Did you know that’s the month of March is a celebratory month for all linguists. It’s also a celebratory for all the people who speak more than one language. March is a National Foreign Language month, with a special addition of National Foreign Language Week (March 7–13 2021). I love learning languages. Love to read in different ones, as my Mothers Tongue. I personally know few… the modern ones, as well as few of the extinct… what about you?? How many language do you speak ??
How many Languages are there??
An estimated 7,000 languages are in constant use in the world. This number does not include dialects! It is highly unlikely, however, that anyone will encounter even a small part of them during their lifetime.
UNESCO has registered some 2,500 endangered languages; on the other hand, in more than 40 languages, only one person speaks! In addition to those listed, there are also countless languages that were once spoken and are now out of use.
Every year around 25 languages from around the world are decommissioned – it is estimated that by 2100 as much as 90% of languages will have disappeared.
The most popular 20 languages in the world are spoken by over 50 million people – and all of them, so it’s safe to assume that they will not disappear for some time.
Language families:
- Atlantic–Congo (1,432 languages)
- Austronesian (1,275 languages)
- Indo-European (588 languages)
- Sino-Tibetan (494 languages)
- Afro-Asiatic (373 languages)
- Nuclear Trans–New Guinea (314 languages)
- Pama–Nyungan (248 languages)
- Oto-Manguean (180 languages)
- Austroasiatic (159 languages)
- Tai–Kadai (94 languages)
- Dravidian (81 languages)
- Arawakan (78 languages)
- Mande (75 languages)
- Tupian (71 languages)
20 most popular languages in use right now :
English – 1,132 million speakers
Mandarin Chinese – 1,117 million speakers
Hindi – 615 million speakers
Spanish – 534 million speakers
French – 280 million speakers
Standard Arabic – 274 million speakers
Bengali – 265 million speakers
Russian – 258 million speakers
Portuguese – 234 million speakers
Indonesian – 199 million speakers
Urdu – 170 million speakers
Standard German – 132 million speakers
Japanese – 128 million speakers
Swahili – 98 million speakers
Marathi – 95 million speakers
Telugu – 93 million speakers
Western Punjabi – 93 million speakers
Wu Chinese – 82 million speakers
Tamil – 81 million speakers
Turkish – 80 million speakers
Countries with the largest number of spoken languages:
10. Brazil – 228
Nearly 100 percent Brazilians speak Portuguese, it is also the official language. They are used there, however
also the languages of immigrants from Europe and Asia, and the numerous Indian languages spoken by fewer and fewer people.
9. Australia – 260
There is no official language, but most inhabitants (81%) speak English, 1-2%. in Mandarin, Italian, Arabic, Cantonese, Greek and Vietnamese. The large number of Australian languages are mainly Aboriginal languages.
8. Cameroon – 280
The official languages are French and English, with the former predominating: more than 80% of them know it. Cameroonians. The rest are African languages with the number of speakers ranging from several hundred thousand to just a few.
7. Mexico – 290
One in three native Spanish speakers lives in Mexico. 99.3 percent Mexicans speak Spanish, 5.4 percent. He still uses Native American languages, Nahuatl the most (about 1.5 million speakers). There is no official language.
6. China – 301
The national language is standard Chinese, “putonghua” (common speech), which is based on Mandarin languages. The other most widespread Chinese languages with tens of millions of speakers are wu, yue (Cantonese), min, xiang (Huna), gan, and hakka.
5. United States – 430
Contrary to the other top countries, which mostly use native languages, in the US half (211) are immigrant languages. Among the indigenous languages, Navajo has the most speakers (170,000). Most people speak English, but it does not have the status of a language
official.
4. India – 453
The official languages are Hindi and English, 22 have the status of official languages at the state level. Over 25 million users each have, among others Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati and Kannada.
3. Nigeria – 527
The official language is English, which facilitates communication. Of the hundreds of African languages, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba are the most common.
