Languages of the world

How many languages are there?

There are more than 7,000! Some people speak one language. Many people speak two or more. Every language has its own words and sounds.

Nobody knows the exact number of languages in the world, but experts agree it is more than 7,000. Ethnologue, a big guide to the world's languages, counted 7,170 languages in use in its 2026 edition. Glottolog, a language catalog from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, lists 7,674 spoken languages that communities use as their first language.

Why do the numbers differ? Deciding where one language ends and another begins is tricky. If two groups can understand each other without learning, they usually speak the same language. If they cannot, they usually speak two different languages.

Counts depend on definitions. Ethnologue's 29th edition (2026) lists 7,170 languages in use and notes that the number is constantly in flux. Glottolog 5.3, an initiative of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, lists 7,674 spoken L1 languages, meaning spoken languages traditionally used by a community as its first language.

The hard part is telling a language from a dialect. Since 2005 Ethnologue has followed the ISO 639-3 inventory, whose basic rule is mutual intelligibility: two related varieties are normally the same language if their speakers can understand each other without learning the other variety, and different languages if they cannot. Ethnologue adds that social, cultural and political factors, and speakers' own sense of identity, also shape what people call a language, so scholars do not always agree.

Some languages are like cousins.

They came from the same old language long ago. So they share some words and sounds. Groups of cousin languages are called families.

Just like people, languages can be related. When languages are similar because they all grew from one older language, experts put them in the same language family. A language with no known relatives is called an isolate.

Ethnologue lists the six largest families, by number of languages, as Niger-Congo, Austronesian, Trans-New Guinea, Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic. Together they hold nearly two-thirds of all languages. Niger-Congo and Austronesian each have more than 1,000 languages. English belongs to the Indo-European family, and Mandarin Chinese to the Sino-Tibetan family.

Glottolog explains that similarities between languages can come from universals, from contact or from inheritance from a common ancestor; when inheritance is the best explanation, the languages are classified in the same family, and a language with no demonstrable relatives is an isolate. Glottolog 5.3 classifies its languages into 246 families and 183 isolates (one-member families).

According to Ethnologue, the six largest families by language count, Niger-Congo, Austronesian, Trans-New Guinea, Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic, each hold at least 5 percent of the world's languages and together nearly two-thirds; Niger-Congo and Austronesian each have over 1,000, reflecting the diversity of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. By speakers, Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan are the largest, with more than 4.8 billion speakers between them.

Languages are not spread out evenly.

Papua New Guinea is a country with more than 800 languages! Indonesia has more than 700.

Languages are not spread evenly around the world. Ethnologue says Asia and Africa have the largest numbers of languages, and Europe has many languages packed into a smaller area.

One country stands out: Papua New Guinea has more than 800 languages, more than twice as many as all of Europe. Its neighbor Indonesia is not far behind, with more than 700.

Ethnologue's map of the world's languages shows dense clusters in Asia and Africa, considerable diversity in the Americas and the Pacific, and many languages in a relatively small area of Europe. Counting all established and immigrant languages, Papua New Guinea has the most of any country, over 800, more than twice the number spoken across Europe; Indonesia has over 700.

The same pattern shows up in the language families. Ethnologue explains that Niger-Congo and Austronesian are the two largest families by number of languages, each with more than 1,000, because of the great language diversity of sub-Saharan Africa and of Southeast Asia.

A few languages have lots and lots of speakers.

More people grow up speaking Mandarin Chinese than any other language. English is spoken in the most countries. Many other languages have only a few speakers.

A small number of languages are spoken by huge numbers of people. Ethnologue says the 20 largest languages are the first language of more than 3.7 billion people, nearly half of everyone on Earth, even though they are only 0.3 percent of all languages.

Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers, people who learned it first as children. If you also count people who learned a language later, English has the most speakers. Ethnologue finds English used in 188 countries and Mandarin in 108. Sign languages count too: there are hundreds of them, made and used by deaf people.

Ethnologue reports that the 20 largest languages are the native tongue of more than 3.7 billion people: 0.3 percent of languages for nearly half the world's population. Counting only first-language (L1) speakers, Mandarin Chinese is largest, followed by Spanish, English and Hindi; counting second and later languages as well, English is largest, then Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish. Ethnologue links English's spread first to the British Empire and later to American culture, and finds it in 188 countries against Mandarin's 108.

The Ethnologue 200, its list of the largest languages, covers the native languages of over 88 percent of people. Ethnologue also lists natural sign languages, used within deaf communities, as full languages, noting that there are hundreds of them; it does not count signed versions of spoken languages.

Some languages have only a few speakers left.

If children stop learning a language, it can disappear. Many people are working hard to keep their languages alive.

Ethnologue says about 44 percent of the world's languages are endangered, often with fewer than 1,000 users left. Experts judge how safe a language is mostly by asking whether children are still learning it at home.

People are working to protect these languages. The United Nations named 2022 to 2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, led by UNESCO, to help communities keep their languages strong. Dr. Lorna Williams, an Indigenous educator from Canada, explains why it matters: our languages are important for our sense of who we are, and they help us understand our lands.

Ethnologue calls this a fragile time: roughly 44 percent of all languages are endangered, often with fewer than 1,000 users remaining. Ethnologue measures a language's vitality on a 13-level scale (EGIDS) based mainly on intergenerational transmission: the key dividing line is whether all children in the community are still learning the language. At the "shifting" level, parents can use it among themselves but no longer pass it on to their children.

The UN General Assembly (Resolution A/RES/74/135) proclaimed 2022 to 2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, an outcome of the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, to draw attention to the critical situation of many Indigenous languages and to support their preservation, revitalization and promotion; UNESCO leads it. Dr. Lorna Wánosts'a7 Williams, an Indigenous educator and elder in Canada, puts the case simply: "Our languages are really important for our sense of identity, our sense of who we are. Our languages also help us to understand our lands."