Some interesting facts and figures about the world’s 7,000 languages – and how we’re losing languages fast

  • Around 7,000 languages are spoken in the world, 90% of which are used by fewer than 100,000 people.
  • Languages are grouped into families that share a common ancestry. English is related to German and Dutch, and they are all part of the Indo-European family of languages. Romance languages, which include French, Spanish and Italian, come from Latin.
  • 2,200 of the world’s languages can be found in Asia, while Europe has 260.
  • The world’s most widely spoken languages by number of native speakers and as a second language are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, German and French.
  • Some of the oldest languages known include Sanskrit, Sumerian, Hebrew and Basque.
  • Around 2,500 languages are at risk of extinction. One-quarter of the world’s languages are spoken by fewer than 1,000 people.
  • The United Nations uses six official languages to conduct business: English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Arabic.
  • Communities isolated from each other because of mountainous geography sometimes develop multiple languages. Papua New Guinea has 832 different languages. In Mexico, there are 68 different indigenous languages, further subdivided into 364 variations.
  • At least half of the world’s population are bilingual or plurilingual. While there are “perfect bilinguals”, who speak two languages equally well, most bilinguals do not.
  • South Africa has 11 official languages – the most for a single country.
  • The pope tweets in nine languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, Arabic, Portuguese and Latin.

Those facts are taken from an article in today’s Observer” newspaper which explains how one in four of the world’s 7,000 spoken tongues is now at risk of falling silent for ever as the threat to cultural biodiversity grows.

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