You probably already know that Mandarin tops the list as one of the most spoken (official) languages in the world, while in South Africa, isiZulu holds the number one spot. But a look at the second most spoken languages globally paints a much more diverse picture of the different ways in which we communicate.

In South Africa, isiXhosa is the second most spoken language, while across the rest of Africa, indigenous languages follow suit, with English and French closely behind, specifically in a number of North African countries.

The interactive map below by the Olivet Nazarene University’s School of Graduate and Continuing Studies presents data collected from CIA World Factbook on the most popular languages after each country’s official language (or among in countries like ours where there are more than one official language).

What’s interesting to note is the frequency of languages from other continents. For example in the US, Spanish is the second most spoken language, in Brazil it’s German, in Australia it’s Mandarin while South Asian languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali dominate the UK’s second most spoken languages.

[Source – Olivet Nazarene University, Image – Shutterstock]