how many languages r there in the world?

Answer 1

There are thousands. According to the United Nations estimate there are 6809 languages in the world altogether.
Here is the distributions:
Africa 2 058 = 30%
The Americas 1 013 = 15%
Asia 2197 = 32%
Australia/Pacific 1 311 = 19%
Europe 230 = 3%
Total 6 809

And 11 of the languages with most native speakers or users are:

Chinese, Mandarin 14.37%
Hindi 6.02%
English 5.61%
Spanish 5.59%
Bengali 3.40%
Portuguese 2.63%
Russian 2.75%
Japanese 2.06%
German, Standard 1.64%
Korean 1.28%
French 1.27%



Nobody has the accurate number of it, but the most interesting thing is, the Bible has been translated to more than 2000 of the existing languages on the earth.
And amazingly the Chinese language shows how the language has become thousands and confused at the tower of Babel.
The word "tongue" [she] in Mandarin consists of "1000" and "mouth", 舌in other words the tongue can produce thousands of languages. And the word "confusion/babel" [luan] 乱 is a combination of the component "tongue" and the splitting of "er"[son]. Meaning, the confusion of languages happen when the "sons" 儿 of God rebelled and they were "split" or dispersed to all over the earth in thousands of tongues or languages.

Answer 2

I bet it relatively is dependent wherein you're. Here within the US, each Spanish & Arabic are in top call for -- for exclusive explanations. There is a huge Spanish-speakme populace right here, & the federal government appears for translators who realize Arabic. (During the Cold War, it was that Russian used to be the language in call for, however now it is Arabic.) I have continually proposal Urdu could be priceless to grasp cuz it is virtually spoken Hindi, as good as being concerning Farsi. I heard as soon as what the major language in Asia, however I'm sorry that I do not keep in mind whether it is Japanese or what. Edit: In reaction to many answerers right here, Chinese? Which dialect? True, written is the equal for all, however spoken is wholly exclusive.

Answer 3

it depends on linguistic approach..
some languages are considered by experts as dialects and vice versa other experts consider them as languages. The estimates vary approximately from 2000 to 7000. Most of experts consider that we have about 3000 - 3500 languages.

Answer 4

Ethnologue lists about 7,330 main languages in its language name index (see the external link) and distinguishes about 39,491 alternate language names and dialects. However, in this article, only a few are given.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages

Both sections from widipedia.com

Answer 5

This page on ethnologue lists the number at 6912 languages.