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Originally Posted by infamous
The five most common languages of the world, source: TIME Almanac 2001
#1........Mandarin Chinese: 885 million
#2........Spanish: 332 million
#3........English: 322 million
#4........Bengali: 189 million
#5........Hindi: 182 million
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What about Arabic??
Spoken in: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Palestinian territories, Western Sahara (SADR), Yemen by a majority, and in many other countries, such as Israel and Iran, as a minority language; it is also the liturgical language of Islam.
Total speakers: Approximately 270 million (206 million according to Ethnologue, native speakers of all dialects 1998 est.); 323 million (population of Arab countries, CIA World Factbook 2006 est.), excluding Arab minorities in other countries and bilingual speakers
