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Below is a list of the 25 languages with the highest number of speakers at the time of Census 2013/2018.

Table 1: Top 25 Languages by number of speakers, 2013/2018.

 

Language

Number of
speakers 2013

Number of
speakers 2018

1English3,819,9694,482,135
2Te Reo Māori 148,395185,955
3 Samoan 86,403101,937
4 Northern Chinese 52,26395,253
5 Hindi 66,30969,471
6 French 49,12555,116
7 Yue 44,62552,767
8 Sinitic 42,75351,501
9 Tagalog29,01643,278
10 German 36,64241,385
11Spanish26,97938,823
12Afrikaans27,38736,966
13Tongan31,83935,820
14Punjabi19,75234,227
15Korean26,37331,323
16Fiji Hindi 26,805
17Japanese20,14824,885
18Dutch24,00623,343
19New Zealand Sign Language20,23522,986
20Gujarati17,50222,200
21Russian9,42612,543
22Arabic10,74612,399
23*Portuguese 10,569
24**Tamil6,84010,107
25Italian8,2149,903
 Total People4,242,051 
Source: Statistics New Zealand, the New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings 2013

* - Cook Island Maori - 2013 census was 8,124.
** - Thai - 2013 census was 7,599

Table 1 includes all of the people who stated each language spoken, whether as their only language or as one of several languages. Where a person reported more than one language spoken, they have been counted in each applicable group.

In 2013, there were significantly more English speakers than speakers of any other language. English had over twenty-five times more speakers than second placed Te Reo Māori. English (90 per cent), Te Reo Māori (3 per cent), Samoan (2 per cent) and Hindi (2 per cent) were the only languages that could be spoken by more than 2 per cent of the population.

Eleven languages (Northern Chinese, French, Yue, Sinitic, German, Tongan, Tagalog, Afrikaans, Spanish, Korean and Dutch) were spoken by about 1 per cent of the population. All other languages on this list were spoken by less than one per cent of the population.

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