Languages spoken in the world pdf

May 11, 2020 there are over 6900 languages currently spoken in the world. David crystal, world authority on the english language, presents a lively and factual account. Arabic, chinese, english, french, russian and spanish. Languages are the bedrock of the worlds cultural heritage. There are 23 officially recognised languages1, more than 60 indigenous regional and minority languages, and many nonindigenous languages spoken by migrant communities. World language map, world map with spoken languages. Around 7,000 languages world wide data from 1999 edition of ethnologue 873 322 309 181 177 171 145 122 95 77 76 70 68. That makes the average number of speakers around 4,500, possibly the lowest of any area of the world.

Top languages spoken by english language learners nationally. Communicate in more than one language with the levels of language proficiency that are required to function in a variety of occupations and careers in the culturally diverse modern workplace. Top ten most widely spoken languages, by first language speakers millions. Languages consist of tens of thousands of signs, which are combinations of form and meaning. The worlds languages, in 7 maps and charts washington post. Today the number stands at 6,909 and is declining rapidly. Dutch official, english widely spoken, sranang tongo surinamese, sometimes called takitaki, is the native language of creoles and much of the younger population and is lingua franca among others, caribbean hindustani a dialect of hindi, javanese. It has more than twice the number of languages spoken across europe. Nigeria has three major languages yoruba, igbo and hausa. In sociolinguistics, a world language is a language that extends far beyond its national. Worlds languages traced back to single african mother. Moreover, just 15 of them account for half of the languages spoken in the world. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect.

One area of particularly high linguistic diversity is papuanew guinea, where there are an estimated 832 languages spoken by a population of around 3. Mar 26, 2015 the vision for world languages in oklahoma is to equip students to. Language, italian american identity, and cultural pluralism in the world war ii years, journal. Pashto is also the secondlargest regional language in pakistan, mainly spoken in the northwestern province of khyber pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of the balochistan province. Unesco survey of world languages launched unesco uis. Languages are fluid, and constantly evolvingaltogether, the 100 most spoken languages paint a unique picture across centuries of a changing world. Sinotibetan languages spoken in india include karbi, meitei, lepcha, as well as many varieties of several related tibetic, west himalayish, tani, brahmaputran, angamipochuri, tangkhul, zeme, kukish language groups, amongst many others.

There are over 6,000 languages spoken in the world today, but some 2,000 of them count fewer than a thousand speakers. In fact, more than a quarter of us speak one of just three languages as our native tongue, according to data from ethnologue, a database of languages. In the case of english, the language is widely used as a first and a second language. Unlock this profile with an essentials plan see the details on every language spoken in kenya, plus. English is the most widely used global language of business may be true, but american. By 2100, it is quite realistic to expect that half of these languages will be gone, their last speakers dead, their words perhaps recorded in a dusty archive. These languages belong to 94 different language families. This also contains number of native speakers of the particular language in the world. After tamil comes in the list sanskrit, followed by greek, chinese, hebrew and arabic. Languages spoken by more than 10 million people archived 20091031 encarta list, based on data from ethnologue, but some figures e.

Residents aged five years and older, 20082010 6 dimensions of nonenglish language profi ciency, by generation, in southern california. Borrowed words in english a listing of over 1800 words that have been borrowed into english from other languages. Is the georgian language related to basque, another european outlier. I originally purchased the book to consider it for a freshmanlevel introduction to world languages class. Mar 11, 2021 tallying the number of speakers of the world s languages is an increasingly complex task, particularly with the push in many countries for teaching english in their public schools. The language that counts that most number of native speakers is mandarin chinese, the official language of china and taiwan, at close to 1 billion. You can learn most of these languages with fluentu, and arabic is in the works. She was involved in several european research projects on multilingualism and is a member of the european commissions languages in education and training group.

Aug 25, 2015 tamil is indias fifth most spoken language, as well as being one of the official languages of sri lanka and singapore. Ranking of the worlds 100 most spoken languages basel institute. Language trends series of reports and produced statistics and policy developments published as languages yearbooks 19952007. Some languages, such as chinese and arabic, cover several mutually unintelligible varieties and are sometimes considered single languages and sometimes language families. A small but very important portion of the nonenglish languages spoken in the united states includes the 169 native american and alaskan indigenous languages. Then, the languages of the world tend to mix together on various levels. Catamaran 1697, pariah 16, poppadum 1820 and patchouli 1843 are. English is not the most frequently spoken mother tongue in the world, and is not. And beyond that, the languages themselves are in flux. Languages spoken in the united states 2019 statista. Within the european union there are many languages spoken. It is therefore important to decide which form of the language and which cultural norms should be taught.

My sense is that the linguistic concepts and terminology will be daunting for the layperson and the instructor will have to do a fair amount of remediation in that regard. Thats three languages between more than 2 billion people. Afghanistan dari persian, pashtu both official, other turkic and minor languages. Based on the population of the speakers, indoeuropean and sinotibetan are. Language, italian american identity, and cultural pluralism in the world war ii years, journal of american ethnic history 22. Although indigenous peoples make up less than 6% of the global. What is the most difficult language to learn and why. December 10, 2010 page 3 of 27 the colorado academic standards for world languages are based on these four assumptions. At present, 96 per cent of the world s approximately 6,700 languages are spoken by only 3 per cent of the world s population. The ethnologue is a catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. The third edition, published in 2010, lists some 2,500 endangered languages and provides analytical reports by region. The eu, although it has limited influence because educational and language policies are the responsibility of.

