10. Lahnda (Western Punjabi) — 118 Million Native Speakers
With varying estimates of around 118 million native speakers, the last spot on the list goes to… Lahnda, a Pakistani macrolanguage that primarily includes Western Punjabi! (Sorry, German — you got dumped from top world languages a few years back.) That doesn’t even include Eastern Punjabi, which is spoken in India. The Punjab was sliced in two by the British when they left, and millions of people were forced to abandon their homes, businesses and families. But they’re slowly taking their revenge, Bollywood-style: Punjabi songs now account for 50 percent of chart-toppers. That’s a comeback if we’ve ever seen one.
