Communication with others is essential for people to live together, whether in our own country with the people that surround us, or in another country far from our own. We should, however, be able to differentiate between the most commonly spoken language in the world, which has the largest speaking population, and the language used most for communicating in the business world.
When travelling, for example, the languages that we most need to be able to use are English, Spanish and French. However, when referring to the business and services areas, Chinese should be included as a basic language. Just as we mentioned in a previous blog post a few years ago, Chinese is still the most spoken language in the world.
When we travel to another country, one of the biggest barrier we have to overcome is that of language. The importance of knowing English is fundamental, as it is considered the “universal language.” The phenomenon of globalization that we are experiencing today could lead us to think that English is the most spoken language. However, statistically, the most spoken language is Mandarin Chinese, used by 23% of the world population (845 million), followed by Spanish, then English, Hindi and Urdu.
Today there are approximately 7,000 active languages in the world. With the help of easy internet access for the inhabitants of developing countries, the planet is ever more connected. As a result of that the use of language continues to evolve.
Will the list of most spoken languages in the world change in the next 20 years? Will any languages disappear that today is in danger of extinction?
