Talk:List of languages by number of native speakers/Archive 11

Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2015
It was seen that recently the languages Hindi and Urdu were merged together in this article, but the data for Urdu was not included in the merged language. According to the data that was present previously, Hindi has 310 million native speakers constituting 4.70% of the total world population and Urdu has 66 million speakers constituting 0.99% of the total population. If these two were to be merged, then the final data would be 376 million speakers and 5.69% of the total population. But the data was not changed. And since the page is protected, I can't change it. Moreover, the 2007 edition of Nationalencyklopedin had mentioned Hindi and Urdu separately, so these two should not have been merged. It is not accordance with the data present in Nationalencyklopedin, and ought to be amended. So, either the two languages should be listed separately with their individual figures, or the merged data should be updated as it is incorrect.

Xiaoxin2015 (talk) 17:14, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done by at 00:13, 27 June 2015 (UTC) with this edit. The languages were split and are now listed separately with their individual figures. Thank you for your contribution to Wikipedia! Mz7 (talk) 04:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 July 2015
94.77.199.194 (talk) 06:45, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ". Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 08:06, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: as you have not requested a change.

Native Spanish Speakers
A recent (30 June 2015) Washington Post article reports that there are currently 470 million native Spanish speakers, compared to the 405 listed on the Wiki page. Is it possible to update that number, or do we need to keep all the numbers from Nationalencyklopedin?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/world/there-are-more-spanish-speakers-in-the-us-than-in-spain/2015/06/30/be8426f43d84efe1dd15c283081925d2_story.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.113.160.68 (talk) 02:22, 5 July 2015 (UTC)


 * We do not change the number for just one language, that would leave the article wide open to constant nationalist edits finding a source that give the highest number for any particular language. Moreover, as has been discussion repeatedly, a list like this is only meaningful if all data come from the same source.Jeppiz (talk) 21:43, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Greek Lacking English Transliteration
Other languages on this list have transliterations of the native names (what would be called "Romaji" in Japanese--not sure about others), but not Greek--and several others. I propose, in the native column, Greek should read:

ελληνικά elli̱niká — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.53.4.125 (talk) 06:02, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Zhuang is not a language
It says in the list that Zhuang is a group of many separate languages. In the article "Zhuang", it becomes clear that none of the many Zhuang languages has as many as 3 million speakers. Zhuang has no business being on the list, I will remove it unless someone has a good argument. Arrecife (talk) 04:24, 31 May 2015 (UTC)


 * It's in the source, so it belongs here. Just as Bulgarian does not belong. (Unless we overlooked it.) — kwami (talk) 22:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Realencyclopedin is doubtless good up to a point, but even the marginal notes say that Zhuang is a group of languages. And here:

"Zhuang languages From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

''The Zhuang languages (autonym: Vahcuengh (pre-1982: Vaƅcueŋƅ, Sawndip: 話僮), from vah 'language' and Cuengh 'Zhuang'; simplified Chinese: 壮语; traditional Chinese: 壯語; pinyin: Zhuàngyǔ) are any of more than a dozen Tai languages spoken by the Zhuang people of southern China in the province of Guangxi and adjacent parts of Yunnan and Guangdong. The Zhuang languages do not form a monophyletic linguistic unit, as northern and southern Zhuang languages are more closely related to other Tai languages than to each other."''

I do not find one source that says Zhuang is a single language. Wikipedia should be about reasoned learning, meaning it does not slavishly copy Realencyclopedin (reliance on a single source).Arrecife (talk) 00:53, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * QUOTE: This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. (May 2015) That's what wikipedia says, and I am trying to do something about it. Arrecife (talk) 00:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC)


 * But fraud is not an appropriate response. If you falsify information, we will revert you. If you want to improve sources, then find another good source. — kwami (talk) 04:40, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Why this page is allowed in English Wikipedia when Swedish Nationalencyklopedin is source?
I see this page uses Nationalencyklopedin (Swedish Encyclopedia) only as a source. It does not use US Census Data of 2011. This page is promoting misinformation and should be deleted from Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.63.120.71 (talk) 13:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I think you mean the 2010 United States Census. It would not be relevant here, though. None of the languages listed here are spoken exclusively within the United States.
 * Peter Isotalo 20:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Hindi/Urdu mutually intelligible
I have seen this statement repeatedly on Wikipedia: "Urdu is mutually intelligible to Hindi." It appears on several pages, but I don't think any of them are cited. What basis do we have for this? Urdu and Hindi have differences, which cause them not to fit the definition of "mutual intelligibility." To what extent of similarity between two languages does there have to be before Wikipedia considers it mutually intelligible. I think we at least need a qualifier here to note the differences. Abierma3 (talk) 04:49, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Hindi-Urdu are mutually intelligible to the extent of Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian. The writing script is virtually the only differentiater, besides minor vocabulary differences. Khestwol (talk) 10:01, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
 * A different writing script and vocabulary differences: this does not fit the definition of being mutually intelligible. So why are we calling it as such? Abierma3 (talk) 18:30, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, not. In spite of the minor differences the native speakers understand each other easily. The different names are only for political reasons. Khestwol (talk) 19:40, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Khestwol, but a source would be good not only for Hindi-Urdu but for all claims of mutual intelligibility.Jeppiz (talk) 21:41, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I added the qualifier "mostly mutually intelligible." Because of vocabulary differences, it is not entirely mutually intelligible. There are other languages on this page described as "partly mutually intelligible" or "mostly mutually intelligible," so we should not pretend Hindi and Urdu are 100% mutually intelligible. Abierma3 (talk) 08:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The colloquial languages are 100% mutually intelligible: Native speakers can't even tell them apart. Educated jargon differs to the point of being almost mutually unintelligible. But then, various professional jargons in English may be practically unintelligible too. — kwami (talk) 23:44, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Ranking & notes
Removed the ranking per previous discussions. Also removed the notes with OR comments on mutual intelligibility. This is a source of perennial debate but is not included in the source. As for Zhuang, Hmong and Quechua being families, so are Fula, Mandarin and other 'languages', and this could also be endlessly debated. The 'native names' column also showed the scars of edit-warring. The only notes should be about the numbers, such as Belarusian being double most estimates, or most Awadhi speakers self-identifying as Hindi and thus counted under Hindi. — kwami (talk) 19:45, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Merge completed
I've just finished merging list of languages by total number of speakers here. In that merge discussion, there was a fair amount of support for renaming this page "list of languages by number of speakers". However, it's occurred to me that this page still only gives information on native speakers. Of the three lists from the other page, only Ethnologue seems worth bringing over (I plan to propose that here in the future). However, even Ethnologue's list is limited to native speakers. So I now think that name change doesn't make sense.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 05:03, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

page was deleted, not merged!

