Which languages have more than 100 million native speakers? A quiz

There are nine such languages.

Hint

Some plausible candidates don't make the cut. While Indonesia has over 200 million people, Indonesian is not the first language of most. The most widely spoken Indonesian language is Javanese, with about 85 million native speakers. French has about 70 million speakers and (standard) German about 90 million. (All the figures on this page are taken from Ethnologue.)

Answer

1. Mandarin Chinese has nearly 850 million speakers. Of the other Chinese languages, the most widely spoken are Wu (80 million) and Yue/Cantonese (55 million). Recommended reading: The Languages of China.
2. Spanish has about 330 million native speakers.
3. English has about 330 million native speakers.
4. Hindi+Urdu have about 240 million speakers (split 180/60).
5. The various Arabic varieties have about 220 million speakers.
6. Portuguese has some 180 million speakers (most of them in Brazil).
7. Bengali has about 170 million speakers (in India and Bangladesh).
8. Russian has about 145 million speakers.
9. Japanese has about 120 million speakers.