the subsequent Arabization of the Middle East and North"
"1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it may, depending on the estimate used, be the most commonly spoken language in the world. English is spoken by communities on every continent and on oceanic islands in all the major oceans. The countries in which English is spoken can be grouped into different categories by how English is used in each country. The ""inner circle"" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of"
"have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. English is the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and it is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other world and regional international organisations. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch. English has a vast vocabulary, though counting how many words any language has is"
"around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries. Through all types of printed and electronic media, and spurred by the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the ""lingua franca"" in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation and law. English is the third most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish. It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. There are more people who"
"languages, spoken by 46% of the world's population. This family includes major world languages like English, Spanish, Russian, and Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu). The Indo-European family achieved prevalence first during the Eurasian Migration Period (c. 400–800 AD), and subsequently through the European colonial expansion, which brought the Indo-European languages to a politically and often numerically dominant position in the Americas and much of Africa. The Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken by 20% of the world's population and include many of the languages of East Asia, including Hakka, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and hundreds of smaller languages. Africa is home to a large number of"
"scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is also regarded as the first world language. English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty, the basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity"
"on the Internet are Indo-European, with English continuing to lead the group; English in general has in many respects become the ""lingua franca"" of global communication. Indo-European languages There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by ""Ethnologue"", with over two thirds (313) of them belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch. The most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers are Spanish, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), English, Portuguese, Bengali, Punjabi, and Russian, each with over 100 million speakers, with German, French, Marathi, Italian, and Persian also having more than 50 million. Today, nearly 42% of the human population (3.2 billion)"
"predominantly in the Americas and Spain. Arabic is spoken by around 280 million people. Hindi is spoken by about 200 million speakers, mostly in India. Bengali is spoken by around 230 million people, predominantly in India and Bangladesh. Portuguese is spoken by about 230 million speakers in Portugal, Brazil, East Timor, and Southern Africa. There are numerous other languages, grouped into nine major families: There are also hundreds of non-verbal sign languages. Total population: 83.7% over the age of 15 can read and write, 88.3% male and 79.2% female note: over two-thirds of the world's 793 million illiterate adults are"
"industry. 8.7% (2010 est.) 8.2% (2009 est.) note: 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2007 est.) The demonym for Earth's inhabitants is Earthling or, as either a noun or an adjective, Terran. Worldwide, English is used widely as a lingua franca and can be seen to be the dominant language at this time. The world's largest language by native speakers is Mandarin Chinese which is a first language of around 960 million people, or 12.44% of the population, predominantly in Greater China. Spanish is spoken by around 330 to 400 million people,"
"of the African population that does not know how to write. French is also the language in which the relative share of speakers is the world's fastest growing. The French ""Conseil économique, social et environnemental"" estimate that if the population that does not know how to write would be included as francophones, then the total number of French speakers passed the 500 million in the year 2000. In 2014, a study from the renowned Natixis Bank, showed that French will become the world's most spoken language by 2050. However critics of the study state that French coexists with other languages"
"the second-longest recorded history, after the Afroasiatic family. Indo-European languages are spoken by almost 3 billion native speakers, the largest number by far for any recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of native speakers according to ""Ethnologue"", twelve are Indo-European: Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Punjabi, Marathi, French, Urdu, Italian, accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers. The similarities between various European languages, Sanskrit and Persian were noted by Sir William Jones when learning Sanskrit in India, concluding that all these languages originated from the same source. Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to"
"This decline has been especially observed in indigenous languages, with a 60% decline in the Americas, 30% in the Pacific, and 20% in Africa. Currently, there are 7,000 languages being spoken in the world. Half the population speaks only 25 of these languages, the top 5 in order being Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi, and Bengali. The remaining 6975 languages are divided between the other half of the population. Because languages develop in a given community of speakers as that society adapts to its environment, languages reflect and express the biodiversity of that area. In areas of high biodiversity, language diversity"
"ended up with a significantly better command of French than a control group, who studied French for all four years. Esperanto is by far the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. Speakers are most numerous in Europe and East Asia, especially in urban areas, where they often form Esperanto clubs. Esperanto is particularly prevalent in the northern and central countries of Europe; in China, Korea, Japan, and Iran within Asia; in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico in the Americas; and in Togo in Africa. Countering a common criticism against Esperanto, the statistician Svend Nielsen has found there to be"
"the later developmental stages to occur. A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a language family. The Indo-European family is the most widely spoken and includes languages as diverse as English, Russian and Hindi; the Sino-Tibetan family includes Mandarin, Bodo and the other Chinese languages, and Tibetan; the Afro-Asiatic family includes Arabic, Somali, and Hebrew; the Bantu languages include Swahili, and Zulu, and hundreds of other languages spoken throughout Africa; and the Malayo-Polynesian languages include Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog, and hundreds of other languages spoken throughout the Pacific. The languages of the Dravidian family, spoken"
