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This is a list of the number of languages by country and dependency according to the 22nd edition of Ethnologue (2019). Papua New Guinea has the largest number of languages in the world.
The World Atlas of Languages is an online tool that documents the status and features of languages around the world. It shows that there are 8324 languages, spoken or signed, according to its methodology, and around 7000 languages are still in use.
- How Languages Form
- Indo-European Languages
- Afro-Asiatic Languages
- Sino-Tibetan Languages
- Niger-Congo Languages
- Most Spoken Languages
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New languages often develop due to geographic isolation and lack of standardization, which occurs through schooling and educational systems. However, languages also steadily evolve over time and new languages sprout and blossom from neighboring languages as well as previous iterations. For example, Old English is almost incomprehensible compared to...
One of the largest language families, Indo-European accounts for the first language of over 3 billion people on Earth. The list is substantial, but it includes the Romance languages (Spanish, French, and Italian), the Germanic languages (English, Yiddish, German, Norwegian), Latin, languages from Anatolia, and languages from India (Sanskrit, and th...
A force to be reckoned with, the Afro-Asiatic family has influenced the native tongue of roughly half a billion people. Arabic and its associated neighboring languages make up 2/3 of that group, and the locations are typically found in the Middle East and North Africa. However, historical linguists struggle to identify the exact location where the ...
Over 400 languages can be traced back to Sino-Tibetan, with Chinese languages accounting for the majority of the 1.4 billion current speakers. Once again, the origin of these languages is hotly debated, but it is widely believed that it began with a group of north Chinese farmers in 5250 BCE. Old Chinese is naturally the oldest written form of Sino...
Over 600 million people currently speak a language that is descended from the Niger-Congo family. The regions involved are found between Senegal and Ghana, then central Africa towards Kenya and Angola and Mozambique, and all the way south to South Africa. Even Sudanhas a small pocket of speakers. Although they do not account for the most current sp...
English takes first place with one and a half billion speakers, which is understandable given its accessibility and use in business. Mandarin Chinese is second, with just over a billion speakers. Hindi and Spanish are used by 602 million and 548 million people, respectively, and French comes in fifth with over 275 million speakers. Other noteworthy...
Learn about the history, formation, and diversity of languages in the world. According to Ethnologue, there are 7,151 recognized languages, but only 142 language families with a common ancestor.
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Learn about the diversity, distribution and history of languages around the world. Find out how many languages are spoken on each continent, which ones are the most widely spoken and which ones are endangered.
The World Factbook, produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), estimates the ten most spoken languages ( L1 + L2) in 2022 as follows: [46] See also. Lingua franca. Lists of languages. List of languages by number of native speakers. List of languages by the number of countries in which they are recognized as an official language.
LanguageFamilyBranchFirst-language (l1) SpeakersEnglish (excl. creole languages )380 millionMandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, ...939 millionHindi (excl. Urdu )345 millionSpanish (excl. creole languages )485 millionLearn about the diversity and history of languages spoken around the world, from about 7,000 to 430 language families. Explore the features and challenges of sign languages, pidgins, creoles, and constructed languages.
Ecuador Spanish (Castilian; official) 98.6%, indigenous 3.9% (Quechua 3.2%, other indigenous 0.7%), foreign 2.8%, other 0.6% (includes Ecuadorian sign language); note - (Quechua and Shuar are official languages of intercultural relations; other indigenous languages are in official use by indigenous peoples in the areas they inhabit) (2022 est.) major-language sample(s): La Libreta Informativa ...