2. Indonesia – 709
Located on several thousand islands, Indonesia is the fourth country in the world in terms of population, very ethnically diverse. The official language is Indonesian, a variant of Malay.
1. Papua New Guinea – 840
The linguistic diversity of the country was influenced by the topography of the island: mountains with inaccessible valleys, jungle and swamps separated individual tribes from each other so effectively that people living just a few kilometers apart might not have known about the existence of their neighbors. Most languages are spoken by less than 1,000 people, some by only a few. The official languages are two Creole languages: Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu, and English.
Multilingual People:
How many languages do you speak? Are you monolingual, bilingual, trilingual, multilingual, or polyglot?
Monolingual: A person knowing only one language (40% of world population)
Bilingual: A person using or able to use two languages especially with equal fluency (43% of world population)
Trilingual: A person speaking three languages fluently (13% of world population)
Multilingual: A person who speaks more than two languages, but used often for four languages or more (3% of world population speak more than 4 languages)
Polyglot: Someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages (less than 1‰ of world population speak 5 languages fluently)
- A monolingual is a person who knows only one language. Statistically, that fact is usually observed in English speaking countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, based on the perception that learning a second language is of little relevance or importance, since the majority of the world already speak English as a their first or second language.
- A bilingual is a person who developed two languages, usually as a first language (mother tongue) and a second language, acquired either simultaneously or later in life. Even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals one language usually dominates over the other. This category of people is actually the most prevalent in the world (43%). It is more noticeable within the Hispanic community in the U.S (English + Spanish), French speaking countries in Africa (French + native language), and immigrants in general who migrate from their native countries to English speaking countries.
- A trilingual is the same as a bilingual but speaks also a third language. You will find more trilinguals in Hong Kong (Mandarin, Cantonese, and English), Norway (Norwegian, Swedish, English), the Philippines (Tagalog, Spanish, English) and many other countries where there is more than one foreign influence.
- Multilinguals and polyglots are those who speak more than 4 languages, they are obviously less common, in fact only around 3% for 4 language speakers and less than one per thousand for those who speak more than 5 languages. There are countries known to have more multilinguals and polyglots in higher percentages, such as in Switzerland (German, Italian, French, Romansh, and English), Morocco (Arabic, French, Spanish, Moroccan and English). In this category, factors such as foreign influence, diversity in the vocabulary of the native language are leading factors. For example the Moroccan dialect is rich with foreign words; it contains a mixture of Arabic, French, and Spanish words. That fact alone already gives the speaker an advantage and a head start towards multilingualism.
Extinct Languages:
Right now, the linguists and scholars estimate that is about 573 languages are completely extinct. The most famous of them of course is classical Latin.
There is no way , that’s I will be able to tell you all of their names and locations here. It would take a lot of space and a lot of reading to present all of the amazing extinct languages here. I will put a link here, so you can check it for yourself..
Sign Languages:
French Sign – used in : Europe, the Americas, Francophone Africa, parts of Asia; Over 50 languages included
British Sign – used in: United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa; 4 – 10 languages included
Arab Sign – used in: Most of the Arab World; 6 – 10 languages included
Japanese Sign – used in: Japan, Korea, Taiwan; include 3 languages
German Sign – used in: Germany, Poland, Israel; include 3 language
Swedish Sign – used in: Sweden, Finland, Portugal; include 3 languages
Chinese Sign – used in: People’s Republic of China; include 1 Language
Hawaii Sign – used in: Hawaii; it is indigenous sign language, called – Old Hawaii Sign Language and Pidgin Sign Language; include 1 language
Inuit Sign – used in: territory of Canadian Arctic; it is an indigenous language called – IUR, Inuktitut, Uukturausingit, or Atgangmuurngniq ; include 1 Language
Mauritian Sign – used in: Island of Mauritius; include 1 Language
Nicaraguan Sign – used in: Nicaragua; include 1 Language; it was spontaneously creates by Nicaraguan school kids in 1980s.
Peruvian Sign – used in: Peru; include 3 or more dialect Languages
