List of languages by number of speakers in Europe

Last updated

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

Contents

List

RankNameNative speakersTotal speakers
1 Russian 106,000,000 [1] 160,000,000 [1]
2 German 85,000,000 [2] 130,000,000 [2]
3 French 67,000,000 [2] 112,000,000 [2]
4 English 67,000,000 [2] [3] [4] 280,000,000 [2] [3]
5 Italian 58,000,000 [2] 72,000,000 [2]
6 Spanish 40,000,000 [2] 76,000,000 [2]
7 Polish 38,000,000 [2] [3]
8 Ukrainian 32,600,000 [5]
9 Romanian 24,000,000 [6] 28,000,000 [7]
10 Dutch 22,000,000 [2] 24,000,000 [2]
11 [a] Serbo-Croatian 19,000,000 [8]
11 Turkish 15,752,673 [9]
12 Bavarian 14,000,000 [10]
13 Portuguese 11,000,000 [2]
14 Hungarian 11,000,000 [2]
15 Greek 11,000,000 [2]
16 Czech 10,600,000 [11]
17 Swedish 10,000,000 [2] 11,000,000 [2]
18 Catalan 10,000,000 [12]
19 Serbian 9,000,000 [13]
20 Bulgarian 7,800,000 [14]
21 Albanian
Arbëresh
Arvanitika 		5,367,000 [15]
5,877,100 [16] (Balkans)
22 Neapolitan 5,700,000 [17]
23 Croatian 5,600,000 [18]
24 Danish 5,500,000 [19]
25 Finnish 5,400,000 [20]
26 Norwegian 5,200,000 [21]
Slovak 5,200,000 [22]
28 Swiss German 5,000,000 [23]
29 Mainfränkisch 4,900,000 [24]
30 Sicilian 4,700,000 [25]
31 Tatar 4,300,000 [26]
32 Venetian 3,800,000 [27]
33 Lombard 3,600,000 [28]
34 Belarusian 3,300,000 [29]
35 Lithuanian 3,000,000 [30]
36 Bosnian 2,500,000 [31]
37 Galician 2,400,000 [32]
38 Slovene 2,100,000 [33]
39 Upper Saxon 2,000,000 [34]
40 Irish 1,873,997 (census) [35]

240,000 [36]

41 Latvian 1,750,000 [37]
42 Macedonian 1,600,000 [38]
Piedmontese 1,600,000 [39]
43 Romani 1,500,000 [40]
44 Chechen 1,400,000 [41]
45 Sardinian 1,350,000 [42]
46 Limburgish 1,300,000 (2001) [43]
47 Bashkir 1,221,000 [44]
48 Chuvash 1,100,000 [45]
49 Estonian 1,165,400 [46]
50 Low German (Low Saxon)1,000,000 [47] 2,600,000 [47]
Kazakh 1,000,000 [48]
Palatinate German 1,000,000 [49]
53 Ripuarian (Platt) 900,000 [50]
54 Swabian German 820,000 [51]
55 Avar 760,000
56 Basque 750,000 [52]
57 Friulan 600,000 [53]
Walloon 600,000 [54]
Yiddish 600,000 [55]
60 Welsh 538,000 [56] 899,500 [57] 750,000 [58]
61 Kabardian 530,000 [59]
62 Silesian 522,000 [60]
63 Maltese 520,000 [61]
64 Azerbaijani 500,000 [62]
Ligurian 500,000 [63]
Mari 500,000 [64]
Occitan 500,000 [65]
68 Crimean Tatar 480,000 [66]
69 Frisian 470,000 [67]
70 Kumyk 450,000 [68]
Ossetian 450,000 [69]
72 Rhaeto-Romance 370,000 [70]
73 Asturian (Astur-Leonese)351,791 [71] 641,502 [71]
74 Udmurt 340,000 [72]
75 Luxembourgish 336,000 [73] 386,000 [73]
76 Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino) 320,000 [74] few [75]
77 Icelandic 330,000 [76]
78 Karachay-Balkar 300,000 [77]
Ingush 300,000 [78]
80 Montenegrin 240,700 [79]
81 Komi 220,000 [80]
Zeelandic 220,000 [81]
83 Breton 206,000 [82]
84 Extremaduran 200,000 [83]
Picard 200,000 [84]
86 Franco-Provençal (Arpitan) 140,000 [85]
Gagauz 140,000 [86]
87 Tabasaran 126,900 [87]
88 Erzya 120,000 [88]
89 Adyghe 117,500 [89]
90 Aromanian 114,000 [90]
91 Scots 110,000 [91]
92 Võro 87,000 [92]
93 Kalmyk 80,500 [93]
94 Faroese 66,150 [94]
95 Scottish Gaelic 57,000 [95]
96 Norman 50,000 [96]
Kashubian 50,000 [97]
98 Abaza 49,800 [98]
99 Karelian 36,000 [99]
100 Corsican 30,000 [100] 125,000 [100]
Tat 30,000 [101]
102 Aragonese 25,000 [102] 55,000 [103]
103 Sami 23,000 [104]
104 Walser German 20,000 [105]
Sorbian (Wendish) 20,000 [106]
Italiot Greek 20,000 native speakers in 1981 [107] 50,000
107 Yenish 16,000 [108]
108 Mirandese 15,000 [109]
109 Silesian German 11,000 [110]
110 Nenets 4,000 [111]
111 Megleno-Romanian 3,000 [112]
112 Kven 2,000-8,000
113 Moksha 2,000 [113]
Elfdalian 2,000
115 Vepsian 1,640 [114]
116 Istro-Romanian 1,100 [115]
117 Istriot 900 [116]
118 Cornish 557 [117]
119 Cimbrian 400 [118]
120 Judeo-Italian 250 [119]
121 Manx 230 [120] 2,300 [121]
122 Ingrian 120 [122]
123 Wymysorys less than 2070 [123]
124 Latin deadonly several dozen and definitely less than 100 [124]
unranked Emilian
Romagnol

