Preply Study Predicts Most Spoken and Endangered Languages by 2050

A study by Preply, a language learning company founded in 2012, forecasts the most spoken languages in 2050: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, and Bengali. Italian will see a modest 2% growth. German native speakers will decline 35% due to low birth rates in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Bolzano, Italy, though foreign interest may rise. On streaming platforms, Italian dropped from second in 2020 to fourth in 2021 for films in Italy, and from third to unranked for TV series. English dominates 46% of films and 56% of TV series in Italy, with Spanish and French also present. Italian is absent from top TV series in Switzerland. Endangered languages include Swahili (projected 12.25 million native speakers by 2050), Hausa (65% decline), and Javanese (from 68 million to 27.27 million native speakers).