List of languages by total number of speakers

A number of sources have compiled lists of languages by their number of speakers. However, all such lists should be used with caution.

The following languages are listed as having 50 million or more native speakers in the 2015 edition of Ethnologue, a language reference published by SIL International based in the US. Speaker totals are generally not reliable, as they add together estimates from different dates and (usually uncited) sources; language information is not collected on most national censuses.

Hausa has over 70 million L1 total and about 50 million L2 in Nigeria, over 120 million in Nigeria with about 20 million in Niger. Coastal Swahili has 15 million L1 in Tanzania (2012) and "probably over 80% of rural" Tanzania as L2, not counting Kenya or the 10 million L2 speakers of Congo Swahili (1999), so it also approaches our limit.

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