 * The page "List of languages by total number of speakers" has not been merged with "List of languages by number of native speakers" but rather has been deleted altogether! All data on second-language speakers has been removed.  If there is confusion between the two pages, then I propose that both pages be redirected instead to "List of languages by number of speakers," with in-page subsections for lists of first-language speakers vs. total number of speakers.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 13:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have merged the two pages into a single page at "list of languages by number of speakers." Some minor cleanup may still be needed.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 14:24, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * And I have reverted it, there has been no discussion here to move, delete or merge this article, not even a post with a link to the discussion to let users know it was ongoing. I cannot see that that discussion has any relevance for this article as it was never mentioned here. Jeppiz (talk) 14:43, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Unreverted. Please see my comment on revert at user talk:Jeppiz, thanks.  Either we have to have two separate pages, or one unified page; we cannot have duplicated pages on Wikipedia or it will create inconsistencies.  I think the unified/merged page is good, especially since "native speakers" is a subset of "total speakers."  They can always be split again in the future if there is argument for it.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 15:18, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * as someone who's been working on this article in the last couple of weeks and leading a significant amount of discussion about this very issue, I strongly object to the way this article was moved without discussion. I'm going to put it back as it was so we can take time to discuss, as Jeppiz is rightly urging.
 * Nicole, the reason I didn't include Statista or Weber is that I do not believe they're reliable sources. Weber, for example, is a 18-year-old article from a defunct magazine (whose academic standards I haven't been able to assess for lack of information) which cites a 1991 book for its language figures. Our article even says "However, only graphs were published, so numerical figures need to be measured"—original research if I ever saw it!
 * I do think the figures from Ethnologue should be included. I did not go ahead and do so because there was a preexisting consensus on this talk page that Ethnologue was unreliable. I disagree, but the issue needs to be discussed. However, even if we do include Ethnologue, it does not consistently include numbers on total speakers. So it wouldn't make sense to call this page "list of languages by number of speakers" if we do not have any reliable information other than native speakers. I explained that on this very page before you jumped in.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 19:02, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Nicole, I can see that it was confusing that I merged the total speakers page here, but removed the information from it immediately afterward. So I understand why you felt it important to bring back that information and move the page. But there's a lot to be discussed here, and we need to do that first.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 19:08, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

duplicate page

 * I am opening a new topic here because there seems to be some confusion and the page keeps getting reverted and unreverted. We cannot have two copies of the same page ("list of languages by number of native speakers") on Wikipedia since due to the nature of wikitext it will create inconsistencies over time.  The content of "list of languages by number of native speakers" and the content of "list of languages by total number of speakers" has to be either on two separate wikipages, or all together on one single wikipage .  Either is fine with me.  I merged the two pages together per the consensus at "talk:list of languages by total number of speakers."  If the sources are wrong or inaccurate on one or both of the original page(s), then the page(s) need to be edited of course (with the edits done on the most recent version of the page, which is currently the merged one at "list of languages by number of speakers"), but a decision has to be made to have either two pages or one page.  Again, the consensus seems to be that the two pages needed to be merged, so that is what was done.  If the language "number of speakers" in the title is uncomfortable (I don't like it myself), then I would suggest moving the content from "list of languages by number of speakers" to "list of languages by population," since "population" is a less-precise term and does not imply exact counts as the word "number" does, though it should be common sense that no figure is exact, since anyone anywhere can learn or forget new or old languages at any time, and the numbers are constantly changing.  Please see the discussion on the merging of the two pages at "talk:list of languages by number of speakers."  In the mean time, I am going to unrevert (again) this page, which is now old duplicate content of the new merged page "list of languages by number of speakers."  If the consensus is that the pages should be unmerged and split again into two pages, it is relatively easy to do that thanks to MediaWiki.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 19:32, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Nicole Sharp, it's not that the article "keeps getting reverted and unreverted", it's you who decided to redirect it with no previous discussion here, and then to edit war over it. Calling your edit warring "unrevert" does not change a thing. If you want to start a discussion here about merging the page, please do so, and then await the outcome of that discussion. Jeppiz (talk) 19:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I never suggested a merge. I'm fine either way with the pages being merged or unmerged.  Neil P. Quinn was the user who attempted the original merge between this page and "list of languages by total number of speakers."  Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * @user:Neil P. Quinn: If you think that the content at "list of languages by number of speakers" needs to be deleted altogether, it should be discussed at length on the talkpage first. Such a large amount of information shouldn't be arbitrarily removed from Wikipedia without a good consensus.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 19:50, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * There's no duplicate page, they're two separate articles with different scope, and have both been restored to what they looked like before the attempted merge was made (#1, #2). Thomas.W talk 20:07, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The duplicate content was from having both the merged and unmerged articles up on Wikipedia. Neil P. Quinn has reverted their original edits and we're back to where we started with two separate unmerged articles at "list of languages by number of native speakers" and "list of languages by total number of speakers."  Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * just to clarify, merging list of languages by number of native speakers and list of languages by total number of speakers happened by consensus. You can see the discussion here. This whole kerfuffle happened because, right after I carried out the merge, I removed most of the information merged from the total speakers page, because it seemed unreliable and I thought it should be off the page while we discussed whether to re-include it. Nicole reacted to that by restoring the information and doing a copy-paste move of the page to list of languages by number of speakers. That's what Jeppiz and I have reverted (I object to the undiscussed move, not the restoration). I'm going to let this simmer for a while, but I wanted to be clear about what the status quo actually is.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 20:22, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * let's agree that if there is dispute about what to do on Wikipedia, we leave things as they are and talk about them. That means you should not keep moving this page to list of languages by number of speakers when two different people are telling you to stop and discuss. On the other hand, since you object to my removal of the Ethnologue and Weber lists, I'm happy to put them back in this article while we discuss them (I can put the Statista list back as well, but I think that one's pretty clearly unreliable). How does that sound?
 * Also, if you're trying to mention someone in a discussion, the easiest way is to use the ping template. It works like this:  produces "". You can also notify multiple people like this:  . Also, I wouldn't mind if you split your comments into paragraphs just so it's easier to read :-) —Neil P. Quinn (talk) 20:11, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * While I see your points, I don't think Ethnologue or Weber belongs here (as per long previous discussions). Jeppiz (talk) 20:14, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I was just very concerned when I saw that the entire contents of the page "list of languages by total number of speakers" had been deleted when you attempted to "merge" it with this page. I do a lot of work in linguistics and very frequently use both pages as a reference.  I am aware of the inaccuracies and outdatedness of the sources, but having the page up on Wikipedia is still a very useful rough guide to the most populous languages.  I personally do not see any problems with keeping the information up on "list of languages by total number of speakers" as long as it is clear to users that the information is outdated and perhaps unreliable.  I recently commented on "talk:Makemake" that having (scientific) guesswork or less-than-accurate data is often better than having no data at all.  For that reason alone, I think it is best not to be deleted.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for the information on pinging. I did not know how to do that.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ¡Ay! I had to type my replies three times due to the number of simultaneous editors here :-/. #editconflicterror  Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Please also see my post at "user talk:Neil P. Quinn." Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:55, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Moving forward

