Which language family has the largest number of current speakers?

The Austronesian language family has the largest number of current speakers, boasting approximately 300 million speakers worldwide. This family includes languages that are spread across a vast area from Madagascar in the west, across the Pacific Islands, to Hawaii in the north and New Zealand in the south. Notable languages within this family include Tagalog (Filipino), Malagasy, and various Polynesian languages.

In contrast, the other language families listed—Japonic, Turkic, Dravidian, and Koreanic—have significantly fewer speakers. Japonic languages, primarily Japanese, have around 128 million speakers, while Turkic languages, including Turkish and Uzbek, collectively reach approximately 35 million speakers. The Dravidian languages, which are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of Sri Lanka, have around 250 million speakers across several languages like Tamil and Telugu. Koreanic, represented chiefly by the Korean language, has about 80 million speakers.

Thus, when considering the total number of speakers, the Austronesian family stands out as the most populous in the context of global language distribution.