"of languages that can be shown to have common ancestry. Linguists recognize many hundreds of language families, although some of them can possibly be grouped into larger units as more evidence becomes available and in-depth studies are carried out. At present, there are also dozens of language isolates: languages that cannot be shown to be related to any other languages in the world. Among them are Basque, spoken in Europe, Zuni of New Mexico, Purépecha of Mexico, Ainu of Japan, Burushaski of Pakistan, and many others. The language family of the world that has the most speakers is the Indo-European"
"institutions and majority of population as native (United Kingdom and Ireland) and as a second language in other member states. English is the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin and Spanish. Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly, from 470 million to more than 1 billion. David Crystal calculates that, as of 2003, non-native speakers outnumbered native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. When combining native and non-native speakers, English is the most widely spoken language worldwide. Besides the major varieties of English, such as British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English,"
"have undergone a change in meaning as well. Today, Indo-European languages are spoken by almost 3 billion native speakers across all inhabited continents, the largest number by far for any recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of native speakers according to ""Ethnologue"", 10 are Indo-European: Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, French and Marathi, accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers. Additionally, hundreds of millions of persons worldwide study Indo-European languages as secondary or tertiary languages, including in cultures which have completely different language families and historical backgrounds—there between 600,000,000 and one billion"
"in number of pupils is far ahead of other languages. In the United States, Spanish is the most commonly taught foreign language, though French is next. The future of the French language is often discussed in the news. For example, in 2014, ""The New York Times"" documented an increase in the teaching of French in New York, especially in dual-language programs where Spanish and Mandarin are offered rather than French as the second language. In a study published in March 2014 by ""Forbes"", the investment bank Natixis said that French could become the world's most spoken language by 2050. It"
"language in a large number of countries, with the largest number of native speakers being in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland; there are also large populations in India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Southern Africa. It ""has more non-native speakers than any other language, is more widely dispersed around the world and is used for more purposes than any other language"". Its large number of speakers, plus its worldwide presence, have made English a common language (""lingua franca"") ""of the airlines, of the sea and shipping, of computer technology, of science and indeed of"
"estimated to have over 610 million second-language speakers, including anywhere between 200 and 350 million learners/users in China alone, at varying levels of study and proficiency, though this number is difficult to accurately assess. English is also increasingly becoming the dominant language of scientific research and papers worldwide, having even outpaced national languages in Western European countries, including France, where a recent study showed that English has massively displaced French as the language of scientific research in ""hard"" as well as in applied sciences. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, French was the language of communication and diplomacy, and"
"third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers, and the most spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also the most spoken language in South America and the second-most spoken in Latin America after Spanish, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa and is an official language of the European Union, Mercosur, OAS, ECOWAS and the African Union. When the Romans arrived at the Iberian Peninsula in 216 B.C., they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages descend. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who"
"other languages, including Greek and Persian in medieval times, and contemporary European languages such as English and French in modern times. Classical Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims, and Modern Standard Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. All varieties of Arabic combined are spoken by perhaps as many as 422 million speakers (native and non-native) in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties"
"languages eventually disappear from populations. The total number of languages in the world is not known. Estimates vary depending on many factors. The consensus is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages spoken as of 2010, and that between 50–90% of those will have become extinct by the year 2100. The top 20 languages, those spoken by more than 50 million speakers each, are spoken by 50% of the world's population, whereas many of the other languages are spoken by small communities, most of them with less than 10,000 speakers. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)"
"Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), from facts published in their ""Atlas of Languages in Danger of Disappearing,"" there are an estimated 6,000 languages spoken worldwide today, and half of the world’s population speaks the eight most common. More than 3,000 languages are reportedly spoken by fewer than 10,000 people each. ""Ethnologue,"" a reference work published by SIL International, has cataloged the world’s known living languages, and it estimates that 417 languages are on the verge of extinction. There are different factors that can put a language in danger of becoming extinct. One is when a language is no longer"
"contender for ""Global language"" status. Incidentally, India has the world's largest English speaking/understanding population. It claims one of the largest workforce of engineers, doctors and other key professionals, all comfortable with English. It has the 2nd largest population of ""fluent English"" speakers, second only to the United States, with estimates ranging from 150 to 250 million speakers, and is expected to have the largest in coming decades. Indians are also learning Dutch, Italian, French, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish. India is the world's largest democratic republic, more than three times bigger than the next largest (the United States)."
