2006-07-04 14:06:22 · 11 answers · asked by Nemesis 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Scientific counts range from about 3000 to about 8000. It all depends on how you distinguish between the notions of "language" and "dialect". Most linguists say "about 6000". To get an idea of where these languages are in the world, imagine six individuals who each speak 1000 languages. One of them would live in the Americas, two of them would live in Africa, one of them would live on the Eurasian supercontinent, one of them would live on Australia and all the islands of the Pacific including those usually counted as part of Asia, and one of them would live on the island of New Guinea
2006-07-05 14:21:14 · answer #1 · answered by Taivo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are about 6,800 mutually unintelligible languages spoken in the world today. Many languages spoken in the past have ceased to exist and many languages not yet 'born' will come into being in the future. Since the beginning of Homo sapiens, new languages have been constantly emerging while others vanish forever. This is why many linguists say that the total number of actual languages spoken in the world at a given moment of human history is but an small fragment of the perhaps infinitely large total number of possible human languages.
2006-07-04 21:17:49 · answer #2 · answered by Q. 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you select the right 10 languages, you can talk to roughly half the world's population, in their first language. A case can be made that all of the other languages are threatened with extinction.
http://www.ethnologue.com/ claims 6912 living languages.
There are roughly 1500 known conlangs.
There are at least 7 000 dead/extinct languages.
There are roughly 50 languages that are preserved for liturgical use only.
2006-07-05 00:30:17 · answer #3 · answered by jblake80856 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hello,
6,920......this are mainly the living languages excluding dead languages and remember some languages are facing extinction....
2006-07-04 21:11:35 · answer #4 · answered by kida_w 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
5000 i read it on a book
2006-07-04 21:12:43 · answer #5 · answered by Noha 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
about 6012
2006-07-05 02:40:25 · answer #6 · answered by vintage flowers 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
7000 i read it somewhere...
2006-07-04 21:32:22 · answer #7 · answered by Remi 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
My guess, MANY.
2006-07-04 22:52:04 · answer #8 · answered by Teresa 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i have no idea
2006-07-05 03:56:22 · answer #9 · answered by ruby75oud2 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
6,912 so far.
2006-07-04 21:11:39 · answer #10 · answered by TeaSwami 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