How many languages are there in the world?

Answer 1

According to most language experts, there may be as many as 7,299 seperate languages within this world, and if you divide them down into regional variations or dialects, then it is more like 39 thousand.

The study of languages is called Ethnology, and was started by Richard S. Pittman - in 1951 he had recorded 46 languages or groups of languages. By 1969, this had expanded to 4,493 languages. Today they recon on 6 thousand living languages.

It turns out that 347 (or approximately 5%) of the world's languages have at least one million speakers and account for 94% of the world's population. By contrast, the remaining 95% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the world's people.

Just 8 first languages account for 40% of the worlds population, and these are the languages used within the United Nations.

the languages of the world fall into 6 groups, which are distrubuted

Afro-Asiatic = Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, Chad, Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen

Austronesian = Brunei, Cambodia, Chile, China, Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Indonesia, Kiribati, Madagascar, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mayotte, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, USA, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Wallis and Futuna

Indo-European = Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Maldives, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, USA, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Venezuela

Niger-Congo = Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Sino-Tibetan = Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Viet Nam

Trans-New Guinea = Australia, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea

The most widely spoken first language is Chinese (han) followed by Spanish then English, however English is the most widely spoken second language in the world.

Answer 2

At the present time, some linguists estimate that about 6,000 or more languages are spoken in the world, not including local dialects. By far, the most widely spoken language is Mandarin Chinese, with more than 800 million speakers. The next four most spoken languages, not necessarily in this order, are English, Spanish, Hindi, and Bengali.

Answer 3

There are 6,800 known languages spoken in the 200 countries of the world. 2,261 have writing systems (the others are only spoken) and about 300 are represented by on-line dictionaries as of May 11, 2004

Answer 4

This has been asked before, but I'll repost it here for others to see. Check out OmniGlot.com. This site has pretty much all you need to know, from ancient, dead languages to artificial languages. I don't think the site has an accurate count (just like entomologists don't have an accurate count of the different species of insects), but it is a great place to research. It is a wealth of information that I think deserves much more attention.

Answer 5

Sometimes foreign language kinda sounds like it's directed to a specific race/religion,etc....World language means everyone with different languages.

Answer 6

Getting an accurate count is extremely difficult. There are several scientific counts ranging in number from about 3,000 to about 8,000. Most linguists just use the round number of 6,000. The 6,812 number is the count in Ethnologue, which has errors and does not include extinct languages such as Sumerian and dozens of recently extinct languages in Australia and South America. Also, Ethnologue is very liberal in labelling a language form as a separate language instead of a dialect of another language.

Using 6,000 as a base number, if you assigned each of six individuals to speak 1,000 languages, one of them would live in the Americas, one of them would live in Eurasia, two of them would live in Africa, one of them would live in Australia and all the islands of the Pacific and off the coast of Asia, and one of them would live on the island of New Guinea.

EDIT: David C (next answer) is way off on his information. The study of Language is called LINGUISTICS, Ethnology is the study of culture. And the science of Linguistics dates back to the 18th century and Sir William Jones. I have no idea who that Pittman character he cites is, but he was not a major linguist in any stretch of the imagination. Just goes to show how inaccurate Yahoo! Answers can sometimes be.

Answer 7

There are 6,800 known languages spoken in the 200 countries of the world. 2,261 have writing systems (the others are only spoken) and about 300 are represented by on-line dictionaries as of

Answer 8

I'm going to make a guess, and hope later to read the real answer........ I'm going to say 1600. There are more than 200 in India alone. In Central America and Mexico, there are many indigenous languages other than Spanish.

This was a good question......... I hope to see the real answer.

Answer 9

i think there are alot languages in the world...

Answer 10

Only 2 - the one l understand and the 1 l dont!