Learning is crucial to human flourishing. However, research shows that more than one third of the world's children spend their school days in classrooms where the language of instruction is not the language they use at home.
Thousands of languages are spoken today. We dig into exactly how many there are, where they're from, their average size, and the 10 countries with the most languages.
We factor in both native and non-native speakers to determine the largest language in the world. Also includes our current list of the world's four most spoken languages.
Population
Geography
Drag ocean to rotate. Click a country to view its language page.
Size
7.668 billion
people✵
7,151
languages✵
430 million
deaf✵
86%
literate✵
Vitality
492
3593
3072
451
Details
This graph shows the profile of languages in with respect to their level of language vitality.
Institutional — The language has been developed to the point that it is used and sustained by institutions beyond the home and community.
Stable — The language is not being sustained by formal institutions, but it is still the norm in the home and community that all children learn and use the language.
Endangered — It is no longer the norm that children learn and use this language.
Extinct - The language is no longer used and no one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language.
These four summary levels have been derived by grouping levels in the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), which is the more fine-grained scale that Ethnologue uses to assess the status of every language in terms of development versus endangerment; see Language Status for a description of the levels of that scale. See also the pages on Development and Endangerment for more discussion.
The Ethnologue deals with the languages of the world, so it would seem to be important that we be able to say what we mean when we refer to "a language".
Sign languages are not in the same category as all the other languages in Ethnologue, people say to me. What is the reason they are included right along with spoken languages?
Nate has been a contributor since 2010 and has contributed over 2800 times. Nate has been a minority language researcher for over 19 years and is focused on the languages of Southeast Asia.
Antoine has been a contributor since 2021 and has contributed 672 times. Antoine is a language enthusiast and active contributor to Ethnologue and Wikipedia.
Jean has been a contributor since 2021 and has contributed 36 times. Jean has been a minority language researcher for over 30 years and is focused on the Tai languages of Southeast Asia.