 * Nicole, I think part of the confusion here is that we both did two things at once. I merged the two pages, which had been discussed and agreed to, and then I immediately removed the Ethnologue, Weber, and Statista numbers, which I had discussed in passing but hadn't gotten firm consensus on. It sounds like you didn't have any particular problem with the first, but objected to the second.
 * In turn, you restored the numbers I removed and also moved the page to list of languages by number of speakers (by copying and pasting, which is heavily frowned upon because it separates the content from its history). I don't have a problem with the first, and I think what Jeppiz and I were reacting (possibly overreacting) to was the second.
 * So, how about we clearly separate these concerns? I suggest that we remerge the pages as was agreed to, but this time keep Ethnologue, Weber, and Statista numbers in while we discuss whether they're reliable (I know you disagree, Jeppiz, but my priority is to get these pages merged so we can have the reliability discussion once and for all—sorry!).
 * One other thought: if we're already talking on one page like this one, it just confuses things to start side conversations on talk pages. Looking forward to your thoughts!—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 04:35, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * If "list of languages by number of native speakers" and "list of languages by total number of speakers" are merged, then the correct Wikipedia article name for the merged content is "list of languages by number of speakers." I already tried this, and you unmerged them.  Feel free to remerge them again though if you like since their seems to be a consensus for that already.  I just do not think we should be deleting any sources from either of the articles, even if they are outdated.  That is a separate issue from merging.  As I commented at "user talk:Neil P. Quinn," even the old Weber numbers are still of historical interest.  I would actually like to see some older sources even for comparison.  If you really feel any sources should be deleted, I think the best way to go about it is to create a poll for each source in the articles, and then allow 12 months for users to place their votes to keep or delete.  See also my post at "talk:list of languages by total number of speakers."  Nicole Sharp (talk) 14:06, 14 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose I am absolutely sure the intentions here are the best, but I think the disadvantages are much larger than the disadvantages. There is no real problem at list of languages by number of native speakers, it's a reliable list building on reliable sources. The sources at list of languages by total number of speakers are much more dubious (to say the least) and some of them have already been rejected at list of languages by number of native speakers . Merging the articles (why?) and keeping these substandard references would get these bad references re-introduced in what is currently an article with no real problem. The way I see it, we currently have one good and one not-so-good article, and the merger would result in just one not-so-good article. The only tangible result would be the loss of a good article, and I don't see any advantage that would outweigh that disadvantage. Jeppiz (talk) 16:15, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Weird, I never got the ping. Deleted the two unreliable sources per above, reverted Ethnologue list to what is actually supported by Ethnologue. I never cared for the merge, but wasn't terribly opposed to it; the way I see it, we'd merge the data and then delete it all as unreliable, so the end result would be to delete the total-speakers article. As it stands with my revert, the Ethn. list has enough question marks and blanks in it that hopefully no-one will take it to be a good reference. — kwami (talk) 18:49, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with that despite the consensus at "talk:list of languages by total number of speakers," there does not seem to be any pressing need to merge the pages, since they use different sources and have different levels of accuracy.  Nicole Sharp (talk) 19:38, 14 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, it's quite frustrating to see what looked like a consensus to merge evaporate after I put in a bunch of work implementing it, but what can I do? I think the crux of the issue is whether Ethnologue is reliable—Nicole thinks it is, and after researching, I'm inclined to agree. Jeppiz and Kwami disagree. As I've said before, I'd like to settle the issue once and for all, so I plan to raise the issue here at some point in the future.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 01:50, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Merged to list of languages by total number of speakers. Twitteristhebest (talk) 02:18, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

A problem of precise definitions more than accurate numbers
Throughout this article there is confusion as to which columns or numbers refer to native speakers, which to secondary speakers (but those for whom a given language, in this case English, has become their primary language), and others. With English, to continue that example, there are in the UK, USA, etc. large numbers of immigrants, and in countries like India and Ghana, for whom English is the national language, there are large numbers for whom the "second language" has become their primary mode of communication. And then, of course, there are those for whom it is only an "international language" that they speak in order to do business, science, or communication with English-speaking foreigners, both native and non-native.

The problem here is less one of accurate numbers than of more precise definitions of the categories of entities being counted,explicitly laid out and consistently applied across languages, as well as possible. Fair estimates might be made of each, and that could be useful to someone seeking information on this page. India has english as its national language? Where from you got this? Hindi is India's national language. It is spoken by at least 422 million people in India alone as per census 2001 of Government of India. It is further spoken by residents of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and immigrants from India to entire world.--Rajatbindalbly (talk) 14:28, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Swahili (140 million+) is missing, should be No. 9 in the list
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language

No it says native speakers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.249.49.241 (talk) 14:06, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Multiple sources
This used to have mutliple sources. Is it not possible for this still to be the case? Munci (talk) 06:54, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 January 2016
Values in Total row at the end of table are not in correct columns.

1.186.41.2 (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Thanks for pointing it out! Mz7 (talk) 05:40, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 October 2015
The Hindi language is spoken by 1200 million people worldwide and is the most spoken language in the world.Source :http://drjpnautiyal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Nautiyal-Research-Article-Final.pdf It is spoken by at least 422 million people in India alone vide 2001 census data of Govt. Of India. I quote source http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement4.aspx--Rajatbindalbly (talk) 11:20, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Rajatbindalbly (talk) 09:53, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ❌ The figure you repeatedly try to add to Hindi, 1,200 million (not 1,200 as stated above...), and now also want to add here, is from a self-published "report" by a self-proclaimed "linguist", and is nothing but pure fantasy. Thomas.W talk 11:58, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Sir, My question is not replied. If you dont believe the source of data from 2011 census of Govt. of India, wihich is certainly not a homemade data or a hobbyists data then what source would you believe.People on wikipedia are frequently editing pages without any authentic data. I feel disgusted and take an impression that the data on wikipedia encyclopedia is not authentic and is written by people having the the thinking of colonial times claiming their supremacy to source of knowledge. And I end this discussion frustrated by your mean approach.--Rajatbindalbly (talk) 16:59, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The censusdata you're referring to has nothing to do with your claim about Hindi being spoken by 1.2 billion people, unless you're trying to claim that everyone in India speaks Hindi, which of course isn't true (for further reading see this). Thomas.W talk 17:09, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

O.K. if 1200 billion people speaking hindi cannot be believed because as per you it is a research by an individual( though this is a research paper and I do not agree with you) then the official census 2001 of Govt. Of India says that 422 million people speak hindi. It automatically gives hindi the status of second largest spoken language in the world but you are repeatedly undoning my edits which is incorrect and strongly protested. I wish to know under what authority you are trying to undone my edits with verifyble source?? I will report it to central administration of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajatbindalbly (talk • contribs)
 * You have already been given an answer to that question, including by, so why do you keep asking the same question? Thomas.W talk 17:37, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

