The Internet has been adopted by millions of people all over the world but which is the most popular language on the Internet? At present it is the English language which is most commonly used on the World Wide Web, but this reign will end according to Discovery News.
Over the next five years it is predicted the Chinese language will overtake English as the most popular language on the Internet.
This prediction is based on the following growth statistics. Last year there were an additional 36 million Chinese internet users on the web, making a total Chinese internet population of 440 million. This is double that of the US internet population which currently stands at 220 million.
With so many English speakers around the world all using the Internet as a very convenient way to communicate English has become the most popular language on the web. Currently 537 million internet users have English as their primary language, whilst 445 million speak Chinese.
According to recent data Chinese speakers have a greater potential to expand on the web over and above English speakers due to Internet penetration which is currently 42% for English speakers and 32% for Chinese. With so many Chinese people it is not surprising that the Chinese language will grow further online.
English and Chinese are not the only languages used on the web, there are plenty of others used. Here are the remaining 8 of the top 10 most spoken languages on the Internet
- Spanish 153.3 million
- Japanese 99.1 million
- Portuguese 82.5 million
- German 75.2 million
- Arabic 65.4 million
- French 59.8 million
- Russia 59.7 million
- Korean 39.4 million
At present English speakers make up 27.3% of the total internet population where as Chinese speakers make up 22.6% of the total online population. So if you want to communicate with as many people as possible English is still currently the most popular language to use.