List of languages by number of speakers in Europe explained

This is a list of European languages by the number of native speakers in Europe only.

List

RankNamedata-sort-type="number" style="width:90pt;" Native speakersdata-sort-type="number" Total speakers
1Russian106,000,000[1] 160,000,000
2German97,000,000[2] 170,000,000
3French81,000,000210,000,000
4Italian65,000,00082,000,000
5English63,000,000260,000,000[3]
6Spanish47,000,00076,000,000
7Polish38,500,000
8Ukrainian32,600,000
9Romanian24,000,00028,000,000[4]
10Dutch22,000,000
11Serbo-Croatian19,000,000
11Turkish15,752,673[5]
12Bavarian14,000,000[6]
13Greek13,500,000[7]
14Hungarian13,000,000
15Swedish11,100,00013,280,000
16Czech10,600,000
17Portuguese10,000,00011,000,000[8]
17Catalan10,000,000[9]
18Serbian9,000,000
19Bulgarian7,800,000
20Albanian
Arbëresh
Arvanitika
21Neapolitan5,700,000
22Croatian5,600,000
23Danish5,500,000
24Finnish5,400,000
25Norwegian5,200,000[10]
Slovak5,200,000
27Swiss German5,000,000[11]
28Mainfränkisch4,900,000[12]
29Sicilian4,700,000
30Tatar4,300,000
31Venetian3,800,000
32Lombard3,600,000
33Belarusian3,300,000
34Lithuanian3,000,000
35Bosnian2,500,000
36Galician2,400,000
37Slovene2,100,000
38Upper Saxon2,000,000[13]
39Irish1,873,997 (census)[14] 240,000
40Latvian1,750,000
41Piedmontese1,600,000
42Romani1,500,000
43Macedonian1,400,000
Chechen1,400,000
45Sardinian1,350,000[15]
46Limburgish1,300,000 (2001)[16]
47Bashkir1,221,000
48Chuvash1,100,000
49Estonian1,165,400
50Low German (Low Saxon)1,000,000[17] 2,600,000
Kazakh1,000,000[18]
Palatinate German1,000,000[19]
53Ripuarian (Platt)900,000[20]
54Swabian German820,000[21]
55Avar760,000
56Basque750,000[22]
57Friulan600,000[23] furFriulan
Walloon600,000
Yiddish600,000[24]
60Welsh538,000[25] 899,500[26] 750,000[27]
61Kabardian530,000
62Silesian522,000
63Maltese520,000
64Azerbaijani500,000[28]
Ligurian500,000
Mari500,000
Occitan500,000[29]
68Crimean Tatar480,000
69Frisian470,000
70Kumyk450,000[30]
Ossetian450,000[31]
72Rhaeto-Romance370,000[32]
73Asturian (Astur-Leonese)351,791[33] 641,502
74Udmurt340,000
75Luxembourgish336,000386,000
76Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino)320,000few[34]
77Icelandic330,000
78Karachay-Balkar300,000
Ingush300,000
80Montenegrin240,700[35]
81Komi220,000[36]
Zeelandic220,000
83Breton206,000
84Extremaduran200,000
Picard200,000
86Franco-Provençal (Arpitan)140,000
Gagauz140,000
87Tabasaran126,900
88Erzya120,000
89Adyghe117,500
90Aromanian114,000
91Scots110,000
92Võro87,000
93Kalmyk80,500
94Faroese66,150
95Scottish Gaelic57,000
96Norman50,000
Kashubian50,000
98Abaza49,800
99Karelian36,000
100Corsican30,000125,000
Tat30,000[37]
102Aragonese25,000[38] 55,000[39]
103Sami23,000[40]
104Walser German20,000[41]
Sorbian (Wendish)20,000
Italiot Greek20,000 native speakers in 1981[42] 50,000
107Yenish16,000
108Mirandese15,000
109Silesian German11,000[43]
110Nenets4,000[44]
111Megleno-Romanian3,000
112Kven2,000-8,000
113Moksha2,000
Elfdalian2,000
115Vepsian1,640[45]
116Istro-Romanian1,100
117Istriot900
118Cornish557[46]
119Cimbrian400[47]
120Judeo-Italian250
121Manx2302,300[48]
122Ingrian120
123Wymysorysless than 2070[49]
124Latindeadonly several dozen and definitely less than 100[50]
unrankedEmilian
Romagnol

