Dear Colleagues,
According to Ethnologue (2005) there are 7099 living languages in the world. I imagine this number may have changed. Could you provide me with a more current number and a citable source?
Many thanks,
Monika
I think the number is less than what you have mentioned. However, I don't think that there are specific statistics as many languages are only spoken.
How many people speak the same language, it's more important to know
7,097 languages are spoken today.
That number is constantly in flux, because we're learning more about the world's languages every day.
There are more than 7000 languages in the world or even more ad it is sometimes difficult to draw a boundary between a language and dialect when the principle of intelligibility does not work.
Please take a look at the following link.
https://www.quora.com/How-many-languages-are-there-in-the-world-4
7,097 languages. Nearly 2/3 of language are from Africa and Asia.
Reference:
https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages
We should first acknowledge that there are more dialects than 'living' languages around the world, and that the latter are more interesting to study, document, and preserve before they shift, or even die.
Why are using the 2005 version? Ethnologue is a reliable and reputable online reference source for languages classification. The are also a reliable source for statistical data. The current 21st edition from 2018 lists 7,097 living languages. Here is a link: https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics. You can cite this source as: Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2018. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twenty-first edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
The question cannot be seriously answered, given the fact that linguists are unable to unanimously differentiate between language and dialect. But which purpose might a more or less precise answer serve?
There are thousands of living languages in the world but sometimes it is difficult to draw a boundary between a language and dialect.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics