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Top World Languages on a Map

Try to name the 100 languages with the most native speakers. The approximate location of their origins are on the map below.
according to Wikipedia
Quiz by relessness
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Featured Quiz
Last updated: January 30, 2017
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First submittedJanuary 30, 2017
Times taken79,934
Average score37.0%
Rating4.92
Quiz and answer stats >>
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Pop. (mil)
Language
955
Mandarin
405
Spanish
360
English
310
Hindi
295
Arabic
215
Portuguese
205
Bengali
155
Russian
125
Japanese
100
Punjabi
95
German
82
Javanese
80
Wu
77
Malay/Indonesian
76
Telugu
76
Vietnamese
76
Korean
75
French
73
Marathi
70
Tamil
66
Urdu
63
Turkish
59
Italian
59
Cantonese
56
Thai
Pop. (mil)
Language
49
Gujarati
48
Jin
47
Min Nan
45
Persian
40
Polish
39
Pashto
38
Kannada
38
Xiang
38
Malayalam
38
Sundanese
34
Hausa
33
Oriya
33
Burmese
31
Hakka
30
Ukrainian
29
Bhojpuri
28
Tagalog
28
Yoruba
27
Maithili
26
Uzbek
26
Sindhi
25
Amharic
24
Fula
24
Romanian
24
Oromo
Pop. (mil)
Language
24
Igbo
23
Azerbaijani
22
Awadhi
22
Gan
21
Cebuano
21
Dutch
21
Kurdish
19
Serbo-Croatian
18
Malagasy
17
Saraiki
17
Nepali
16
Sinhalese
16
Chittagonian
16
Zhuang
16
Khmer
16
Turkmen
15
Assamese
15
Madurese
15
Somali
14
Marwari
14
Magahi
14
Haryanvi
13
Hungarian
12
Chhattisgarhi
12
Greek
Pop. (mil)
Language
12
Chewa
11
Deccan
11
Akan
11
Kazakh
10.9
Northern Min
10.7
Sylheti
10.4
Zulu
10
Czech
9.8
Kinyarwanda
9.6
Dhundhari
9.6
Haitian Creole
9.5
Eastern Min
9.1
Ilocano
8.9
Quechua
8.8
Kirundi
8.7
Swedish
8.4
Hmong
8.3
Shona
8.2
Uyghur
8.2
Hiligaynon
7.6
Mossi
7.6
Xhosa
7.6
Belarusian
7.6
Balochi
7.4
Konkani
scambigol
+6
Level 76
Jan 30, 2017
!!! amazing job
sulfuratus
+4
Level 66
Jan 30, 2017
Ah, dammit, I only tried B(y)elorussian. And for some reason I missed out on Japanese and Korean.
cuotak
+9
Level 67
Jan 30, 2017
Can you accept Minbei and Mindong for northern and eastern Min? You have Minnan for southern Min...
qcumber
+2
Level 45
Oct 30, 2018
i guessed min by accident....
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Jan 30, 2017
How do you figure out "place of origin?" Looks like you kind of just picked out capital cities from countries associated with that language. Like... Turkish originated in central Asia, didn't it?
Quizmaster
+9
Level ∞
Jan 30, 2017
Apparently, the earliest Turkic runes can be found in Mongolia. But I would guess that the earliest version of Turkish that is mutually intelligible with today's Turkish originated in Turkey.

Maybe a linguistics expert can weigh in.

relessness
+11
Level 47
Jan 30, 2017
apparently according to Wikipedia, speeches by Ataturk have had to be translated multiple times for newer generations to understand. If that is the case then the ancient Turkic you're talking about will almost certainly be unintelligible.
cta127
+2
Level 72
Nov 9, 2023
That amount of divergence is quite surprising, Ataturk lived only about 100 years ago. Think of your grandparents in their youth speaking with their parents in a dialect almost entirely different from the one they speak to their grandchildren now.
relessness
+6
Level 47
Jan 30, 2017
The origin is more to do with having the European languages being placed in places where they came from rarer than where they are most commonly spoken, like English in England not the United States, and Portuguese in Portugal and not Brazil. It's not supposed to be the exact origin of where the language came from. Besides, I'm no linguistic expert, how do you draw the line between one language and it's predecessor?
sillie
+1
Level 77
Jan 31, 2017
The same way you draw a line between a language and a dialect. Can't be done from a linguistic viewpoint, but still done, usually because of political (and sometimes even practical) reasons. - Love the quiz by the way, great to be able to place those Asian and African languages. For instance I used to associate Kannada with Canada.
AlejandroAP
+1
Level 81
Jan 30, 2017
Wonderful quiz!
Algernon
+2
Level 72
Jan 30, 2017
Great quiz, though a bit more flexibility in spelling would be nice, but I appreciate that's quite tough as a lot of the answers are quite obscure.
mariposita
+4
Level 68
Jan 31, 2017
Missed a ton of super obvious (to me) ones like Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Hmong, Uyghur, Oriya, Balochi... but they all have super low guess rates so I don't feel as bad. Or I didn't until I realized I also missed KHMER -_-
Dollyfroggy
+1
Level 60
Dec 2, 2023
I didn't notice I missed Hmong until I saw your comment. I guess I should be more concerned about the Burmese/Nepali that I missed.
joeythelemur
+3
Level 84
Jan 31, 2017
Really tough quiz! Stats say that 1.6% are getting 100/100. I have a hard time believing that. :-/
DonTheLamplighter
+7
Level 84
Feb 3, 2017
You know you're desperate and really scraping the bottom of the barrel when you guess "jive".
JackBeNimble
+3
Level 80
Feb 3, 2017
I enjoyed this and learnt from it. Thank you.
wuqijun
+3
Level 77
Feb 8, 2017
Could you accept "miao" for "hmong" as well.
Sulps
+7
Level 56
Mar 23, 2017
Meow?
gwyteo
+1
Level 24
Jul 3, 2020
Miao is sorta the larger family Hmong is from, but within that family, (to my knowledge) Hmong is the most commonly spoken. Nyob zoo
GeoDude
+1
Level 48
Jan 14, 2019
I'm a cow I'm not a cat
Sifhraven
+4
Level 67
Jan 15, 2019
I think animals should make a bit more effort to be multilingual and not just stick to their own language (admittedly there are a few species that do that, or at least try..)
peardestroyer
+3
Level 56
Mar 5, 2021
Cats > Cows
AntiMatter8192
+1
Level 68
May 16, 2023
Fundamentally flawed assumption
Elan
+6
Level 65
Feb 16, 2017
Ah yes, I'm currently taking Sylheti in high school.
Damangio
+7
Level 64
Mar 1, 2017
It would be cool (and useful) if the circles were color-coded by language families.
relessness
+7
Level 47
Mar 2, 2017
I was going to do that, but I had spent quite a lot of time on the quiz already so I couldn't be bothered lol. But maybe in the future...
relessness
+3
Level 47
Mar 2, 2017
Having said that, I see you have a made a quiz on language families, so copying that would make it a lot easier!
Soapymonkey
+6
Level 43
Mar 23, 2017
I'm sorry, but I have no idea about what the languages of India are.
Brodogo
+1
Level 60
Mar 23, 2017
What about Swahili?
Sirpav
+1
Level 20
Mar 23, 2017
Yea what about swahili guys :('
Quizmaster
+2
Level ∞
Mar 25, 2017
Read the comments!
Sifhraven
+4
Level 67
Jan 15, 2019
there is nothing about it in the comments. (perhaps there were old comments once that were deleted?)
AntiMatter8192
+1
Level 68
May 13, 2020
It's not! It's a little down!
Dollyfroggy
+1
Level 60
Dec 2, 2023
Quizmaster's response here was posted following their comment below, but neither comment was there when Brodogo (and Sirpav) posted.
Damangio
+10
Level 64
Jul 18, 2018
Swahili, as a lingua franca of east Africa, has many second-language speakers, but not enough native speakers to make this list of the top 100.
starfast
+2
Level 58
Mar 23, 2017
I swear I typed in Ukrainian about 7 times. I was pretty sure I was spelling it right...
Sifhraven
+4
Level 67
Jan 15, 2019
I had that once. I think you might ve written ukranian, atleast thats what i think i did.
Dollyfroggy
+2
Level 60
May 16, 2023
I wrote Ukranian, then Ukrainanian...
SIMULATION
+1
Level 62
Mar 23, 2017
technically bhojpuri, marwari, awadhi, etc comes under hindi..... still good to see indian languages and i did well.. ;)
TheNatureThread
+1
Level 65
Dec 29, 2022
Only Awadhi is linguistically Hindi out of those, but they are all politically Hindi. Bhojpuri is closer to Bengali than to Hindi and Marwari is mostly considered closer to Gujarati. The linguistic group called Hindi includes many varieties of Central India, including Kauravi, which contains Hindustani, which is standardized as Standard Hindi in Devanagari script and Standard Urdu in Arabic script, so Standard Hindi is still different from Awadhi.
Sulps
+2
Level 56
Mar 23, 2017
If you have Malay/Indonesian and Serbo-Croatian listed as one, it only makes sense to do the same for Hindi-Urdu. In all of these cases, the main difference is the alphabet (or script in general) used.
Damangio
+3
Level 64
Jul 18, 2018
Those decisions come from the source.
kalbahamut
+3
Level 82
Mar 23, 2017
What the heck is Hiligaynon?? I've spent a lot of time in the Philippines.. learned phrases in dialects from Luzon, Davao, Zamboanga, Cebu, Leyte.. never heard of this one though.
Si2
+7
Level 48
Mar 23, 2017
Wikipedia is your friend...
kalbahamut
+2
Level 82
May 5, 2019
Sometimes people ask rhetorical questions. Here's a Wikipedia article on the subject, if you're not familiar with the concept.
LadyQuizling
+2
Level 55
Mar 23, 2017
I haven't heard of most of these!
MikesBrain
+1
Level 77
Mar 23, 2017
Great quiz! What about Swahili?
Quizmaster
+5
Level ∞
Mar 23, 2017
Very few people have Swahili as a mother tongue. It's mostly a "lingua franca" - used to communicate among people who may have different mother tongues.
JonOfKent
+6
Level 56
Apr 28, 2020
Hmm I don't think that's really true - a lot of people in Tanzania have it as a first language, especially in cities including in Dar-es-Salaam. I suppose the main point is that it's unknown how many that is, and it may be below the 7.4 million required to get on this list.
atg
+2
Level 30
Dec 29, 2023
The problem is that Ethnologue has some very odd beliefs about languages. They believe that everybody has a single native language and that all the other languages that a person speaks cannot be their native language, even if they learned those languages at the same time as their designated "native" language.

