Maps are a fascinating subject. Being used to seeing a representation of the classic globe (map of the world), we know how to locate a country, but not necessarily its true size. Over time, several models have emerged from three main forms of representation: azimuthal, conical and cylindrical projections.

Small example from Wikipedia showing actual size of Greenland compared to Australia. On a “classic” map you might think Greenland is huge, but it’s actually much smaller than the country in the southern hemisphere:

Regardless of the styles chosen, it is difficult to represent the use of a language in the world. Some countries speak multiple languages ​​and it is impossible to represent everything. But the South China Morning Post found the solution and published a map that solves this problem.

What are the most commonly spoken (native) languages ​​in the world?

The SCMP study took place in 2015 and was based on the 7,102 known languages ​​of the world and 7.2 billion people on earth*. In this example More than 23 native languages ​​are emerging with at least 50 million “users”and more than 4 billion locals combined.

23 languages ​​largely dominate © SCMP

But now we come to the map of languages ​​in the world itself. It looks like a circle, each language is separated from the others by a thick black line. In each section we find the language, the total number of native speakers and then the users by country. The colors represent the continents. We find Asia in beige, Europe in red, Russia in orange, Africa in khaki, in sky blue we find the Middle East, in blue South America and in yellow North America.

Spain is a good example with 399 million natives living mainly in North and South America and Spain. The most spoken language in the world is logically Chinesecombines all its variations and dialects with nearly 1.2 billion native speakers. Next are English, Spanish and Hindi.

French, on the other hand, is spoken by 76 million people, mainly in France but also in Canada, the United States, Switzerland and Belgium.

The @SCMP card

What are the most studied languages ​​in the world?

without surprise With 1,500 million students, English is the most widely studied foreign language in the world. In second place are French (82 million) and Chinese (30 million):

The most studied languages ​​© SCMP

If you liked these graphs, here are two more that are interesting. The first refers to the number of countries where a language is spoken. We find English in first place, ahead of Arabic, French and Chinese.

The most commonly learned languages ​​© SCMP

The second represents the countries that speak the most diverse languages/dialects. In the first place we find the Papua New Guinea with… 839 different languages! It is followed by Indonesia with 707 different languages ​​and Nigeria with 526 languages. Just breathtaking!

The countries with the most languages ​​© SCMP

*The UN estimates that there are 8 billion people on earth.