Find solution
How many languages in the world?

How many languages are spoken in the world?

  • And how many are in common use? I would think Chinese is spoken by the most people and English the most understood in the world

  • Answer:

    How many languages are there? No-one really knows, and estimates vary between 3,000 and 6,000. It can be difficult to decide when similar languages really are different languages, and when they are dialects of the same language. Do you include sign languages? What about extinct languages which have been recorded, or are being revived? What do you call "in common use" - there are 10 language spoken by more than 100 million people, and another 70 or so spoken by more than 10 million people. Chinese has the largest number of native speakers (those for whom it is their mother tongue, or first language), but if you include the numbers who learn a second language there are more people who speak English.

J B at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

Thousands, but I'll list a few English, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese (and about a hundred other dialects of Chinese), Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Malaysian, Arabic, Pashto, Hawaiian, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Latin, German, Dutch, Welsh, Lithuanian, Afrikaans, Hindi, Greek, Hebrew, Norwegian, Swahili. Those are all the ones I can think of off of the top of my head

ربية • Български • Català • Česky • Dansk • Deutsch • English • Español • Esperanto • Euskara • فارسی • Français • 한국어 • हिन्दी • Hrvatski • Bahasa Indonesia • Italiano • עברית • Lietuvių • Magyar • Bahasa Melayu • Nederlands • 日本語 • Norsk (bokmål) • Polski • Português • Қазақша / Qazaqşa / قازاقشا • Română • Русский • Slovenčina • Slovenščina • Српски / Srpski • Suomi • Svenska • Türkçe • Українська • Tiếng Việt • Volapük • Winaray • 中文

Joe

It's most likely unknown the amount of languages exactly world wide because of tribes and stuff but mandarin Chinese is most spoken which is estimated at 845 million native speakers worldwide and 328million native speaking english

Shaun

Top ten: 1.Mandarin 2.English 3.Hindustani 4.Spanish 5.Russian 6.Arabic 7.Bengali 8.Portuguese 9.Malay-Indonesian 10.French

Gutu

As far as I know, there's some 6.800 languages, many of them on the brink of extinction. I don't know what you mean by "common use". Given that there's 7 billion humans, the median language has one million native users.

zirp

There are literally hundreds You have big languages like english and mandarin etc.. spoken by millions and you have language of minorites for example the huei who speak there own language and you have clicking languages etc.. hundreds mate even maybe thousands

Shawaeb

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.