Notes and References

  1. L1: 119 million in the Russian Federation (of which c. 83 million in European Russia), 14.3 million in Ukraine, 6.67 million in Belarus, 0.67 million in Latvia, 0.38 million in Estonia, 0.38 million in Moldova. L1+L2: c. 100 million in European Russia, 39 million in Ukraine, 7 million in Belarus, 7 million in Poland, 2 million in Latvia, c. 2 million in the European portion of Kazakhstan, 1.8 million in Moldova, 1.1 million in Estonia. .
  2. includes: bar Bavarian, cim Cimbrian, ksh Kölsch, sli Lower Silesian, vmf Mainfränkisch, pfl Palatinate German, swg Swabian German, gsw Swiss German, sxu Upper Saxon, wae Walser German, wep Westphalian, wym Wymysorys, yec Yenish, yid Yiddish; see German dialects.
  3. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf Europeans and their Languages
  4. Web site: Româna . 2 April 2018 . unilat.org . . ro.
  5. c. 12 million in European Turkey, 0.6 million in Bulgaria, 0.6 million in Cyprus and Northern Cyprus; and 2,679,765 L1 speakers in other countries in Europe according to a Eurobarometer survey in 2012: https://languageknowledge.eu/languages/turkish
  6. [German dialect]
  7. 11 million in Greece, out of 13.4 million in total.
  8. Web site: How Many People Speak Portuguese, And Where Is It Spoken?. 2021-04-30. Babbel.
  9. Web site: Informe sobre la Situació de la Llengua Catalana | Xarxa CRUSCAT. Coneixements, usos i representacions del català. . blogs.iec.cat.
  10. News: Norwegian . en . Ethnologue . 2018-08-06.
  11. [German dialect]
  12. [German dialect]
  13. [German dialect]
  14. Web site: 2023-05-30 . Education and Irish Language - CSO - Central Statistics Office . 2024-01-29 . www.cso.ie . en.
  15. AA. VV. Calendario Atlante De Agostini 2017, Novara, Istituto Geografico De Agostini, 2016, p. 230
  16. Web site: 2019-11-19 . Redirected . 2021-03-12 . Ethnologue . en.
  17. 2.6 million cited as estimate of all Germans who speak Platt "well or very well" (including L2; 4.3 million cited as the number of all speakers including those with "moderate" knowledge) in 2009. Heute in Bremen. „Ohne Zweifel gefährdet". Frerk Möller im Interview, taz, 21. Februar 2009. However, Wirrer (1998) described Low German as "moribund".Jan Wirrer: Zum Status des Niederdeutschen. In: Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik. 26, 1998, S. 309. The number of native speakers is unknown, estimated at 1 million by SIL Ethnologue.,
  18. About 10 million in Kazakhstan. . Technically, the westernmost portions of Kazakhstan (Atyrau Region, West Kazakhstan Region) are in Europe, with a total population of less than one million.
  19. [German dialect]
  20. [German dialect]
  21. [German dialect]
  22. VI° Enquête Sociolinguistique en Euskal herria (Communauté Autonome d'Euskadi, Navarre et Pays Basque Nord) (2016).
  23. e18
  24. Total population estimated at 1.5 million as of 1991, of which c. 40% in the Ukraine.,,
  25. Web site: Welsh language in Wales (Census 2021) . 2023-03-04 . GOV.WALES . en.
  26. Web site: Welsh language data from the Annual Population Survey: July 2021 to June 2022 . 2022-10-28 . GOV.WALES . en.
  27. Book: Europe, Council of . 2010-01-01 . Council of Europe . 978-92-871-6727-9 . 30 . en . "in the United Kingdom, Welsh has 750,000 speakers".
  28. c. 130,000 in Dagestan. In addition, there are about 0.5 million speakers in immigrant communities in Russia, see
    1. Immigrant communities
    .
  29. . Includes Auvergnat, Gascon, Languedocien, Limousin, Provençal, Vivaro-Alpine. Most native speakers are in France; their number is unknown, as varieties of Occitan are treated as French dialects with no official status.
  30. Web site: 2010 Russian Census . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20211006173252/http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/demo/per-itog/tab6.xls . 6 October 2021 . 27 May 2022.
  31. Total 570,000, of which 450,000 in the Russian Federation.
  32. Includes Friulian, Romansh, Ladin.
  33. https://www.ehu.eus/documents/1457190/1547454/Avance+III+Encuesta+Sociolling%C3%BC%C3%ADstica+Asturias.pdf/aba19c6f-4dab-470c-8a33-157248373072 III Sociolinguistic Study of Asturias (2017)
  34. [SIL Ethnologue]
  35. News: Montenegro . en . Ethnologue . 2018-04-29.
  36. 220,000 native speakers out of an ethnic population of 550,000. Combines Komi-Permyak (koi) with 65,000 speakers and Komi-Zyrian (kpv) with 156,000 speakers.
  37. , 2,000 speakers in the Russian Federation according to the 2010 census (including Judeo-Tat). About 28,000 speakers in Azerbaijan; most speakers live along or just north of the Caucasus ridge (and are thus technically in Europe), with some also settling just south of the Caucasus ridge, in the South Caucasus.
  38. https://zaguan.unizar.es/record/60448 Report about Census of population 2011 of Aragonese Sociolinguistics Seminar and University of Zaragoza
  39. Web site: Más de 50.000 personas hablan aragonés . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150101002219/http://www.aragondigital.es/noticia.asp?notid=126286 . 1 January 2015 . Aragón Digital.
  40. mostly Northern Sami (sma), ca. 20,000 speakers; smaller communities of Lule Sami (smj, c. 2,000 speakers) and other variants.,,,, .
  41. [Highest Alemannic]
  42. N. Vincent, Italian, in B. Comrie (ed.) The world's major languages, London, Croom Helm, 1981. pp. 279–302.
  43. [German dialect]
  44. total 22,000 native speakers (2010 Russian census) out of an ethnic population of 44,000. Most of these are in Siberia, with about 8,000 ethnic Nenets in European Russia (2010 census, mostly in Nenets Autonomous Okrug)
  45. Russian Census 2010.
  46. UK 2011 Census
  47. [German dialect]
  48. Web site: Whitehead . Sarah . 2 April 2015 . How the Manx language came back from the dead . 4 April 2015 . theguardian.com.
  49. Moribund German dialect spoken in Wilamowice, Poland. 70 speakers recorded in 2006.
  50. [Contemporary Latin]

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