Poll Number 1 Results

The results of our first poll are in!

35 of you voted, with a whopping 62% of you choosing Mandarin as the most spoken language in the world. In second place, came English, garnering 28%, with Spanish trailing behind at 8%.

But which is actually the most spoken language in the world?

English.

Or Mandarin.

It depends on who you talk to. And what you mean by "spoken".

Many of the numbers and figures change so constantly, that most linguists put English and Mandarin in a constantly evolving dance for being the top language dog.

This may surprise the 62% of you who voted for Mandarin, but it is quite possible that English may have won this round.

While Mandarin dwarfs English when counting only native speakers of each individual language, English sweeps past Mandarin when comparing total number of speakers worldwide, regardless of whether they are native speakers or speak it as a second or third tongue.

As a native language, Mandarin comes in first in the world at nearly 1 billion*.
As a native and second language, Mandarin comes in second at 1.15 billion (with the majority being native speakers).

As a native language, English comes in fourth in the world at nearly 310 million.
As a native and second language, English comes in first, reaching into the 1.8 billion range(with the majority being non-native speakers).

(Some of these charts add in all Chinese dialects, so be careful in your calculations!)

You can find more information and stats at the Ethnologue and here.

So, what do you all think? Am I crazy? Is my math wrong? How did you vote?