More than 7,000 languages are spoken around the world today and at least 3,000 of them, or 40 percent, are endangered.
English is the most widely spoken language, with approximately 1.5 billion speakers in 186 countries. Two out of every 10 English speakers are native, while the remaining 80 percent speak English as their second, third or higher language, according to Ethnologue, a database which catalogues the world’s languages.
Mandarin Chinese is the second most spoken language with almost 1.2 billion speakers. However, when accounting for native speakers, it is the largest language in the world, owing to China’s large population.
Hindi comes in third at 609 million speakers, followed by Spanish (559 million), and Standard Arabic (335 million).
(Photo: Angel Network News, Facebook)