Talk:List of languages by total number of speakers

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of languages by total number of speakers article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 90 days

This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Languages This article is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. Lists This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Could anyone who has access to their paywalled data update the list based on the Ethnologue 2023 figures? The List of languages by number of native speakers is already up-to-date, but not yet this article.

Also, I notice that their own top 200 list apparently hasn't been updated for 2023 yet, even though that edition has apparently been available for some time – a bit strange. Krissie (talk) 13:28, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Krissie,

I contacted them recently to ask them to update the top 200 list and I'm still waiting to hear back from them. I'll update here as soon as they update their public list. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 08:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I see you have already updated the page. Thanks a lot! Krissie (talk) 08:26, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @A455bcd9, just wondering why the list cuts off at 45 million this time when it was at 40 million during previous updates. Thanks. - Moalli (talk) 01:03, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Moalli:

1. I was lazy.

2. I don't know how much we can reproduce from Ethnologue's website that is behind paywall besides what is publicly available so I thought it was better to shorten the list.

3. We need to decide on an arbitrary cut off. Top N most spoken? Those with more than X speakers? I think the current list is good

4. After Yoruba the list is: Hakka, Burmese, Sudanese Arabic, Algerian Arabic, Polish, Lingala. But then I don't know. The source doesn't allow us to see the whole list so we need to guess to find which language is the 47th most spoken. That's another reason to limit the length of this list. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 06:05, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@A455bcd9, I believe we should keep it at the 40 million cutoff as used in prior years for an "even number", similar to the 50 million for the native list. If we're going by top # spoken, then 50 is a good even cutoff. - Moalli (talk) 06:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like French second language was taking account for anyone knowing the "oui" word. 2806:103E:2A:6538:75A3:3A3B:88C5:9D42 (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]