Language usage is difficult to measure. One indicator could be to what extent languages are used online.
Wikipedia produces statistics of how many articles are produced per language. It is thereofre useful to show how many articles are produced in European minority languages (shown in red), against European official languages (shown in bold, and world languages (shown in italics). Heritage languages and constructed languages are also shown in red.
There are some surprising results! Catalan is ranked number 13 and beats many state languages such as Turkish and Finnish.
Esperanto (25) and Volapük (29) show that constructed languages are still being widely used online. 'Dead' languages such as Latin and Anglo-Saxon are also very much alive on Wikipedia.
Another 'big winner' on Wikipedia is Aromanian. Little known as a language outside Eastern Europe, it ranks at 43 with some 65,000 articles, ahead of Basque, Hindi and Greek.
Surprisingly for European official languages, Irish ranks at just 93, Maltese at 149 and Moldovan at just 222.
Of course the results are not entirely scientific as Wikipedia will be more popular in some countries than others.
The results in full:
The top 100
1 English en 3,447,222
2 German Deutsch de 1,137,965
3 French Français fr 1,020,886
4 Italian Italiano it 738,618
5 Polish Polski pl 738,514
6 Japanese 日本語 ja 711,033
7 Spanish Español es 661,490
8 Dutch Nederlands nl 647,194
9 Portuguese Português pt 618,534
10 Russian Русский ru 607,251
11 Swedish Svenska sv 372,863
12 Chinese 中文 zh 329,711
13 Catalan Català ca 289,303
14 Norwegian (Bokmål) Norsk (Bokmål) no 278,192
15 Finnish Suomi fi 252,091
16 Ukrainian Українська uk 236,556
17 Hungarian Magyar hu 178,204
18 Czech Čeština cs 175,871
19 Romanian Română ro 151,504
20 Turkish Türkçe tr 151,045
21 Korean 한국어 ko 145,649
22 Vietnamese Tiếng Việt vi 137,443
23 Danish Dansk da 136,944
24 Arabic العربية ar 136,310
25 Esperanto Esperanto eo 135,854
26 Serbian Српски / Srpski sr 134,781
27 Indonesian Bahasa Indonesia id 133,650
28 Lithuanian Lietuvių lt 119,963
29 Volapük Volapük vo 118,833
30 Slovak Slovenčina sk 118,157
31 Hebrew עברית he 110,036
32 Bulgarian Български bg 107,524
33 Persian فارسی fa 107,259
34 Slovenian Slovenščina sl 101,688
35 Waray-Waray Winaray war 100,446
36 Croatian Hrvatski hr 88,575
37 Estonian Eesti et 78,877
38 Malay Bahasa Melayu ms 74,374
39 Newar / Nepal Bhasa new 69,558
40 Simple English Simple English simple 65,148
41 Galician Galego gl 63,770
42 Thai ไทย th 63,468
43 Aromanian Armãneashce roa-rup 61,286
44 Norwegian (Nynorsk) Nynorsk nn 60,365
45 Basque Euskara eu 59,355
46 Hindi हिन्दी hi 57,126
47 Greek Ελληνικά el 56,557
48 Haitian Krèyol ayisyen ht 53,044
49 Latin Latina la 45,808
50 Telugu te 45,788
51 Georgian ქართული ka 43,319
53 Macedonian Македонски mk 42,134
54 Azeri Azərbaycan az 38,267
55 Tagalog Tagalog tl 36,998
56 Breton Brezhoneg br 35,644
59 Luxembourgish Lëtzebuergesch lb 31,213
