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
|
Number of
|
|
| 1 | English | 3,819,969 | 4,482,135 |
| 2 | Te Reo Māori | 148,395 | 185,955 |
| 3 | Samoan | 86,403 | 101,937 |
| 4 | Northern Chinese | 52,263 | 95,253 |
| 5 | Hindi | 66,309 | 69,471 |
| 6 | French | 49,125 | 55,116 |
| 7 | Yue | 44,625 | 52,767 |
| 8 | Sinitic | 42,753 | 51,501 |
| 9 | Tagalog | 29,016 | 43,278 |
| 10 | German | 36,642 | 41,385 |
| 11 | Spanish | 26,979 | 38,823 |
| 12 | Afrikaans | 27,387 | 36,966 |
| 13 | Tongan | 31,839 | 35,820 |
| 14 | Punjabi | 19,752 | 34,227 |
| 15 | Korean | 26,373 | 31,323 |
| 16 | Fiji Hindi | 26,805 | |
| 17 | Japanese | 20,148 | 24,885 |
| 18 | Dutch | 24,006 | 23,343 |
| 19 | New Zealand Sign Language | 20,235 | 22,986 |
| 20 | Gujarati | 17,502 | 22,200 |
| 21 | Russian | 9,426 | 12,543 |
| 22 | Arabic | 10,746 | 12,399 |
| 23* | Portuguese | 10,569 | |
| 24** | Tamil | 6,840 | 10,107 |
| 25 | Italian | 8,214 | 9,903 |
| Total People | 4,242,051 |
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.