Global English Language Statistics of 2022 in a Nutshell English is an official language in 75 different countries worldwide, meaning that 39% of countries have English as one of their official languages.
About 1.35 billion people on Earth (population: 7.8 billion) speak English. That's more than 15% of the world's total population!
English speaking countries
The English language has its roots in the Indo-European language family. With 272.60 million native speakers, English has the highest prevalence in the United States of America. A total of about 459.8 million people worldwide speak English as their mother tongue.
English is the most widely spoken language in the world with 1.3 billion (1,320 million) speakers, or roughly 16.5 percent of the world population by 2023, with 1.16 billion, Mandarin is the second most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, Hindi with 664 million speakers, is the third most spoken ...
English (1,452 million speakers)
According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers.
LANGUAGE FACTSHEET
There are 6912 languages in the world. 94% of the world's population does not speak English as their first language. 75% do not speak English at all. Studying a foreign language develops your oral and written skills – even in your native language.
Only about 6% of the world's population are native English speakers, and 75% of people don't speak English at all.
It's possible English will not be around 1,000 years from now. As mentioned, the prominence of a language is inextricably tied to the cultural, economic, and military might of the countries that speak it. When these countries withdraw from the international stage, so does their mode of expression.
Nowadays it seems like everyone is learning English, and it is becoming the world's most widely spoken language. It is used in business and trade all over the world, and in places like Europe, it is spoken widely outside of business.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Ongota. Ongota is one of the least spoken languages in the world. Only 12 people in the world used to speak this language. These people live in the Southwestern region of Ethiopia You can hear this language in the village which is located to the West of the Weyt,o river.
The United States and India have the most total English speakers, with 306 million and 265 million, respectively. These are followed by Pakistan (104 million), the United Kingdom (68 million), and Nigeria (60 million).
Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish are the six official languages of the United Nations. English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat and are used in day-to-day professional exchanges.
There are hundreds of millions of people in China studying English, but less than 1% of people from Chinese mainland are conversational, according to some estimates. Not surprisingly, more English is spoken in China's large cities than in the smaller towns. Don't panic!
As David Graddol notes in “The Future of English?”, there is no reason to believe that another language will become the global lingua franca within the next 50 years. English probably won't replace other languages, but its usefulness as the common language in trade, diplomacy, and pop culture will continue.
English is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is the global language of communication and English is likely to retain this position for the next decade and beyond.
“English is likely to remain one of the world's most important languages for the foreseeable future, but its future is more problematic — and complex — than most people appreciate,” said language researcher David Graddol.
These include China, The Gambia, Malawi, Colombia, Swaziland, Brazil, Russia, Argentina, Algeria, Uganda, Yemen, Chile and Tanzania.
The first and most important reason for the spread of English is the British Empire. Before nearly a quarter of the world was colonized by the British Empire, English was spoken only by the British. But when they started to trade, colonize with places like Asia and Africa, they naturally started the spread of English.
In total, almost 66 million people speak a language that is not English at home in the US; that's around 21.6% of the population. Many of these people are bilingual in English and another language.
Only 5% of Russians speak English and Russia's overall English language proficiency is still ranked as 'Low' in the international English Proficiency Index (EF EPI).
South Africa
Possibly the cheapest English-speaking country to live in is South Africa. Not only can you get by without having to go to language school, but most South African cities also have a high standard of living, similar to Western cities, which will make the transition much easier.