61 Latvian Latviešu lv 30,470
62 Bosnian Bosanski bs 29,854
63 Icelandic Íslenska is 29,758
64 Welsh Cymraeg cy 29,052
65 Belarusian (Taraškievica) Беларуская (тарашкевіца) be-x-old 28,646
66 Piedmontese Piemontèis pms 28,623
67 Albanian Shqip sq 28,283
68 Tamil தமிழ் ta 25,476
70 Belarusian Беларуская be 24,615
71 Aragonese Aragonés an 22,863
72 Occitan Occitan oc 22,520
73 Bengali বাংলা bn 21,852
74 Swahili Kiswahili sw 21,025
76 Ripuarian Ripoarisch ksh 18,205
77 Lombard Lumbaart lmo 17,878
78 West Frisian Frysk fy 17,745
80 Low Saxon Plattdüütsch nds 16,516
81 Afrikaans Afrikaans af 16,316
82 Sicilian Sicilianu scn 16,075
83 Quechua Runa Simi qu 16,069
84 Kurdish Kurdî / كوردی ku 15,219
85 Urdu اردو ur 14,863
86 Sundanese Basa Sunda su 14,684
87 Malayalam മലയാളം ml 14,676
88 Cantonese 粵語 zh-yue 14,421
89 Asturian Asturianu ast 13,862
90 Neapolitan Nnapulitano nap 13,154
91 Samogitian Žemaitėška bat-smg 12,594
92 Walloon Walon wa 11,789
93 Irish Gaeilge ga 11,601
94 Chuvash Чăваш cv 11,601
95 Armenian Հայերեն hy 11,092
96 Yoruba Yorùbá yo 10,155
97 Kannada ಕನ್ನಡ kn 9,446
98 Tajik Тоҷикӣ tg 9,144
99 Tarantino Tarandíne roa-tara 8,842
100 Venetian Vèneto vec 8,754
Other rankings
103 Scottish Gaelic Gàidhlig gd 8,031
106 Tatar Tatarça / Татарча tt 7,495
107 Uzbek O‘zbek uz 7,490
109 Ossetian Иронау os 7,321
114 Kazakh Қазақша kk 6,547
116 Limburgian Limburgs li 6,257
117 Upper Sorbian Hornjoserbsce hsb 6,141
119 Corsican Corsu co 5,902
121 Amharic am 5,395
122 Mongolian Монгол mn 5,342
123 Interlingua Interlingua ia 5,333
125 Võro Võro fiu-vro 4,399
126 Dutch Low Saxon Nedersaksisch nds-nl 4,320
127 Faroese Føroyskt fo 4,309
128 Turkmen تركمن / Туркмен tk 4,215
129 West Flemish West-Vlams vls 4,183
130 Scots sco 4,180
131 Sinhalese si 4,032
132 Sanskrit sa 3,961
133 Bavarian Boarisch bar 3,687
134 Burmese my 3,660
135 Manx Gaelg gv 3,572
137 Norman Nouormand/Normaund nrm 3,451
139 Romansh Rumantsch rm 3,354
143 Northern Sami Sámegiella se 3,004
147 Friulian Furlan fur 2,868
148 Ligurian Líguru lij 2,805
149 Maltese Malti mt 2,736
153 Kashubian Kaszëbsczi csb 2,497
155 Sardinian Sardu sc 2,433
156 Classical Chinese 古文 / 文言文 zh-classical 2,385
157 Khmer km 2,379
158 Ladino Dzhudezmo lad 2,353
160 Anglo-Saxon Englisc ang 2,255
162 Tibetan bo 2,188
164 Franco-Provençal/Arpitan Arpitan frp 2,131
166 Cornish Kernewek/Karnuack kw 1,960
167 Punjabi pa 1,931
170 Silesian Ślůnski szl 1,801
173 Saterland Frisian Seeltersk stq 1,646
176 Crimean Tatar Qırımtatarca crh 1,545
190 Emilian-Romagnol Emiliàn e rumagnòl eml 1,114
192 Picard Picard pcd 1,087
198 North Frisian Frasch frr 884
206 Chechen Нохчийн ce 661
210 Lower Sorbian Dolnoserbski dsb 632
215 Romani romani - रोमानी rmy 501
218 Old Church Slavonic Словѣньскъ cu 471
222 Moldovan Молдовеняскэ mo 401
252 Xhosa isiXhosa xh 115
253 Sesotho Sesotho st 112
261 Twi Twi tw 69
262 Shona chiShona sn 64
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