"Geographical distribution of English speakers The article provides details and data regarding the geographical distribution of all English speakers, regardless of the legislative status of the countries where it's spoken. The English language is one of the most widely spoken languages of the world, and it's widely used in the international communication as lingua franca. Many international organizations use English as their official language. This table depicts the native speakers of the language, which means that the table includes people who have been exposed to the English language from birth and, thus, excludes people who use the language as a"
"Indo-European languages There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by ""Ethnologue"", with over two thirds (313) of them belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch. The most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers are Spanish, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), English, Portuguese, Bengali, Punjabi, and Russian, each with over 100 million speakers, with German, French, Marathi, Italian, and Persian also having more than 50 million. Today, nearly 42% of the human population (3.2 billion) speaks an Indo-European language as a first language, by far the highest of any language family. The Indo-European family includes most of the modern languages of"
"less than US$1.25 per day; approximately 870 million people (12.25%) are undernourished. 83% of the world's over-15s are considered literate. In June 2014, there were around 3.03 billion global Internet users, constituting 42.3% of the world population. The Han Chinese are the world's largest single ethnic group, constituting over 19% of the global population in 2011. The world's most-spoken first languages are Mandarin Chinese (spoken by 12.44% of the world's population), Spanish (4.85%), English (4.83%), Arabic (3.25%) and Hindustani (2.68%). The world's largest religion is Christianity, whose adherents account for 31% of the global population; Islam is the second-largest religion,"
"speak English. Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world, and English is the most commonly used language in the sciences with Science Citation Index reporting as early as 1997 that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries. In publishing, English literature predominates considerably with 28 percent of all books published in the world [leclerc 2011] and 30 percent of web content in 2011 (down from 50 percent in 2000). This increasing use of the English language globally has had"
"L2. Geographical distribution of English speakers The article provides details and data regarding the geographical distribution of all English speakers, regardless of the legislative status of the countries where it's spoken. The English language is one of the most widely spoken languages of the world, and it's widely used in the international communication as lingua franca. Many international organizations use English as their official language. This table depicts the native speakers of the language, which means that the table includes people who have been exposed to the English language from birth and, thus, excludes people who use the language as"
"English-speaking world Approximately 330 to 360 million people speak English as their first language. With 258 million native speakers, the United States comprises the majority of the global total. As pictured in the pie graph below, most native speakers of English are Americans. Additionally, there are 60 million native English speakers in the United Kingdom, 19 million in Canada, 25.1 million in Australia, 4.8 million in Ireland, and 4.8 million in New Zealand. Other countries also use English as their primary and official languages. In the European Union, English is one of 24 official languages and is widely used by"
"EPortuguêse The ePORTUGUÊSe network is a platform developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to strengthen collaboration among Portuguese-speaking countries in the areas of health information and capacity building of Human Resources for Health, therefore enhancing health information systems in those countries. According to Ethnologue, Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language in the world and there are more than 300 million speakers distributed through eight countries (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste) in four WHO Regional Offices (AFRO , PAHO-AMRO , EURO and SEARO ). Portuguese is also the third most spoken"