I have replied to SpacemaSpiff too. There is no language in the world called as Hindustani. Neither it is taught in India. Hindi means hindi and that is it. Hindi is having different accents and slangs but it do not undone the basic language as Hindi. Please discuss it at length with professors of Hindi in India as in Britain it is impossible to understand the spread of hindi worldwide.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 13:49, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Please also check https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers&oldid=479217655. Rajatbindalbly (talk) 14:32, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Changing answered parameter to yes. It is recommended that the OP read our policies on original research and reliable sources. --Stabila711 (talk) 03:27, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Stabila,,, I have read the policy. The census data of 2001 by Govt. Of India is an authentic data and cannot be ignored. It says 422 million people speak in Hindi in India alone. If someone has doubt over this data I personally invite him/her to visit India and find the correctness of truth. People in Pakistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia and immigrants to U.S., U.K., U.A.E. and other countries also speak hindi which data is not included in the above.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 10:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC) Getting recognition internationally is also the job of PMO. Our P.M. Sri Narendra Modi is very particular on that. Also he will never ignore the request of a lawyer who speak only after doing original research.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 11:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I quote http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement4.aspxRajatbindalbly (talk) 11:03, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I changed to template to "yes" again. Your edits are becoming more and more disruptive since you're still going on about it, even though multiple editors have told you why you can't add those numbers to the article. Thomas.W talk 11:06, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

If my request for updating the status of hindi language to at least 2nd position worldwide is not accepted I will ask The Prime Minister Office of Indian Govt. to take up the issue with Wikipedia and if Wikipedia dont agree to update I will also request The Prime Minister Office to Ban wikipedia in India for circulating false and scandalous material.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 11:20, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't be silly, I'm sure the Prime Minister of India has more important matters to deal with than to support you and your original research on Wikipedia... Thomas.W talk 11:35, 22 October 2015 (UTC)


 * First time I've seen a PM brought into a legal threat before. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 14:48, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Rajatbindalbly, your question has been answered. Whether you like the answer or not is, frankly, not relevant. You are now being purely disruptive by your refusal to WP:HEAR. Consider this a warning that you may be blocked if you continue in the same way. Jeppiz (talk) 12:44, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

The question here is whether Nationalencyklopedin is the best source of information for global language use or are there better sources of information for this article. For List of languages by number of native speakers in India, there is also this 2001 Census statement that confirms the 422M figure. As soon as Census India releases data from the 2011, that page can be updated which is just what other editors are saying. Wikipedia can't use self-published papers as reliable sources, especially ones that don't disclose the methodology of the study. Liz Read! Talk! 15:25, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The page you linked to has confused Hindi with Hindustani languages, a whole group of related languages, when compiling the report. If you check the list there you'll find that 48 other languages, including Bhojpuri and Rajasthani, are included in the 422 million (if you look closely at the very confusing report you'll find the number of actual Hindi speakers listed as 257 million...). It's as if someone confused German and Germanic languages, and included speakers of Dutch, the Scandinavian languages and all other Germanic languages in a figure for the number of German speakers. An error that people here on en_WP have tried to make Rajatbindalbly understand, but that he either can't understand or won't accept. Thomas.W talk 15:52, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * We have discussed this for years, literally, and Nationalencyklopedin is the best available source for now. Please understand that what a census in one country or another reports is irrelevant to this article, as a list of this kind only makes sense if all data comes from the same source. This is why the article is permanently semi-protected, as we've seen years of IPs coming with a source claiming their language is larger. I'm sure everybody would be interested to hear about another possible source for the list of languages, but a source for only one language is and remains irrelevant here, no matter how WP:RS it is for the article on that individual language. Jeppiz (talk) 16:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, okay, I was just raising the question about the primary source, I'm not trying to be contentious.
 * I'm sorry if this issue has been discussed for years but I will predict in three months weeks/days or so, another editor who is new to the subject will raise similar questions. I don't know why this subject is such a lightening rod but if you are right that the figures are frequently contested, you can expect continued challenges from editors who believe they have a source that is superior to Nationalencyklopedin. Liz  Read! Talk! 17:09, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yup, we're very used to it. Some of the sources probably are superior, but only for one language. What many users don't understand is that a list of this kind only makes sense if the source is the same for all the data, otherwise ranking becomes meaningless. The archives are full of explanations about this, but you're right that we'll continue to see a steady stream of users unaware of it, and 99% convinced that their language should be higher ranked. Jeppiz (talk) 20:59, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Please see this https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/23/the-worlds-languages-in-7-maps-and-charts/, here research is made for all the languages together and hindi is ranked on no. 2 with 588 million speakers.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 13:25, 24 October 2015 (UTC) Please see this https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size.. here chinese is shown to have a group of 13 languages.Arabic is a language grouping 19 languages.Malay as a group of 9 languages.Even if we take english it is spoken differently in U.K. and U.S..Rajatbindalbly (talk) 13:31, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Washington Post use a wider definition of "Hindi" than professional linguists and Wikipedia do, so it's of no relevance here. Thomas.W talk 13:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Please also see this http://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindi-languageRajatbindalbly (talk) 14:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Please also see https://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%80.. this is on wikipedia itself.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 14:27, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

A language is a combination of dialect and script spoken in large area having its own text and literature for a large period of time. It has its own grammer and other technical aspects to make it perfect. Sub language is a dialect which is developed through main language and having literature, script and grammer in developing stage. As soon as it will mature it may have a separate status of independent language. A dialect is a speech or speaking language originated from main language having no text, literature or script of its own. Dialect, sub language are all clubbed under language when we speak about term language. Kindly see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect. Bhojpuri, magadhi, avadhi and other are the dialects of hindi having no independent status. These have originated from hindi as main language. So whenever you will ask a person speaking bhojpuri he will tell you hindi as his native language. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhojpuri_language. Please see this https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size.. here chinese is shown to have a group of 13 languages.Arabic is a language grouping 19 languages.Malay as a group of 9 languages.Even if we take english it is spoken differently in U.K. and U.S.Please also see this http://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindi-language.Hindi in census 2001 is shown as a group of several dialects recognizing hindi as main language.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 06:28, 25 October 2015 (UTC)


