Third Most Popular Language in Each Country Reveals Deep Cultural Layers

The language spoken in a country tells us a lot about its history, culture, and relationships with others. Using the CIA World Factbook and Ethnologue, Budget Direct Travel Insurance looked at the most commonly spoken languages in each country of the world. They researched the most and second-most commonly spoken languages in each country worldwide.

The findings were fairly predictable. But they didn’t stop there. They also dug up the third-most-popular languages in each country – and that’s where things got interesting. By looking, not at the most popular languages, but instead at the third-most-popular languages, they began to see a story emerge – a story of diversity, history, and deep roots.

English was the most popular third language overall. But second to that was French and tied for third, Chinese and Italian. Chinese was the world’s most widely spoken language, but it was the third-most-popular language in only four other countries.

In learning the third-most-popular languages in each country, they were able to dig a little deeper into the place’s underlying values and subcultures. The map below includes the third languages for all the countries around the world (where data was available).

1. North America

In the North American map below, for 10 of the 23 countries, the researchers weren’t able to find data for the third-most-popular language. But they were able to discover that in Canada, the largest geographically of the North American countries, Punjabi was the third-most-popular language. In the United States, it was Chinese, and in Mexico, it was Chol, a language in the Mayan family.

As many may have expected, the most common language in most countries in North America was English, but only by a tiny margin. In ten countries, English was the most popular language, but in nine, it was Spanish.

2. Europe

It may surprise some to know that the third-most-popular language in the countries of Europe was not English or even French, but Italian. In four countries – Croatia, Malta, Monaco, and Switzerland – Italian ruled as the third-most-popular language. In three countries – Austria, Kosovo, and Slovenia – the third-most-popular language was Serbian. Heading to Vatican City, Italy, and Luxembourg, it was French. Heading to Belarus, Bulgaria, and Romania, it was Romani.

The map below shows in more detail the third-most-popular languages in each country in Europe. What it doesn’t show, however, is that German is actually the most popular first language in all of Europe and that English is easily second-most popular.

3. Asia

While China is home to 20% of the entire world’s population, you might be surprised to know that Chinese is not even the most popular language in Asia or even the third-most-popular language in most countries (it’s English). Chinese is not even the most popular language (it’s Arabic).

Armenian comes in behind English in popularity being spoken in Palestine, Syria, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Next comes Chinese, the third-most-popular language in Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Brunei (certain dialects of Chinese, that is). In the map below, you’ll see the third-most-popular languages spoken all over Asia.

4. South America

South America may be known as a primarily Spanish-speaking continent – and it is, where eight out of twelve countries’ most popular language is Spanish. But when it comes to the third-most-popular language, South America is a mixed bag, with languages ranging from English to Sranan Tongo, an English-based Creole language.

Only two pairs of countries share a common third-most-popular language: Bolivia and Peru with Aymara (spoken by the Aymaran people in the Andes) and Paraguay and Chile with German. Interestingly, this came over with a flood of German immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

5. Africa

You might notice a whole lot going on in this map. That’s because, with 54 countries, Africa has the most countries of any continent. The researchers also found an incredible 42 languages as the third-most-popular in these countries. This means many of these African countries have different popular languages than their neighbors. This discrepancy makes sense when we consider the vastly different histories and cultures both within African countries and across borders.

With all of the different languages spoken in these countries, though, English remains the third-most-popular language in most places with a total of six countries.

6. Oceania

Oceania is a continent of islands that, in some cases and places, have been much less influenced by the modern world. So it’s no surprise that some of the third languages you’ll see on this map aren’t as well known. Niuafo’ou, for example, is the third-most-popular language on Tonga’s northernmost island. The little-known Hiri Motu is the third-most-popular language in Papua New Guinea.

Only two countries in Oceania share a common third language: Samoan, spoken in Tuvalu and New Zealand. On the larger end of things, there’s Australia. Its third-most-popular language is Arabic, just preceded by Mandarin, and then English.

Methodology

To create these maps, the researchers started by gathering data from the CIA World Factbook. They listed the most commonly used languages in all the countries they could. Next, they filled in any gaps and double-checked information with the world language website, Ethnologue.

Here, they focused on L1 languages, i.e., people’s primary languages. They wanted to make sure they were only including languages that were used daily. If data from Ethnologue didn’t match with the CIA’s data (as it includes L2 languages as well), they swapped it for the Ethnologue data.

In some rare cases, they were unable to find information for the third-most-popular languages. These are indicated on the maps. Mostly, they were able to tell quite the visual story of the way language is used and distributed all over the world.

Content Provided by Budget Direct Travel Insurance