Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language.[38] English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese andSpanish.[11][39] However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese languages (depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as "languages" or "dialects").[40][41]
Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined and measured.[42][43] Linguistics professor David Crystal calculates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[44]
The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order:United States (215 million),[45] United Kingdom (61 million),[46] Canada (18.2 million),[47] Australia(15.5 million),[48] Nigeria (4 million),[49] Ireland (3.8 million),[46] South Africa (3.7 million),[50] and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006 Census.[51]
Countries such as the Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers ofdialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to a more standard version of English. Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers ('Indian English'). Crystal claims that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world.[52][53]
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