So even though there's a large number of people who grow up speaking Swahili, they won't count them as native speakers.

BatistaDamin
+1
Level 73
Mar 23, 2017
Congratulations! That's some fine quiz we have here!
donniedarko
+1
Level 56
Mar 24, 2017
Such a cool quiz!! Seriously, this is one of my favorite ones that I've done on this site. I love languages and have been waiting for something like this. Great job!!
calvord
+1
Level 63
May 31, 2017
Good quiz.
arpacas
+3
Level 40
Aug 3, 2017
This is my favourite quiz on this site
catcat
+3
Level 59
Aug 29, 2017
Never heard of a language called Deccan. Dakhani is considered to be a dialect of Urdu.
jbrandagamba
+4
Level 41
Dec 18, 2018
"Language" and "dialect" are subjective and to some extent ideological terms.
cornflakesfu
+10
Level 86
Jun 25, 2018
As is usual on these language quizzes, I got all the European languages, a decent smattering of the Asian ones, and then I looked at India and my brain just exploded.
CardinalSin
+1
Level 77
Sep 14, 2018
Quid est in latina album?
zakatan
+4
Level 65
Oct 19, 2018
Shouldn't Catalan make the cut?
chailattee
+4
Level 62
Apr 29, 2021
According to google it has 9 million speakers, which would make the cut, but google is to never be trusted.
qcumber
+1
Level 45
Oct 30, 2018
INDIA WHY!?!?!?!? missed so many
GeoDude
+10
Level 48
Jan 14, 2019
Turns out Madagascarian isn't a word.
Sifhraven
+1
Level 67
Jan 15, 2019
I missed 55, of which 5 I really knew. Most i didnt get were in india (well most were there anyway.. wow..those dots..) africa, and china

only hakka and sundanese ring a bell for the under 10% ones. Others I missed but definately recognise are amharic, punjabi, kurdish (i had tried kurdic among other things) and persian.

Sifhraven
+1
Level 67
Jan 15, 2019
And ones I tried but werent on there were: swahili, tswana sesotho, afrikaans and em another african one.

