Official United Nations Languages and # of Speakers
I was crawling the UN job boards earlier today for language requirements and got curious about total numbers of speakers across the world.
The UN has 6 official languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin Chinese. According to Wikipedia, these are the number of L1 and L2 speakers across the world:
| Language | L1 (Native) | L2 (Second Language) | Total Speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 390 million | 1,138 million | 1,528 million |
| French | 74 million | 238 million | 312 million |
| Spanish | 498 million | 74 million | 572 million |
| Russian | 145 million | 108 million | 253 million |
| Arabic | 20 million | 335 million | 355 million |
| Chinese (Mandarin) | 990 million | 194 million | 1,184 million |
Pretty interesting to see the large jump for French and Arabic between L1 + L2, and the massive drop-off in Spanish. Would love to see what % of these L2 #s are heritage speakers versus learners.