How many asian languages are there?

Question

Only ones I can remember are Korean,Chinese,Vietnamese and Cantonese. Another question is, could someone who speaks Cantonese understand another language like, lets say, Vietnamese?

Answer 1

There are over 800 languages in India alone.

I would say that there are probably 1500 to 2000 languages in the continent of Asia. If you just look at China, there are probably about 100 languages - the vast majority relatively small and spoken in areas near the border of Vietnam and Laos.

As per the debate about 'Chinese' going on here, as far as I know what we call 'Chinese' is actually 8 seperate mutually unintelligible languages (and many dialects thereof). Cantonese and Mandarin are only two of those. Someone who is _speaking_ Cantonese couldn't understand somepone speaking Mandarin or Yue or Hu, but (among the 8 languages called 'Chinese') they'd be able to understand each other if they _wrote_ their sentences - as 'Chinese' writing is pictographic, meaning that a symbol represents an idea, not the pronunciation of the word. But that's still the case only within China. A Cantonese speaker and a Vietnamese speaker have no way of communicating with each other (unless they learn a second language).

Answer 2

The chinese language that u mention is mandarin. It is considered a language because it has its written form.
Cantonese is a dialect. Only spoken.
Actually, the chinese has many dialects. apart from cantonese, they have also hokkien, hakka, teochew, hainan, foo chow, etc.
for indians also, there are also various forms such as tamil, telegu, hindi, malayalam, etc.
the Malay language is also slightly different in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Filipinos, etc. all speak different languages.

Answer 3

have u seen how big asia is ?
from what u mentioned
there is also arabic, burmese, hindi, persian, malyalam, tamil,
there are more than 200 languages excluding the dialects.
and no a person who speaks cantonese is most likely not to understanda person who speaks vietnamese

by the way cantonese is a dialect not a language it comes under chinese along side with mandarin

Answer 4

No Vietnamese and Chinese are to seperate languages and cannot understand eachother unless they studied there language. FYI Chinese has 2 dialecs Madarin and Catanese, not chinse and catanese.

Other Asian languages are Hindi, Loation (Loas), Cambodian, and there are others to. Alot of Asian countries speak different dialects of their given language. For example hmongs in loas speak a different variety of loation.

Answer 5

I heard that there were more than 300 dialects in China.
I am in Thailand and there are at least 3 dialects of the Thai language, plus the official one.
So I would say there are A LOT of Asian languages!

Answer 6

well ill try to name a few starting from the west moving east Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Rusian, Armenean, Indian, Rusian dialects used in former sheilding countries, Tai, Loasian, Veitnemis, Malasian, Indonesian, Chinese, Korean, Japaneas, im not sure if thats all of them

Answer 7

you forgot the middle east
in a way, they are asians too
what about Japanese?
or Taiwanese
there are many Chinese dialects (about 50)
of course Mandarin and Cantonese are the main ones

Answer 8

chinese, japaneses, and koreans are east asians. Vietnamese, cambodians, laotians, filipinos, thais, and malaysians are south east asians. i am going to really tell the version between east asians and southeast asians, yet no longer between their distinct nationalities.

Answer 9

i speak korean 1

Answer 10

many