As you look at the map of the continents, imagine that by some estimates there are roughly 6,800 languages spoken on this planet. 96% of them are spoken by a mere 4% of the world's population. The exact number of languages may never be determined exactly. Ethnologue estimates that 2,200 are spoken in Asia, 2,060 in Africa, 1,300 in the Pacific, 1,000 in the Americas, and 230 in Europe. Which countries have the greatest number of languages? Half of the world's languages are spoken in only eight countries. Papua-New Guinea 832 Indonesia 731 Nigeria 515 India 400 Mexico 295 Cameroon 286 Australia 268 Brazil 234 Why is the exact number of languages difficult to determine? Firstly, we don't know enough about many of the languages. Linguistic surveys in many parts of the world are incomplete. Some languages have yet to be discovered. Lots of languages have not been adequately described. This is the case with many languages of Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. Secondly, criteria of national identity and mutual intelligibility may not coincide. In some cases, political criteria outweigh linguistic considerations. For instance, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are mutually intelligible (linguistic criteria) but since they are spoken in different countries (political criteria), they are considered to be three separate languages. On the other hand, many dialects of Chinese are mutually unintelligible, but are considered to be varieties of the same language because they are spoken in the same country and because they share the same writing system. Why is it difficult to determine how many people speak a language? Estimates of how many people speak a given language can vary considerably. Some surveys include only first language (native) speakers, others include both first and second language speakers (i.e., those who use the language in daily life but are not native speakers of it). Thus, Ethnologue gives the following statistics for English world-wide: first language speakers 341 million, first and second language speakers 508 million. http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/worldlanguages.htm

6912

All of 'em?! ;-)

Ethnologue lists 6,912 living languages in the world today. Keep in mind, however, that the number of languages may never be determined exactly. Africa Africa has the second largest number of languages after Asia but it accounts for only 11.8 % of all language speakers in the world. Americas The Americas are rich in languages with small numbers of speakers. Asia Asia has the largest number of languages and the largest number of speakers, accounting for 61% of all language speakers in the world. There is a striking difference between median and mean number of speakers. Europe Europe has the smallest number of languages and the second-largest number of speakers after Asia, accounting for 26.4% 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 0.1% of all language speakers in the world and has the lowest median number of speakers of all world areas.