World languages

World Languages

   Difficulties in defining what is a language and what is a dialect of a language

It may be surprising but it is very difficult question to answer. First of all, there are languages in some parts of the world that have not yet been studied such as in Papua New Guinea and the Amazon. Secondly, there are no clear-cut criteria for deciding what constitutes a separate language and what constitutes a dialect of a language because purely linguistic considerations can often compete with issues of statehood, culture, writing systems, political and economic power. For example, Chinese varieties such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, and Hakka are as less mutually intelligible than are Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. Yet the former are considered to be dialects of Chinese, while the latter are considered to be separate languages. Why is that? The answer is that the Chinese varieties are primarily spoken within a single nation, while the latter are spoken in different countries. Hindi and Urdu are almost identical, yet considered to be different languages because they are associated with different countries (India and Pakistan), religious beliefs (Hindu and Moslem), and different writing systems (Devanagari and Arabic). However, before Pakistan became independent from India in 1947, Hindi and Urdu were considered a single language called Hindustani. Serbo-Croatian was considered to be a single language with several dialects: Orthodox Serbs used the Cyrillic alphabet, Catholic Croats used the Latin alphabet, and Muslim Bosnians used both alphabets. After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 2001, these three varieties are now officially listed as three separate languages.

   How many languages?

The data below are taken from Ethnologue (16th edition), a reference that catalogs all the known living languages in the world today. Ethnologue is regarded as the most comprehensive and authoritative listing of world languages. A new edition is published every four years.

Population range Living languages Number of speakers
Number Percent Cumulative Number Percent Cumulative
100,000,000 – 999,999,999
8
0.1
0.1
2,308,548,848
38.74
38.74
10,000,000 to 99,999,999
77
1.1
1.2
2,346,900,757
39.38
78.12
1,000,000 to 9,999,999
304
4.4
5.6
951,916,458
15.97
94.09
100,000 to 999,999
895
13.0
18.6
283,116,716
4.75
98.84
10,000 to 99,999
1,824
26.4
45.0
60,780,797
1.02
99.86
1,000 to 9,999
2,014
29.2
74.1
7,773,810
0.13
99.99
1 to 999
1,510
21.9
96.1
474,4331
0.01
100
Unknown
277
4.00
100.0

 

 

   Languages by world area

 

Ethnologue lists 6,912 living languages in the world today. 389 languages (5.6% of all known languages) are spoken by at least one million people and account for almost 94.1% of the world’s population. The remaining 94.4% of languages are spoken by only 5.9% of the world’s population.

World area
Languages
Speakers
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
Median
Mean
Asia
2,322
33.6%
3,622,771,264
60.8
11,000
1,560,194
Africa
2,110
30.5%
726,453,403
12.2
25,200
344,291
Americas
993
14.4%
50,496,321
0.8
2,300
50,852
Europe
234
3.4%
1,553,360,941
26.1%
201,500
6,638,295
Pacific
1.250
18.1%
6,429,788
0.1%
980
5,144
Totals
6,909
100.0%
5,959,511,717
100.0%
7,560
862,572

 

  • Asia
    Asia has the largest number of languages and the largest number of speakers, accounting for 60.8% of all language speakers in the world. There is a striking difference between median and mean number of speakers.
  • Africa
    Africa has the second largest number of languages after Asia but it accounts for only 12.2% of all language speakers in the world.
  • Americas
    The Americas have numerous languages with small numbers of speakers.
  • Europe
    Europe has the smallest number of languages and the second-largest number of speakers after Asia, accounting for 26.1% of all language speakers in the world. Unlike Asia, the majority of Europe’s languages have a substantial number of speakers. As a result, Europe has the largest median and mean of all world areas.
  • Pacific
    The Pacific accounts for only 0.1% of all language speakers in the world and has the lowest median number of speakers of all world areas.

 

   Ten most spoken languages in the world[/fancy title]

The table below lists ten most spoken languages of the world in descending order of first-language speakers.

Rank Language Number of 1st language
speakers (in millions)
Total countries where
language is spoken
1 Chinese 1,213 31
2 English 328 112
3 Spanish 319 44
4 Arabic 221 57
5 Hindi 182 20
6 Bengali 181 10
7 Portuguese 178 37
8 Russian 144 33
9 Japanese 122 25
10 German 90.3 43

 

  

Countries with more than 100 languages

The table below lists countries with more than 100 languages in descending order. For a complete listing of all countries see Ethnologue. The table also shows the number of indigenous vs. immigrant languages in these countries. For instance, the United States ranks 5th in the total number of languages spoken which are almost equally split between indigenous and immigrant. The same is true of Canada. In all the other countries listed below, the number of indigenous languages is significantly exceeds that of immigrant languages.

Rank Country Number of languages Indigenous Immigrant
1 Papua New Guinea 830 830 0
2 Indonesia 722 719 3
3 Nigeria 521 514 7
4 India 445 438 7
5 United States 364 176 188
6 Mexico 297 292 6
7 Cameroon 289 288 1
8 Democratic Republic of the Congo 217 215 2
9 Australia 207 161 46
10 Brazil 193 181 12
11 Philippines 181 171 10
12 Canada 169 86 83
13 Malaysia 145 137 8
14 Russian Federation 135 100 35
15 Sudan 134 133 1
16 Chad 133 131 2
17 Tanzania 128 127 1
18 Nepal 127 124 3
19 Myanmar 116 115 1
20 Vanuatu 114 108 6
21 Viet Nam 108 106 2