It's important to note that this depends on how you define "widely spoken". If you consider dialects as separate languages, then English takes the lead with over 1.3 billion speakers. However, English is considered a single language with various dialects.
Here's a breakdown:
* Hindi: 600 million speakers (primarily in India)
* English: 1.3 billion speakers (global)
* Bengali: 265 million speakers (primarily in Bangladesh and India)
* Russian: 258 million speakers (primarily in Russia)
* Spanish: 543 million speakers (global)
While Spanish has more native speakers globally, Hindi has a larger overall number of speakers due to its status as an official language in India, a country with a massive population.