Notes

  1. ↑ In linguistics, Serbo-Croatian is synonymous with standardised varieties of the Shtokavian dialect, which forms the basis of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian standard languages; thus these national forms are largely mutually intelligible varieties of one pluricentric language. Other Serbo-Croatian dialects, Chakavian, Kajkavian and Torlak, are also considered separate languages on terms of mutual intelligibility by linguists.

References

  1. 1 2 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. Russian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required).
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication (2024). Special Eurobarometer survey "Europeans and their languages" - 2023. Publications Office. doi:10.2766/28257. ISBN   978-92-68-12045-3 . Retrieved 6 December 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 Waddington, Beth (2022-11-29). "Language, England and Wales". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 2025-12-06.
  4. ↑ "Scotland's Census at a glance: Languages". Scotland's Census. 2025-11-28. Retrieved 2025-12-06.
  5. ↑ Ukrainian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  6. ↑ Romanian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  7. ↑ "Româna". unilat.org (in Romanian). Latin Union . Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  8. ↑ Serbo-Croatian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  9. ↑ 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
  10. ↑ German dialect, Bavarian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  11. ↑ Czech at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  12. ↑ "Informe sobre la Situació de la Llengua Catalana | Xarxa CRUSCAT. Coneixements, usos i representacions del català". blogs.iec.cat.
  13. ↑ Serbian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  14. ↑ Bulgarian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  15. ↑ Albanian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  16. ↑ "Albanian". Ethnologue . Retrieved 12 December 2018. Population total of all languages of the Albanian macrolanguage.
  17. ↑ Neapolitan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  18. ↑ Croatian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  19. ↑ Danish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  20. ↑ Finnish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  21. ↑ "Norwegian". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-08-06.
  22. ↑ Slovak at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  23. ↑ German dialect, Swiss German at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  24. ↑ German dialect, Main-Franconian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  25. ↑ Sicilian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  26. ↑ Tatar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  27. ↑ Venetian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  28. ↑ Lombard at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  29. ↑ Belarusian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  30. ↑ Lithuanian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  31. ↑ Bosnian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  32. ↑ Galician at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  33. ↑ Slovene at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  34. ↑ German dialect, Upper Saxon German at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  35. ↑ "Education and Irish Language - CSO - Central Statistics Office". www.cso.ie. 2023-05-30. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  36. ↑ Irish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  37. ↑ Latvian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  38. ↑ Macedonian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  39. ↑ Piedmontese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  40. ↑ Romani, Balkan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Romani, Baltic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Romani, Carpathian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Romani, Finnish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Romani, Sinte at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Romani, Vlax at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Romani, Welsh at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  41. ↑ Chechen at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  42. ↑ AA. VV. Calendario Atlante De Agostini 2017, Novara, Istituto Geografico De Agostini, 2016, p. 230
  43. ↑ "Redirected". Ethnologue. 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  44. ↑ Bashkort at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  45. ↑ Chuvash at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  46. ↑ Estonian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  47. 1 2 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. Low German at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Westphalian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  48. ↑ About 10 million in Kazakhstan. Kazakh at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required). Technically, the westernmost portions of Kazakhstan (Atyrau Region, West Kazakhstan Region) are in Europe, with a total population of less than one million.
  49. ↑ German dialect, Palatinate German at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  50. ↑ German dialect, Kölsch at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  51. ↑ German dialect, Swabian German at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  52. ↑ (in French) VI° Enquête Sociolinguistique en Euskal herria (Communauté Autonome d'Euskadi, Navarre et Pays Basque Nord) Archived 21 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine (2016).
  53. ↑ e18|fur|Friulan
  54. ↑ Walloon at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  55. ↑ Total population estimated at 1.5 million as of 1991, of which c. 40% in Ukraine. Yiddish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Eastern Yiddish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Western Yiddish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  56. ↑ "Welsh language in Wales (Census 2021)". GOV.WALES. Retrieved 2023-03-04.
  57. ↑ "Welsh language data from the Annual Population Survey: July 2021 to June 2022". GOV.WALES. Retrieved 2022-10-28.
  58. ↑ Europe, Council of (2010-01-01). Minority Language Protection in Europe: Into a New Decade. Council of Europe. p. 30. ISBN   978-92-871-6727-9. in the United Kingdom, Welsh has 750,000 speakers
