Languages of the Internet

Internet access
More and more users are plugging into the Internet worldwide. However, estimating the number of speakers of the world's languages is difficult because many people are bilingual or multilingual and can use English or other global languages to surf the Internet. For instance, people who use English on the Internet are not limited to English-speaking countries but form a community of users worldwide.

Top ten Internet languages
According to Internet World Stats, the top ten languages on the Internet, listed below, account for 84.9% of all Internet use. English is the dominant language, accounting for almost 30% of Internet users, with Chinese a distant runner-up. This usage information is based on data published by Nielsen//NetRatings, International Telecommunications Union, and Computer Industry Almanac.

Internet Languages Table

Further statistics that include penetration, the ratio of Internet users to total number of speakers of the language, as well as growth are given in the table below. German has the highest penetration, while Arabic has experienced the greatest growth.

Languages
English
Chinese
Spanish
Japanese
French
German
Arabic
Portuguese
Korean
Italian
Top 10
Remaining languages
World Total

% of all Internet Users
29.4%
18.9%
8.5%
6.4%
4.7%
4.2%
4.1%
4.0%
2.4%
2.4%
84.9%
15.1%
100.0%

Internet Penetration
21.1%
20.2%
27.6%
73.8%
16.6%
63.5%
16.8%
24.3%
47.9%
59.7%
23.8%
15.2%
21.9%

Language Growth (2000-2008)
203.5%
755.1%
405.3%
99.7%
458.7%
121.0%
2,063.7%
668.0%
82.9%
162.9%
278.3%
580.4%
305.5%