Mandarin Chinese has the largest number of native speakers worldwide, according to commonly cited linguistic estimates.
Mandarin is a group of related varieties within the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Standard Mandarin, based largely on the Beijing variety, is the official language of China and Taiwan and one of Singapore's official languages.
The language is written mainly with Chinese characters and uses lexical tones, meaning pitch patterns can distinguish words. Standard Mandarin is commonly described as having four main tones plus a neutral tone, though descriptions vary by analysis.
English has more total speakers when second-language speakers are included, which explains a frequent disagreement in rankings. Native-speaker totals also depend on whether closely related Chinese varieties are grouped together, but Mandarin remains the usual answer for the largest native-speaking population.