 * You are extremely disruptive. This edit request has been answered. You may not like the answer, and we frankly could not care less. The source you're citing is ridiculous, Jayanti Prasad Nautiyal is not a real researcher, his so-called "research" is complete nonsense. Your constant treats of having the Indian Prime Minister ban Wikipedia not only violates WP:LEGAL, it's as ridiculous as the rest. You've been disrupting this page for over a week now, and you've refused to WP:HEAR all other users. Stop now! Jeppiz (talk) 10:49, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Iam not citing Mr. Nautiyal as source. I am citing Britanica, Washington Post, Ethnologue, Indian Census 2001 as source. Trying humbly to bring correct fact on record to make wikipedia more strong and authentic.Some editors says that Hindustani is a language. If it is recognized as language then it may be given a first place or second place in the list .Rajatbindalbly (talk) 13:29, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Kindly see this http://asiasociety.org/hindiRajatbindalbly (talk) 09:11, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Kindly re-read the above discussion. A randomly picked source without clear definitions of the languages involved is not sufficient, nor are sources that fail to compare the world’s languages using a consistent and verifiable methodology or that fail to differentiate between L1, L2 and L3 speakers. Bye-bye, LiliCharlie (talk) 19:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Respected editors, Marathi, Gujrati, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi, Chhattisgarhi are not languages as they don't have script and are written in devnaagri script, these are in fact dialects of hindi language. Kindly consider after healthy discussion.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 15:38, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * So I guess English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Indonesian, Vietnamese etc. aren't languages either, they are all dialects as they are written in the Latin script? (Or to be serious, no, we're not changing sourced facts because a user confuses script with language.) Jeppiz (talk) 15:41, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
 * If you want to be taken seriously I suggest you raise the level of logical thinking in your posts, because that post was just silly. No reliable sources, which is what we go by, support your claims about the number of native (i.e. L1) speakers of Hindi. Thomas.W talk 15:49, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Respected Sirs, if we consider the data of native language speakers then by your own article on wikipedia the no. of total native speakers are just 218.32 million, kindly see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world. However, in this article the no. of native speakers of english is shown much more.117.201.73.152 (talk) 05:21, 12 February 2016 (UTC) Current population of U.S 318 million, U.K. 64.1 m, Canada 35.16m, Australia 23.13 m, S. Africa 52.98m, Ireland 4.5 m, New Zealand 4.4M......117.201.73.152 (talk) 05:25, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Where did you get the 218.32M from? According to the article you linked to the number of native speakers of English in the United States alone is at least 231 million... Thomas.W talk 05:44, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

The article says the no. of native speakers in U.S. of english are 64.3%. The population of U.S. according to last census is 318 million. Hence 204 Million people are native speakers of english.61.3.93.53 (talk) 05:02, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * People who count entire populations probably have talking babies. LiliCharlie (talk) 05:31, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Mandarin is not a mother tongue of the people reported in this article hence the native speakers of Mandarin is much much less. China has 103 languages in its land. All of them are clubbed here in one language as Mandarin. This principle is highly inaccurate. Kindly see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China.59.91.191.36 (talk) 06:59, 13 February 2016 (UTC) Modern standard Arabic has only 215 million speakers contrary to what is reported here. These speakers also speak different variants of arabic as per regional differences.Kindly see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Standard_Arabic.61.3.93.6 (talk) 14:53, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Oh what a fun..such a long debate.Sounds having good reasons. Mandarin cannot be largest spoken native language as China have more languages as per the principle set here.Akash Pandey 43 (talk) 09:16, 27 February 2016

As per information provided by the Govt. Of India vide letter dt. 08th March 2016 the total no. of hindi speakers are 42,00,00,000.. i.e. 4 billion in accordance with 2001 census..Rajatbindalbly (talk) 16:45, 8 March 2016 (UTC)


 * 4 billion — your rumours are so funny. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:55, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

LiliCharlie|LiliCharlie] .. Please give me your email address, I will send you the letter sent by Govt. Of India to me on my inquiry under Right to Information. Now they may declare the results of 2011 census shortly as the P.M. office is taking up the matter.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 05:46, 9 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Rajatbindalbly, 4 billion is more than half of the world population, that's what gave me a laugh. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 06:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh yes ... Ha Ha ... I am sorry... a mistake due to numbers used in India and abroad. It is actually 422 million. Thank You for correcting.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 08:20, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

great Rajatbindalbly you have collected some data from Govt. Of India. I think now this should be accepted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.94.159 (talk) 08:27, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Article may be rewritten
This article seem to have irregularities. Mandarin as one language do not have so many native speakers. Nor Arabic. No. of English native speakers are much less, most of the people speak it as their second language. Please rewrite it or make substantial changes.61.3.95.30 (talk) 12:50, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I also suggest that this article need edits.Akash Pandey 43 (talk) 09:17, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * It would seem you suggest we exchange sourced facts for your personal opinion. That is not going to happen. Jeppiz (talk) 10:45, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Getting egoist is no answer to right argument. A long debate by someone above represent good sources and also portrays this article with many many defects. This surely put a question mark on the authenticity of wikipedia.Akash Pandey 43 (talk) 15:04, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * ? Show me that good source (with a unitary methodology for all the languages treated here, so that comparisons are possible). User 61.3.95.30 only says no, no, all wrong. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:25, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

User 59.91.191.36 is citing source of wikipedia. His argument appear to be correct. If there is no other single source, we cannot give place even to incorrect and contradictory data.Akash Pandey 43 (talk) 15:45, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * That's why I wrote "with a unitary methodology for all the languages treated here, so that comparisons are possible." Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:59, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

The opening para of this article itself make the article meaningless."Chinese is sometimes considered a single language and sometimes a macrolanguage whose many varieties are all independent languages". And as one editor says that Mandarin is not one language spoken by so many as native language. It has 103 varieties. The source quoted by him is also correct. We may consider rewritting the article in this light.Akash Pandey 43 (talk) 05:36, 28 February 2016 (UTC)


 * What light? I'm not illuminated. If you think you can do better write your own User:Akash Pandey 43/List of languages by number of native speakers as a proposal to replace this page. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 08:26, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

The language used by you show your mindset. In your language now...... you are correct you are not illuminated by knowledge. Or have a fused knowledge. Better correct the article and save the authenticity of wikipedia.Akash Pandey 43 (talk) 08:59, 28 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Please go through the archives of this talk page and also read Paolillo & Das (2006). There is good reason for not accepting numbers from scattered sources. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 09:09, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2016
Hindi and Urdu must be combined as Hindustani.

Deepaknagle2 (talk) 11:32, 24 April 2016 (UTC)


 * According to whom? Jeppiz (talk) 12:22, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. --allthefoxes (Talk) 03:30, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 May 2016
Nationwithout (talk) 20:13, 6 May 2016 (UTC) please currect list sindhi language 75 Millions Speaking All Over world. mostly pakistan & india Speak 46 ||Sindhi || 75 || 2%


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. -- Cameron11598  (Converse) 05:12, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 June 2016
"Mandarin" in the table, the number one language, should pipe to Mandarin Chinese rather than Standard Chinese. Admittedly there is a lot of debate over the definition of a language and the primary topic of "Mandarin." But in this context, the correct choice is clear: Mandarin Chinese is an article about a group of dialects that collectively have 900 million native speakers--as the table says. Standard Chinese according to the article is a standard that scarcely has any native speakers, contradicting the table. It is very confusing for the reader to be taken there, as it suggests that "no one actually speaks Mandarin" (so what do all the Chinese speak, who don't speak Cantonese, Hakka, Min, etc.).

