Which language has the most native speakers worldwide?

Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers of any language, with roughly 940 million first-language speakers according to commonly cited estimates.

Mandarin is a group of Chinese varieties whose standard form is based largely on the speech of Beijing and is the official language of China and Taiwan. It is also one of Singapore’s official languages. Standard Mandarin uses four main tones, plus a neutral tone, so pitch patterns can change word meaning.

Chinese writing is largely logographic: characters represent morphemes or words rather than an alphabetic sequence of individual sounds. Mandarin is the most spoken language by native speakers, but English has more total speakers when second-language users are included. Counts vary because Chinese varieties may be treated as separate languages or as regional varieties of one macrolanguage.