Top 10 Languages on the Internet

If the Internet is the new public square, it's crowded and noisy. More than 1.4 billion people gather and talk on its cyber sidewalks. Despite all those tongues, it's not a very linguistically diverse place. Walk the Web 2.0 village green and listen to the conversations, more than half are in three languages: English, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

Compare that to the number of known languages, 6,912 according to Ethnologue.com, and residency in the online neighborhood seems wildly exclusive.

Popular Internet languages are a reflection of not only sheer numbers of people fluent in popularly spoken world languages, but also strong Internet penetration in areas where those speakers live, said Enrique De Argaez, Bogota, Colombia-based editor and Webmaster for the data-tracking site Internet World Stats. It's a four-year-old, for-profit site that serves the higher education and business community selling marketing information, as well as posting information free for the general public. Since 2000, De Argaez has been collecting data, drawing mainly from Nielsen/NetRatings and the International Telecommunication Union, is the leading United Nations agency for tracking information and communication technologies.

As may be expected, not all spoken languages are used on the Internet. De Argaez said countries and regions that have multiple languages or have few people using the Internet could see their languages underrepresented. Furthermore, some people simply may not aspire to a voice on the Internet. Dianna Murphy, associate director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute, said, "It's odd to think that all languages must exist in any one modality of communication. The Internet may be important in our culture but not in others. "

And where it is important, the Internet is giving rise to a new way of communicating. "The Internet itself is creating a new culture and a new tradition for nearly 22 percent of the world's population, " said De Argaez.

What languages dominate those new Internet traditions? Here's a countdown of the leading bits and bytes of the virtual Tower of Babel, according to the Internet World Stats June 2008 review, the most recent available:

10. Italian
While Italian has been in the top 10 for four years running, it is tumbling. Now, there is a 60 percent nationwide Internet penetration rate, with more than 34.7 million Italians logging on.

9. Korean
De Argaez predicts Korean is not long for this list. Korean, as well as Italian in its bottom berth, will likely be overtaken by other languages as they surge past South Korea's nearly 35 million Web users. Figures for North Korea were unavailable.

8. Portuguese
Portuguese is spoken in Portugal and Brazil, as well as other locations. Just between those two countries, notably, there is 96 percent Internet-use penetration. It's the language of 58.2 million people on the Internet.

7. Arabic
Internet use in this language has accelerated in recent years, putting Arabic in the top 10 with 59.9 million people. Arabic displaced Russian from the list of 10 in this most recent ranking.

6. German
In Germany, there are 52.5 million users and nearly 64 percent of the population is online. Combining those German citizens with other Teutonic speakers means the total is 61.2 million people online in this language.

5. French
More than 36 million French peck at keyboards linked to the Internet and there is there is a 58 percent Internet-use penetration. Because of French-speakers elsewhere, French is the language of 68.2 million wired-in people.

4. Japanese
The Japanese language has likely reached its maximum ranking simply due to the number of people that live in the island nation, De Argaez said. There's not much growth potential since 94 million users are online and the country's total population is 127 million, with comparatively few Japanese speakers elsewhere in the world.

3. Spanish
De Argaez said Spanish-speaking countries and Spanish speakers are increasing their presence on the Internet at a very fast rate. His organization has tracked just about 125 million Spanish speakers on the Internet.

2. Mandarin Chinese
This is the most commonly spoken language in the world's most populous nation. The Middle Kingdom has an Internet penetration of 19 percent and holds 276.2 million users.

1. English
English debuted at No. 1 when the Internet rocketed to prominence in the latter half of the 20th century and has remained in that position ever since. Combining just the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia adds up to more than 278 million Internet users. However, people who use English on the Internet are not limited to English-speaking countries but form a community of users worldwide making it the global language. De Argaez pegs the total at nearly 431 million English users.