169.231.70.219 (talk) 16:38, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting comment.svg Note: The link to Standard Chinese says that it is also called Mandarin and is the official languages..... I think when the article refers to Mandarin as the most common language, it is referring to Standard Chinese which is also known as Mandarin. Sir Joseph (talk) 17:33, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess the requester is perfectly right. This is analogous to linking native English to Standard English which isn't the best of ideas either. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:50, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Changed the link, which clarifies the issue. Thanks — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 22:22, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Charts and Graphs
Useless image, I am not an ant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.252.252.179 (talk) 00:22, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Respected editors, it seems there is an inconsistency in the data of the list. It states that French is 1) Ranked 18th with 1.12 % of world population 2) Has 80 million speakers According to the very same list, French should be ranked 13th with 1.20% of world population. Would you, please, investigate what is the correct data and make the appropriate corrections? Regards. Phil4242 (talk) 04:40, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I am trying to point out the irregularities again and again but none is ready to hear. Data of Mandarin is inaccurate. The opening statement itself agrees that data is incorrect. Hindi is second largest spoken language worldwide, the fact is admitted by so many other encyclopedia and other accepted source, but no result here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajatbindalbly (talk • contribs) 14:37, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 August 2016
Change: "| 89 ||Quechua || 8.9 || 2%" with "| 89 ||Bulgarian || 9.0 || 2%

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_language

Joblack1979 (talk) 07:45, 29 August 2016 (UTC)


 * ❌ As explained in the paragraph above the table, we can't mix and match different sources to produce the ranking. The information in the table is based on the Nationalencyklopedin and if it doesn't list Bulgarian as the 89-th most widely spoken language, then we can't include it. Uanfala (talk) 08:09, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

The English makes no sense
The popultion of the US and UK exceed the native-english speakers. What about Canada, Australia, India... ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.57.205.93 (talk) 09:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The number given is for the native speakers of English. Very few people in India have it as a first language, and in the US it's the native language of only about 80% of the population, and about 90% of that of the UK. Also noting that the numbers are coming from the 2007 edition of the Norwegian encyclopedia (with the data possibly coming from longer ago) and since then the overall populations have grown. – Uanfala (talk) 09:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Hebrew?
Why is Hebrew not on this list? It has over 9 million native speakers, clearly enough to be in the top 100 according to this list. — 69.120.66.153 (talk) 05:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Because the uniform source is the 2010 edition of the Nationalencyklopedin. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 07:17, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 December 2016
Turkish language speaking 82 million people in the world. They live in Turkey, Northen Cyprus and Germany. Malimalix (talk) 01:01, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * ❌ The important thing about a table like this is that the numbers for the different languages could be comparable, and for that they should be sourced to a single text, which in this case is the Nationalencyklopedin. I haven't been able to access it, but I'm sure that its compilers have taken into account all speakers of Turkish, no matter which country they reside in. The numbers might be somewhat out of date, but they're equally out of date for all the languages listed. – Uanfala (talk) 01:41, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 January 2017
85.50.188.76 (talk) 17:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Please review even your own article

Seriously guy?!!! The gap is not even a mistake it is litearly shoking ! 18 	French 	75 	1.12%

CORRECTION Native speakers 274 million (2016)[1] 300 million total speakers

SOURCES https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/visuel/2014/11/30/ou-en-est-la-francophonie_4528533_3212.html


 * ❌ The reason for this is almost given in your Le Monde link where it says: Une augmentation d'un quart en 4 ans, liée à de nouveaux critères de comptage. In order to avoid different counting criteria for different languages or different periods, we have chosen to use a uniform source, which is the 2007 edition of Nationalencyklopedin. Please read the introduction and the text above the table. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Northern Min
The Northern Min entry (#80) should be removed from the top 100, because it double-counts the speakers of Eastern Min (#87). It seems the error occurred in the 14th edition of the Ethnologue, and has been copied by Nationalencyklopedin.

The background is that early descriptions of Min Chinese dialects divided them into Northern and Southern groups. After surveys in the late 50s and 60s, a seven-group classification emerged, and has become standard, e.g. in the Language Atlas of China. In this classification, the old Northern Min group was split into Eastern Min (Min Dong), containing the bulk of the population, a much smaller Northern Min (Min Pei/Bei) limited to Nanjing prefecture, Central Min (Min Zhong) and Pu-Xian Min. It seems that the Nationalencyklopedin figures for Chinese dialect groups are based on those in Ethnologue, scaled for national population growth, so the erroneous figure for Northern Min was duplicated there. Kanguole 16:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The 12th edition of Ethnologue used the old two-way division, with Min Pei (Northern Min) said to have 10,290,000 speakers in China (dated to 1984) and 10,537,000 worldwide.
 * The 13th edition (1996) switched to a five-way division, incorporating the now-standard split of the Northern group, but leaving Southern Min unchanged. The Bin Bei (Northern Min) entry, now restricted to "7 counties around Jian'ou", has the same figures as the 12th edition, but with the note "(includes Min Bei, Min Dong, Min Zhong, and Pu-Xian)".  The other three groups have no population figures for China.
 * In the 14th edition (2000), that note disappeared, leaving Northern Min (under the new narrow definition) with a claimed 10,290,000 speakers, even though the counties mentioned have a population of under 3 million. The Language Atlas of China (1987) gives a speaker population of 2,191,000 for this group.  The other three groups still have no population figures for China.
 * In the 15th edition (2005), Eastern Min is finally given a number of speakers in China, of 8,820,252.


 * At https://www.ethnologue.com/language/mnp/feedback you can ask Ethnologue how they arrived at their figures for Northern Min [mnp] which currently (19th ed.) are "10,900,000 in China (2013). Total users in all countries: 10,904,000." This is also the place to discuss changes in future editions. (Here's which 14 Chinese languages they currently recognize.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I know where the 4,000 in Singapore came from – they were listed as Hokchia speakers under Min Pei (old definition) in the 12th edition, and not transferring them to Eastern Min in later editions was another error. But I'm more interested in removing a blatant error from one of our pages.  Kanguole 18:16, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Go ahead then and don't forget to explain in a footnote why only 99 languages are listed. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that adding that to the article would fall foul or NOR. Certainly changing the rankings of nos. 81–100 would.  The only solution I can think of would be truncate the list at a point where we are confident that Nationalencyklopedin is reliable (which would be fewer than 80 entries).  Kanguole 18:57, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


 * An alternative might be to leave the list unchanged but either strike out Northern Min or show it in grey, with an explanation why. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That would be OR, I think. I've raised the issue at No original research/Noticeboard.  Kanguole 13:20, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The single response there concurs with my feeling that the only solution is to truncate the list somewhere before #80. Kanguole 18:48, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've seen that and I agree the cleanest way is to truncate the list. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:11, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Should we truncate it to 70, 50, or what? Kanguole 01:45, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * There is only one argument I can think of: Let's provide our users with as much plausible and sourced information as possible. After all that's what Wikipedia is all about. 79 may look like a random number, but in this case there's nothing random about it. — I think that even if we choose 70 or 50 languages we'll need at least a footnote explaining why the Nationalencyklopedin list was truncated. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:33, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a good argument for 79. But a footnote would still be OR in an article.  The most we can do is a comment in the wikitext pointing to the talk page.  Kanguole 10:52, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, we could do that. Should we use something like to prevent this thread from being archived for 99,999 days (almost 274 years)? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 11:23, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * No need – we can edit the comment to point at the location in the archive. Kanguole 11:25, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note also that according to the Swedish version of this page, in the 2010 edition of Nationalencyklopedin Northern Min has dropped to #84. Kanguole 17:02, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * At this point we give figures from the 2010 edition only for the top 11 languages alongside the 2007 figures. Wouldn't it be reasonable to switch entirely to the newer edition? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:25, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It would, if someone has access to it. Kanguole 17:35, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * User Paracel63 seems to have added the 2010 figures to the Swedish WP. Maybe he has access and can add the data here as well. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:18, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