Over the years, these three have spread to several places around the world. Candidates preparing for exams will get to know about world languages, most spoken languages of the world, 1st language of the world etc. Languages spoken in each country of the world the table below lists the official language of each country as well as other languages spoken. Hindi is one of 461 languages currently spoken in india. Those three, and the rest of the top 10 most spoken languages in the world, are all visualized in this chart by statista. In this sense, a dialect is regarded as a geographical variety of a language, spoken in a certain area, and being different in some linguistic items from. Papua new guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the world. Further, melitz had merely taken for granted that the. Mar 30, 2021 this statistic shows the most spoken languages in the world. Languages of the world exploring the rich diversity of. The most widespread group of languages today is the indoeuropean, spoken by half the world s population. Heres the full list of these languages, by types of speakers and language origin. Five distinct characteristics comprise its true definition.

They continue to play a vital role, but this is an opportunity. However, no language has ever been spoken by a mother. Census 2000, presents data on language spoken at home and the ability to speak. This is a list of languages by the total number of speakers. Spanish is the primary language spoken at home by almost 37 million people in the u. World languages countries a to g internet world stats. Language families an introduction to language families including all the ones mentioned in the above table. Popula tion aged five years and older, 200920 5 main languages spoken at home by u. Many people are indeed bilingual or multilingual, but here we assign only one language per person in order to have all the languages total add up to the total. In selected countries, the percent of the population that speaks each language is also given.

Aspirants of government exams such as ssc, bank, rrb etc. But some borrow so much vocabulary that there is little original material left, such as in english. Theyre living and dynamic, spoken by communities whose lives are shaped by our rapidly changing world. Ethnologue shows at least ten distinct romance languages spoken in france, including picard. More than 7000 languages are listed and displayed on maps. And meanwhile, languages spoken alongside one another also. This reinforces the earlier conclusion of melitz 2008, which, how ever, had rested on far poorer data. The history of the world s languages is largely a story of loss and decline. The 10 most spoken languages in the world pakistan defence. Native language, spoken language, translation and trade.

Likewise, it is the primary language of the pashtun diaspora around the world. The most widely spoken and likely the fastest spreading world language today is english, with over 1. There are also many different writing systems, although we dont cover those here. Jan 20, 2021 a ranking of the most spoken languages across the world can be accessed here. Of the 430 million people worldwide who speak english, 56% are not native speakers. But the ten most spoken languages are used natively by close to 40% of the earths population. Thirty regional dialects of arabic are spoken across 5 million square milesfrom morocco in the west to iraq in the east. The ethnologue language family index organizes languages according to language families. Read more languages spoken at home other than english in the united states by number of speakers in 2019. These languages belong to between 40 and 50 distinct families. For these assumptions to be successful, the target language must be used most of the time. There are over 6,000 languages spoken in the world today, but some 2,000 of them count fewer than. Languages in the uk a call for action 4 other links. That number is constantly in flux, because were learning more about the world s languages every day.

List of languages spoken in the world download excel files. The ethnologue name index lists over 39,000 language, dialect, and alternate names. English is the most spoken language in the world, with nearly 1. Hundreds of millions of people have learned them as a second or third language. The topic will help candidates ace the general awareness in the examination. At around 8000 bc, linguists estimate that upwards of 20,000 languages may have been in existence. This article will talk about the languages of the world. Pdf language families in india and ic analysis kaushik. How to identify pseudolinguistic articles in the media. As you most likely already gleaned from the title of this article, there are in fact six languages used officially at the united nations. The evolution and development of the world s writing systems with many examples of scripts. Jun 03, 2019 some countries record a higher number of spoken languages than others.

Mandarin spanish english hindi portuguese bengali russian japanese german wu china javanese telugu marathi korean tamil french urdu yue kantonese turkish. Language, the means through which humans communicate, is much more than spoken or written words. Language is a system, is dynamic, has dialect, is sociolect and idiolect. Guinea, where there are an estimated 832 languages spoken by a population of around 3. Top 100 languages by total number of native speakers in 2007 rank country. This list of languages is alphabetical by english name of the language. Ethnologue, the biggest authority on languages on the web, estimates that there are over 7,000 spoken languages in the world. The world s languages the above diagram unveils that even though there are 7. Download free pdf no italian spoken for the duration of the war. Languages of the world pdf for competitive exams how many.

Census bureau about 380 categories of single languages or language families. These countries include brazil, sudan, united states, cuba. List of languages by number of native speakers wikipedia. Within a language s system are varying linguistic levels. List of languages by total number of speakers wikipedia. The american council on the teaching of foreign languages actfl is dedicated to the improvement. A statistical portrait table of contents 3 introduction 4 estimate of language skills of u. Spoken languages in the world 7,000 different languages are estimated to be spoken around the world. Three of the 44 romance languages are in the top ten most spoken languages. This also isnt comprehensive with bilingual speakers or speakers of endangered languages, or speakers. Spanish is the language most often spoken by english language learners ells. Apr 26, 2016 this contains spoken languages in the world sorted according to the native speakers. And they are also the dominant languages of global commerce, diplomacy and scholarship. Form in spoken languages is a sequence of sounds, in written languages for example a sequence of letters depending upon what kind of writing system we are talking about and in the sign languages of the deaf a certain combination of gestures.

The worlds top 20 languagesand the words english has. The main fulani of west africa are dark blue on the map. It is a multilingual nation with over 840 languages spoken, with twelve of them lacking many. The uis, in collaboration with unescos communication and information sector, has just launched the survey of world languages to collect a wide range of data on the number of languages spoken in countries and information about each language s users and use. Download of mp3 audio files in 1600 language combinations. This entire group, ranging from hindi and persian to norwegian and english, is believed to descend from the language of a tribe of nomads roaming the plains of eastern europe and western asia in modern terms centring on the ukraine as. French, arabic, sara, more than 120 languages and dialects. With roughly 153 million native speakers, russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world. Somali, arabic, german, and japanese represented different world regions and.