And I wonder which word triggered kinyarwanda. I got it right but sure didnt type that. Actually same with pastho and hmong,

Edit: looked it up, that would be afghani, I guess mong(olian) though that is not what it refers to. And rwandese

Hominka
+4
Level 80
Mar 28, 2019
You've got Persian, which should really be called Farsi. Please accept Farsi as an option.
ganderfan6190
+1
Level 63
Mar 28, 2019
^^^This^^^
TheRatmeister
+4
Level 85
Mar 28, 2019
Please accept Farsi for Persian
eibi
+3
Level 80
Jul 9, 2019
Tried ten times to enter Baluchi and it never worked. What else do they speak in Baluchistan? Turns out that all those years I've just known an alternate spelling.
nerdalert
+1
Level 85
Aug 3, 2020
Did the same.
Nestormakhno
+2
Level 71
Jul 23, 2019
I got dhundhari but not Cantonese or Korean . What is wrong with me ?
kiwikiwiNZ
+1
Level 40
Nov 17, 2019
no idea how i didnt get persian
SWATkun
+1
Level 60
Nov 19, 2019
Felt ashamed being an Indian that I didn't got Chattisgarhi, Deccan, Hariyanvi and Dhundhari. Never even heard of

And never knew Sylheti and Chittagonian are that distinguished from bengali.

kalbahamut
+4
Level 82
Nov 19, 2019
India looks like it's got the plague.
Phrath
+1
Level 33
Nov 20, 2019
When you zoom in you actually see that not all the languages are in india, they are from pakistan, nepal, bangladesh
AntiMatter8192
+5
Level 68
May 13, 2020
But most are from India.
zakatan
+2
Level 65
Feb 17, 2020
Shouldn't Min Nan be Southern Min, considering that there's a Northern and an Eastern Min, and that Nan means south, and it's right south from Northern Min... everything points that way :D
JohnnyYeet
+1
Level 57
Sep 8, 2020
Can you accept Min for Min Bei as well?
ABomb
+2
Level 77
Mar 5, 2021
Can you accept Twi (and also maybe Fante) for Akan? I know that Akan is technically the larger, more inclusive grouping, and I know there isn't a clear distinction between a "language" and a "dialect," but this tripped me up as most of the folks I encountered in Ghana tended to refer to their language as either Twi or Fante. Thanks.
cathlete
+1
Level 74
Sep 3, 2023
This. Despite what Wikipedia and linguists say, Ghanaians more often refer to the language Akan as Twi.
Kirboi
+1
Level 61
May 13, 2021
I noticed that the dot for Russian is on the location of Moscow
Kirboi
+1
Level 61
May 13, 2021
And also Polish for Warsaw, German for Berlin...

I think all "national" languages are on the location of the capitals of the countries.

edajjjj
+2
Level 46
Jun 28, 2021
Turkish is not on Ankara though.
jbro
+1
Level 68
Aug 5, 2021
what happened to swahili
Anderis
+1
Level 69
Sep 24, 2021
The numbers on Belarusian are highly questionable. Belarus has only 9.5 million inhabitants and only around 23% of them speak Belarusian at home. Russian is more commonly spoken than Belarusian in Belarus.
tofani
+1
Level 83
Nov 1, 2021
I honestly do not understand why this quiz is so popular. It seems completely arbitrary to me - even when I consult the source, I cannot complete the quiz. I guess I'm just too nitpicky or something.
jmia5211
+1
Level 45
Jan 18, 2022
I only got 46 but I'm proud of those 46
hamptergoogledoc
+1
Level 36
Jun 8, 2022
i got sylheti but forgot burmese and punjabi
RJG
+1
Level 60
Mar 23, 2023
53/100, this was wicked hard
Nazmul32
+1
Level 55
Jun 14, 2023
Sylheti & Chittagonian are not separate language. These are dialect of Bengali. Yes some words are spoken differently but it is still the same language. Deccani is basically Urdu. They just out some accent and words from South India.
JetpunkJovey
+1
Level 55
Dec 4, 2023
I cannot believe I missed Javanese. I put Javan instead!!!
Quizkid03
+1
Level 32
Jan 28, 2024
Why have I never herd of a lot of these large languages , yet I’ve herd of smaller languages like Hebrew & Swahili
ooftownroad
+1
Level 61
Jan 29, 2024
My silliness got Kannada, Bhojpuri, Mossi, and Zhuang, but forgot THAI, BURMESE and NEPALI
Raffles
+1
Level 68
Mar 28, 2024
Can you accept Miao for Hmong?
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