  59. ↑ Kabardian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  60. ↑ Silesian at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  61. ↑ Maltese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  62. ↑ c. 130,000 in Dagestan. In addition, there are about 0.5 million speakers in immigrant communities in Russia, see #Immigrant communities. Azerbaijani at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  63. ↑ Ligurian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  64. ↑ Mari at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  65. ↑ Occitan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required). 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.
  66. ↑ Crimean Tatar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  67. ↑ Frisian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  68. ↑ "2010 Russian Census". Archived from the original on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2022.
  69. ↑ Total 570,000, of which 450,000 in the Russian Federation. Ossetian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  70. ↑ Includes Friulian, Romansh, Ladin. Friulian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Ladin at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Romansch at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  71. 1 2 III Sociolinguistic Study of Asturias (2017). Euskobarometro.
  72. ↑ Udmurt at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  73. 1 2 Luxembourgish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  74. ↑ Judaeo-Spanish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  75. ↑ SIL Ethnologue: "Not the dominant language for most. Formerly the main language of Sephardic Jewry. Used in literary and music contexts." ca. 100k speakers in total, most of them in Israel, small communities in the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and in Spain.
  76. ↑ Icelandic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  77. ↑ Karachay-Balkar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  78. ↑ Ingush at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  79. ↑ "Montenegro". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  80. ↑ 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. Komi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  81. ↑ Zeelandic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  82. ↑ Breton at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  83. ↑ Extremaduran at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  84. ↑ Picard at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  85. ↑ Franco-Provençal at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  86. ↑ Gagauz at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  87. ↑ Tabassaran at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  88. ↑ Erzya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  89. ↑ Adyghe at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  90. ↑ Aromanian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  91. ↑ Scots at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  92. ↑ Võro at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  93. ↑ Oirat at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  94. ↑ Faroese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  95. ↑ Gaelic, Scottish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  96. ↑ Jèrriais at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  97. ↑ Kashubian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  98. ↑ Abaza at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  99. ↑ Karelian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  100. 1 2 Corsican at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  101. ↑ Tat at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Judeo-Tat at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) 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.
  102. ↑ https://zaguan.unizar.es/record/60448 Report about Census of population 2011 of Aragonese Sociolinguistics Seminar and University of Zaragoza
  103. ↑ "Más de 50.000 personas hablan aragonés". Aragón Digital. Archived from the original on 1 January 2015.
  104. ↑ mostly Northern Sami (sma), ca. 20,000 speakers; smaller communities of Lule Sami (smj, c. 2,000 speakers) and other variants. Northern Sami at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Lule Sami at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) Southern Sami at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Kildin Sami at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Skolt Sami at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required), Inari Sami at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required).
  105. ↑ Highest Alemannic dialects, Walser German at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  106. ↑ Sorbian, Upper at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  107. ↑ N. Vincent, Italian, in B. Comrie (ed.) The world's major languages, London, Croom Helm, 1981. pp. 279–302.
  108. ↑ Yenish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  109. ↑ Mirandese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  110. ↑ German dialect, Lower Silesian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  111. ↑ 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)
  112. ↑ Megleno-Romanian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  113. ↑ Moksha at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  114. ↑ Russian Census 2010. Veps at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  115. ↑ Istro-Romanian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  116. ↑ Istriot at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  117. ↑ UK 2011 Census
  118. ↑ German dialect, Cimbrian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  119. ↑ Judeo-Italian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  120. ↑ Manx at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  121. ↑ Whitehead, Sarah (2 April 2015). "How the Manx language came back from the dead". theguardian.com . Retrieved 4 April 2015.
  122. ↑ Ingrian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  123. ↑ Moribund German dialect spoken in Wilamowice, Poland. 70 speakers recorded in 2006. Wymysorys at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  124. ↑ Contemporary Latin: People fluent in Latin as a second language are probably in the dozens, not hundreds. Reginald Foster (as of 2013) estimated "no more than 100" according to Robin Banerji, Pope resignation: Who speaks Latin these days?, BBC News, 12 February 2013.
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