Ranked: The World’s Most Spoken Languages in 2025

Ranked: The World’s Most Spoken Languages in 2025

The data for this visualization comes from Ethnologue.

Key Takeaways

English is the most spoken language in 2025 with 1.5 billion total speakers.

About 25% (390 million) speak English as a first language, but a staggering 1.1 billion use it as their second language.

Second-ranked Mandarin has 1.2 billion speakers but the first and second language split is reversed.

The world has never been more connected, and our linguistic map reflects that reality.

This visualization ranks the 25 languages with the largest total number of speakers in 2025, combining first and and second-language usage.

Ethnologue lists dialects separately instead of grouping them under a “macrolanguage.” This can lower totals for languages with many subdivisions (e.g., Chinese, Arabic, Punjabi, Swahili).

Language ranking 2025

There are two main types of language rankings for 2025: most spoken (human) languages and most popular programming languages. Here are the rankings for both:

Most Spoken Languages in 2025 (by total speakers):

- English: 1.5 billion

- Mandarin Chinese: 1.2 billion

- Hindi: 609 million

- Spanish: 558 million

- Standard Arabic: 334 million

- French: 312 million

- Bengali: 284 million

- Portuguese: 267 million

- Russian: 253 million

- Indonesian: 252 million[5][6][1].

Most Popular Programming Languages in 2025 (TIOBE/industry rankings):

- Python

- C++

- Java

- C

- C#

- JavaScript

- Go

- SQL

- Delphi/Object Pascal

- Visual Basic[2][3][7].

These lists reflect both global communication trends and technology adoption in 2025.

Citations:

[1] Ranked: The World's Most Spoken Languages in 2025 https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-most-spoken-languages-in-2025/

[2] TIOBE Index https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

[3] Top 10 programming languages in 2025 - Pluralsight https://www.pluralsight.com/resources/blog/upskilling/top-programming-languages-2025

[4] The 10 Most Spoken Languages In The World In 2025 - Babbel https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/the-10-most-spoken-languages-in-the-world

[5] Top 10 most spoken languages in 2025 - The Indian Express https://indianexpress.com/article/trending/top-10-listing/top-10-most-spoken-languages-globally-in-2025-5-indian-languages-ranked-9999661/

[6] 27 most spoken languages in the world in 2025 https://www.icls.edu/blog/27-most-spoken-languages-in-the-world-in-2025

[7] 20 Most Popular Programming Languages in 2025 - Index.dev https://www.index.dev/blog/most-popular-programming-languages-

[8] List of languages by number of native speakers - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

[9] 14 Most In-demand Programming Languages for 2025 - Itransition https://www.itransition.com/developers/in-demand-programming-languages

[10] Top Programming Languages to Learn in 2025 - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NClmyC6olC0