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INTERNET WORLD USERS BY LANGUAGE
Top 10 Languages
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Internet World Stats presents
its latest estimates for Internet Users by Language
Because of the importance of this research, and due to the lack of other sources, Internet
World Stats publishes several tables and charts featuring analysis and details here below
for the top ten languages and also for the
detailed world languages in use by country.
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Top Ten Languages Used in the Web - March 31, 2020
( Number of Internet Users by Language )
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TOP TEN LANGUAGES
IN THE INTERNET
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World Population
for this Language
(2021 Estimate)
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Internet Users
by Language
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Internet
Penetration
(% Population)
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Internet
Users Growth
(2000 - 2021)
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Internet Users
% of World
(Participation)
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English
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1,531,179,460
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1,186,451,052
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77.5 %
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742.9 %
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25.9 %
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Chinese
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1,477,137,209
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888,453,068
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60.1 %
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2,650.4 %
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19.4 %
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Spanish
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516,655,099
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363,684,593
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70.4 %
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1,511.0 %
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7.9 %
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Arabic
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447,572,891
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237,418,349
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53.0 %
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9,348.0 %
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5.2 %
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Portuguese
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290,939,425
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171,750,818
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59.0 %
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2,167.0 %
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3.7 %
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Indonesian / Malaysian
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306,327,093
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198,029,815
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64.6 %
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3,356.0 %
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4.3 %
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French
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431,503,032
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151,733,611
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35.2 %
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1,164.6 %
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3.3 %
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Japanese
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126,476,461
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118,626,672
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93.8 %
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152.0 %
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2.6 %
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Russian
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145,934,462
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116,353,942
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79.7 %
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3,653.4 %
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2.5 %
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German
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98,654,451
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92,525,427
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93.8 %
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236.2 %
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2.0 %
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TOP 10 LANGUAGES
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5,273,725,132
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3,525,027,347
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66.8 %
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1,188.2 %
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76.9 %
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Rest of the Languages
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2,522,890,578
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1,060,551,371
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42.0 %
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1,114.1 %
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23.1 %
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WORLD
TOTAL
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7,796,615,710
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4,585,578,718
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58.8 %
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1,170.3 %
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100.0 %
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NOTES: (1) Top Ten Languages Internet Stats were
updated in January 31, 2020. (2) Internet Penetration is the ratio between the sum of Internet users speaking a
language and the total population estimate that speaks that specific language. (3) The most recent Internet
usage information comes from data published by Nielsen Online,
International Telecommunications Union, GfK, and other reliable sources. (4)
Population estimates are based mainly on figures from the United Nations
Population Division and local official sources. (5)
For definitions, methodology and navigation help, please see the Site Surfing Guide. (6) These statistics may be cited, stating the source and establishing an active link back
to Internet World Stats. Copyright © 2020,
Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.
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Examples for the interpretation of the data:
(1) - The 363,684,593 Spanish speaking people using
the Internet, correspond to 7.9 % of all the Internet users.
(2) - Out of the estimated 98,654,451 persons in the world that speak German, 93.8 % are
Internet users.
(3) - The number of Japanese Speaking Internet Users has grown 152.0 % in the last twenty
years.
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Tallying the number of speakers of the world's languages is an
increasingly complex task, particularly with the push in many countries to teach English in their public
schools. How many people can actually use the global language? David Graddol estimated a total of 750 million
L1 (first or native language) plus L2 (second or nth language) speakers of English in his Future of English Report (pdf
document) for the British Council. One of our subscribers, Prof. Martin Schell, has reviewed Prof. Braj
Kachru's new book Asian Englishes which claims that
India and China combined have over half a billion "users" of English.
Indeed, many people are bilingual or multilingual, but here we assign
only one language per person in order to have all the language totals add up to the total world
population (zero-sum approach). No adjustments have been made for infants or illiteracy in the Internet
penetration rate calculations. Very few countries have 100% literacy. Australia, Denmark, Finland,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Norway are six countries to mention. Regarding children, most are early Internet
adopters (when and where children are given the chance to use a computer to surf the Web).
Another very interesting fact is that the six official languages of the
United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) are all included in the above Top
Ten Internet languages table.
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Other Web Sites with Statistics and Information on Language Sites in the Internet
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The Unicode Consortium
The Unicode Consortium enables people around the world to use computers in any language.
List of Official Languages
Wikiverse list of the official languages of sovereign countries.
La Francophonie
Find the French speaking states in the world.
Ethnologue
An encyclopedic reference work cataloging all
of the world’s 6,909 known living languages.
Modern Language Association (USA)
The MLA Language Map and its Data Center provide information about foreign languages studied in the United
States and related subjects.
Grammar-Monster
Free Grammar Lessons and Exercises, A-Z Grammar Terms, Punctuation, games and
tests.
Wikipedia - French Language Information
Selected French Language country directory and geographic distribution information.
Wiktionary
The wikipedia dictionary, urban culture reference, slang words and phrases listed in alphabetical
order.
Urban Dictionary - American English
Searchable American slang dictionary, urban culture reference, slang words and phrases listed in alphabetical
order.
The Digital Language
Divide
How does the language you speak shape your experience of the Internet.
An article from The Guardian sponsored by the British Academy.
World Linguistic Diversity
(video)
Yann Martel speaks about languages, similarities and differences.
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Language Translation Tools
For those of you wishing to understand the meaning of web sites of the Internet written in other languages, the
following free language translators will do the job:
Free Online Translation Tools
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More Language Translation Tools
General Foreign Languages
Language-Learning Resources and useful links for many languages are available here at the WWW Virtual
Library.
One Look Dictionary
A search engine for words and phrases: If you have a word for which you'd like a definition or translation,
OneLook will quickly shuttle you to the web-based dictionaries that define or translate that word. No word is
too obscure: More than 6 million words in more than 979 online dictionaries are indexed by the OneLook®
search engine.
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