(outdented) Hi! Yes, I've got access to the data (published here). No, I won't update the article (being more than busy at svwp). But all the data from the link is in hidden code. Please use Google Translate or another Swedish-speaking person for any additional clarification. Best of wishes.--Paracel63 (talk) 18:40, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * So Northern Min is actually #81 in the 2010 list – very neat! But I think it needs to be added by an editor with sight of the source.  Kanguole 18:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 March 2017
more than 110 millions of people are talking in Persian language. please fix the number from 45 to 110 ! thank you. Kalagar (talk) 07:38, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Cannolis (talk) 11:00, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
 * , the list in the article is based on a single source, as it ought to be – for a ranking of languages by the number of speakers we can't mix and match numbers that are coming from different sources. The only way to change the list is to find another, more reliable source that has such a listing. – Uanfala (talk) 04:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

See this reference: Windfuhr, Gernot: The Iranian Languages, Routledge 2009, p. 41. This mentioned Persian Language to have 110 million speakers round the world. --Bahraam Roshan (talk) 09:25, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * As Uanfala correctly stated above "the list in the article is based on a single source" (which is Nationalencyklopedin and not Windfuhr (2009)) and "[t]he only way to change the list is to find another, more reliable source that has such a listing." For more information on the problems of providing such a list please read all running text above it. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 12:25, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Hindi and Urdu
(moved from User talk:NadirAli) As User:LiliCharlie mentioned, and as explained in the lead and in a note on the talk page, there are many different methods for counting speakers of languages, and using different sources for different languages yields inconsistent results. The only way to obtain a consistently ranked list is to be base it on a single source that covers all languages. Though no source is ideal, the Nationalencyklopedin is the best such source found so far. Altering individual entries based on other sources will turn the list into an inconsistent mess. If you have sources that give different information, the appropriate approach is to add a footnote with that information. If you have an alternative source covering all languages, it might be added in a different section. In any case, you should not alter the list, which would misrepresent our description of Nationalencyklopedin.

I see you are also removing an existing explanatory note of this type, which is unjustified. Kanguole 22:46, 4 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Kanguole, splitting some languages and while conjoining others does not make it seem like a reliable source.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 23:04, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Also to point out, the external links you are using and the notes you accuse me of removing all agree with what I'm saying here.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 23:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)


 * It's a no-no to change a cited source at will. — Can you come up with a more reliable single source that is based on a uniform methodology? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:30, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 October 2017
in tab of top languages by population, French should be number 9 on the list, source:"Ethnologue: French". Retrieved 23 September 2017. 129.133.198.33 (talk) 19:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Sparkling Pessimist   Scream at me!  19:59, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

please change the ranks by 2017
Now hindi is most spoken language in the world from 2017 and second most spoken language is mandarin which is a china's language from 2017 Gurmeet grewal (talk) 17:18, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

❌ Hindi is not the most spoken language in the world, not by a very wide margin. Other than in the imagination of a couple of amateur "linguists" in India, who claim that well above 1 billion people in the world speak Hindi. With no sources for their claims, of course... - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 17:25, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Mandarin is not one single language, it is a group of several language. In China, not one language is spoken as such. Hindi is one language. The measurement standard for Hindi and Mandarin should be same. Census 2001 of India says Hindi is spoken by 422 million people. At least this much correction is needed.Rajatbindalbly (talk) 08:51, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Wrong on most accounts, I'm afraid. Mandarin is one language (unlike Chinese), so nothing wrong with the measurement. Furthermore, the Indian census is not a source for languages in the world. As we have been through so many times here already, we only use sources listing all relevant languages, not any source listing one particular language, as that would render comparisons meaningless. Jeppiz (talk) 12:16, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Russian native speakers total
I suggest that total number of Russian native speakers (the first native language is Russian) should be at least 200 mln. of people everywhere in the World. Perhaps even 210 mln. which makes it the 6-th rather than the 8-th most widely spoken language according to the chart. It still the first native language of 60% of Ukrainians (20+ mln.), 95% of Belarussians (8 mln.) at least 20% of Kazakhstan dwellers as well as millions of people elsewhere in the World. A research has to be done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.222.146.79 (talk) 03:10, 12 February 2018 (UTC)


 * ❌ There is good reason to cite the Nationalencyklopedin as a uniform source since using different sources for different languages yields inconsistent results. Also note that we don't carry out research for Wikipedia. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 12:00, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 March 2018
Change Portuguese language to 260 million, this hasn't been updated in a long time. (This is about how many people speak Portuguese, NOT how many native people live in Portuguese speaking countries) Thank you. Andromerius (talk) 14:21, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * ❌ Please provide reliable sources that support your suggested edits. Iffy★Chat -- 15:14, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 June 2018
Actually, the Catalan is the 82nd language most spoken, with 10,05 million native speakers. Marcsan03 (talk) 19:11, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Sir Joseph (talk) 19:16, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Some of the reliable sources are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language or https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catal%C3%A0. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcsan03 (talk • contribs) 15:12, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Apart from the fact that wikis are not a reliable source the articles Catalan language and ca:Català 1. indicate 4.1 million and 4,079,420 native Catalan speakers respectively and 2. fail to indicate a ranking of the languages with most native speakers. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:41, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Azerbaijani 23 million?
~10 million Azerbaijani native speakers lives in Azerbaijan ~30 million live in Iran. Many native Azerbaijani people live in different countries over the globe. How it can be 23?

Population of Russia is ~140 million. Out of Russia many native speakers and ethnic Russians live in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, surrounding countries and former-USSR countries. How it can be only 160?

The sources used are not correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adil (talk • contribs) 04:12, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Of course this number changes (it's about 166-170 million now) but: 1. Millions of people in Russian are *not* native Russian speakers. There are a few 10s of millions outside Russia (most of Belarus, much of the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Kazakhstan, a number of small communities elsewhere). This seems reasonable. What are your sources otherwise? Harsimaja (talk) 13:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Mandarin Number of Speakers
What counts as a mandarin speaker? Where does this number come from? The government held a test in 2011 in which only 60% of the participants could speak the "lowest" level of mandarin. Mandarin is a family of languages, which are NOT mutually intelligible. For example Mandarin speakers Northern Jiangsu would not be able to speak to people from Wuhan unless they are speaking standard mandarin (which most can not). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.207.174.109 (talk) 12:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
 * You are contradicting yourself. First, you say Mandarin is a family of languages, which is utter nonsense. Don't confuse it with other branches of Chinese. Then you say 60% of the participants couldn't speak properly. 900 million people speak something that is classified as Mandarin. Mandarin itself is quite homogenous compared to other branches since it easily spread throughout the plains unlike e.g. Min in those mountainous areas where linguistic contact was scarce. Stop trolling, I've seen you with your weird agenda and you always seem to use Northern Jiangsu and Wuhan as an example. If a Cockney person and a Mancunian were to communicate with each other, they might try to speak with less dialectal influence, but it wouldn't be RP standard. That's the same with Mandarin, it's just China is way bigger. --2001:16B8:310D:2600:F927:2EBD:79C3:7D33 (talk) 01:20, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Is there any stat about the actual native speakers of each Mandarin dialect? I have seen that the most spoken dialect is Northern Mandarin (the basis for Modern Standard Chinese), which I guess has several hundred million native speakers, but I haven't been able to find any official number. It would be very interesting to add the information here. Imalbornoz (talk) 11:35, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

