The Top Ten Most Widely Spoken Languages In The World

Are you a polyglot? Are you bilingual? I know what you’re thinking: "Hey, Dave -- just speak English!" OK. After all, more than 500 million people do.

A polyglot is someone who speaks several languages -– say about five. But less than 1 percent of the world can do that. Bilinguals, on the other hand, speak two languages with equal fluency. About 43 percent of the world's population fits that category.

Trilinguals, meantime, speak three languages ... and pig Latin doesn’t count.

So what languages are we all speaking? According to the United Nations, the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world are:

10. French, spoken by 129 million worldwide
9. Malay-Indonesian, 159 million
8. Portuguese, 191 million
7. Bengali, 211 million
6. Arabic, 246 million
5. Russian, 277 million
4. Spanish, 392 million
3. Hindustani, 497 million
2. English, 508 million
1. Mandarin, 1 billion-plus