by 
Updated on December 10, 2021
Superman, of course, is not just an American hero, but the world’s hero at large. As such, there’s been various stories showing his interacting with people all around the world. Of course, not everyone speaks English, so how does Superman interact with the people he’s saving?
Superman’s language skills
In Silver and Bronze Age comics, Superman’s super-intelligence allowed him to learn every language (both major and minor) on Earth. Modern comics have dialed back his super-intellect, but he’s still learned Earth’s major languages. In both cases, it’s so Superman can easily converse with anyone he comes across.
Superman also usually knows Interlac, the galaxy-wide “standard” language shown in many DC Comics. Interlac is most prominently seen in the 30th/31st century-set Legion of Super-Heroes stories.
Finally, Superman also speaks the (obviously now-dead) language of Krypton. Silver/Bronze Age comics called it “Kryptonese,” though 2000s stories and media spin-offs called it “Kryptonian.” I don’t mind the term Kryptonese, though I can see why some would favor Kryptonian. In real life, the word “Italian” refers to the language and the people. The same goes for the terms Russian, Korean, and German. On the other hand, Brazil mainly speaks Portuguese. And of course there’s Chinese, the world’s most spoken native language.
The top 10 languages with the most native speakers
Of interest for this post are the real languages Superman’s most likely to encounter during his global adventures. What languages are those? Here’s a list of the 10 languages with the most native speakers. Information is taken from Ethnologue, and figures are as of this writing.
- Chinese (1.2 billion native speakers)
- Spanish (399 million native speakers)
- English (335 million native speakers)
- Hindi (260 million native speakers)
- Arabic (242 million native speakers)
- Portuguese (203 million native speakers)
- Bengali (189 million native speakers)
- Russian (166 million native speakers)
- Japanese (128 million native speakers)
- Punjabi (88.7 million native speakers)
All of the above total about 3.2 billion speakers, or 44% of the world’s population (7.3 billion people, as of July 2015).
Other popular languages
Reaching at least 50% of the world’s population will require Superman to learn even more languages. The following are the next most natively spoken languages, in decreasing order.
- Javanese (84.3 million native speakers)
- German (78.1 million native speakers)
- Korean (77.2 million native speakers)
- French (75.9 million native speakers)
- Telugu (74 million native speakers)
- Marathi (71.8 million native speakers)
That totals 3.67 billion people, or 50.3% of the world’s population.
Conclusion
In general, Superman will want to learn a minimum of 15 extra languages, in addition to English, Interlac, and Kryptonese/Kryptonian.
There’s currently an estimated 7,100 different languages spoken on Earth. However, many less widely spoken languages are facing endangerment or extinction. It’d be an interesting story to see Superman helping to preserve one of these endangered languages. However, I suppose it’d be at odds with modern superhero stories’ heavy emphasis on action.
(Updated 6/13/17)