11th most spoken language in world
Urdu 11th most spoken language in world: Study.— Bukhari    (Talk!)   05:40, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Half of 7.2 millions of Belurussiya populations speak Belorussian language in home? No maximum 720 000 people!
I know, that not more then tenth of 7.2 millions of Belurussiya populations speak Belorussian language in home! Not more then 720 000 people speak sometimes in Belorussian language home in home. I live in Minsk the capital city. It is very difficult to find any person, who will speak belorusian language!!! Here speak in belorussian language only in schools in the studies of belorussian hystory, balorussian language and belurussian literature!!!

If you do not believe, that arrive here and start ask people to show path to anywhere, for example to center of the city, and you will see, that all will tell you in russian language!!! I do not know any person here in Minsk, who speak belorussian language every day. I live here more then 37 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.128.200.24 (talk) 01:52, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

https://mogilew.by/article/185236-issledovaniya-vyyavili-kto-v-belarusi-govorit-po-belorusski.html says In "График 2. Связь языка домашнего общения с возрастом. Перепись 2009, %" shown "25.1 % speak in belorussian language in home and 68.9 % speak russian language in home". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.128.200.24 (talk) 01:48, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus says Languages Main article: Languages of Belarus Belarus's two official languages are Russian and Belarusian;[187] Russian is the main language, used by 72% of the population, while Belarusian, the official first language, is spoken by 11.9%.[188] Minorities also speak Polish, Ukrainian and Eastern Yiddish.[189] Belarusian, although not as widely used as Russian, is the mother tongue of 53.2% of the population, whereas Russian is the mother tongue of only 41.5%.[190] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.128.200.24 (talk) 01:27, 6 February 2019 (UTC)


 * As we are only citing figures from the Swedish "National Encyclopedia" Nationalencyklopedin you will have to report this and other errors in our list there. Start from their Kontakta oss ("contact us") page. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 05:44, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

About the new table
The page has been updated with a new table of "Languages with at least 50 million first-language speakers" using Ethnologue as the source. This time I haven't imported any list from List of languages by total number of speakers. I've just reproduced it from Ethnologue. Thanks. - St.teresa (talk) 16:09, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem is of course that Ethnologue is pure nonsense. For that reason I put it after NE. True, NE is now a bit outdated but at least admits it. Let's keep in mind that Ethnologue is a Christian missionary endeavour, and not a good academic source. Factual errors abound. For some languages, their data come from the 1970s or 1980s. Even for large languages, there are obvious errors all over the place. Just look a German in the table for a rather fun/sad example of how unreliable Ethnologue can be even for large languages. Personally I'd prefer not having it in the article at all, precisely for that reason. Jeppiz (talk) 12:20, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Then again, many of the non-European entries in NE are simply copied from Ethnologue, including the error with Northern Min discussed here. Kanguole 12:59, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, and NE is in no way perfect. Just much less bad. As you say, Ethnologue is one of the sources the linguists behind the NE list use. On the plus side, they also use other sources so when they have better/more recent sources they use them. This is evident for many of the top languages. I'd love to find an even better source than NE, but this far we haven't. Jeppiz (talk) 13:31, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * So no one is perfect, I know that. Even the second sentence of the page warns the reader stating "all such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum." Furthermore, many of the non-European entries in Nationalencyklopedin are simply copied from Ethnologue. So who says NE, the Swedish-language encyclopedia, is better than Ethnologue? A Swedish says so. So bias is obvious. The last edition of NE was published 9 years back. Ethnologue is being published each year. So what's better? I won't decide, but I think the two tables can coexist. Thanks. - St.teresa (talk) 14:00, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * St.teresa, your disruptive behaviour needs to stop. Now! You violate a number of policies. First, if you are reverted, you are supposed to discuss, not restore your edit several times. You have now inserted the same table three times into the article, despite knowing that several users disagree. Already the second time was a violation of WP:BRD, and the third time is downright disruptive. Second, if there is no consensus, then the previous version takes precedence. When you alone insert a table and others disagree, you cannot keep inserting it and claiming "no consensus" as reason in favour or you POV. Third, you need to stop the person attacks immediately. Making speculations about other editors' motives based on their nationality is a violation of WP:NPA. For your information, the decision to use NE was taken by a number of users, from different backgrounds and after long discussions. Read the archives! You do not get to override that just because you WP:DONTLIKEIT. Kindly revert your edit warring in the next two hours, or I'll have to file a report over your repeated disruptions. Jeppiz (talk) 14:34, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * You have now inserted the same table three times into the article...
 * The 4,280-byte table St.teresa inserted the day before yesterday was adapted from article List of languages by total number of speakers while the current 2,096-or-so-byte table, that they inserted yesterday, is from Ethnologue's Summary by language size.
 * And yes, let's restore the consensus version and discuss which table(s) to include. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:20, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * As to the offense taken by Jeppiz, I'm extremely sorry and I apologize. Please don't take any offense, Jeppiz. I just wanted to point out the possible conflict of interest or the possible bias in your edits. If I offended you, I did it unknowingly. And as LiliCharlie pointed out, you shouldn't count my edits before 22 February 2019.
 * As to Nationalencyklopedin's table, my opinion is that it should be removed because it's 9 years old. If no new edition of NE is published, should we keep this page perpetually backdated? If we want to update the page, we need to use Ethnologue as the source. And what's wrong with it? It is already being used as the source in the List of languages by total number of speakers. Hence if we can use Ethnologue in the List of languages by total number of speakers, we can use it in the "List of languages by number of native speakers" as well. That's all I had to say. Again I apologize if I hurt anyone's feelings. Thank you all very much. Love. - St.teresa (talk) 16:07, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 March 2019
Please change Persian 45 to Persian 70 million 108.171.129.188 (talk) 13:41, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: The table has the numbers of native speakers coming from Nationalencyklopedin.    Alucard 16  ❯❯❯ chat?    14:17, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Arabic
This is a group of languages. The W'pedia article on modern standard Arabic says that that language (if such it be) has no native speakers at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Standard_Arabic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.50.84.225 (talk) 11:48, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Link to old version
with the disputed Ethnologue or what ever sources, before someone decided to delete the smaller languages out of the list: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers&oldid=479217655

Thanks, the article as is, is useless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.76.35.63 (talk) 04:34, 20 April 2019 (UTC)