Languages of the World
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The Bridge recently commissioned a research on language studies and we estimated that there are around 5,000 different languages spoken around the world. This estimate is due to the fact that some of the dialects are in the process of diverging and it is not clear that they have reached the stage of being separate languages. If two people find each other's speech unintelligible, they are usually thought to be speaking a different language rather than dialects.
There are 200 languages that have a million or more native speakers. For a comprehensive guide on the various languages, please see The Bridge Language Guide. Mandarin Chinese is the world's widely spoken by around 1.2 billion people as a native language. English on the other hand is a distant third with approximately 487 million native speakers.
Languages of the World |
LANGUAGE |
NUMBER OF NATIVE SPEAKERS |
COUNTRIES WITH SUBSTANTIAL NUMBER OF NATIVE SPEAKERS |
| 1 |
Mandarin Chinese |
1,200,000,000 |
36 |
| 2 |
Hindi (India) |
497,000,000 |
17 |
| 3 |
English |
487,000,000 |
104 |
| 4 |
Spanish |
417,000,000 |
43 |
| 5 |
Russian |
277,000,000 |
31 |
| 6 |
Arabic |
231,000,000 |
46 |
| 7 |
Bengali |
207,000,000 |
9 |
| 8 |
Portugese |
191,000,000 |
33 |
| 9 |
Japanese |
125,000,000 |
26 |
| 10 |
German |
101,000,000 |
39 |
| 11 |
French |
77,000,000 |
53 |
| source: The Bridge Language Commission. Updated 12/2007. |
English has been far more world wide in its distribution than all other spoken languages. It is an official language in at least 52 countries as well as many small colonies and territories. Almost 30% of the people in the world understand and speak English to some degree. It has become the most most useful language to learn for international travel and is the de facto language of diplomacy. |
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- QUICK FACT:
- 75% of the world's mail, telex, and cables are in English.
- 58% of the world's radio programs are in English
- 90% of all internet traffic is in English
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- DID YOU KNOW:
- In 2001, the 189 member countries of the United Nations were asked what language they wish to use for communication with embassies from other countries. More than 120 chose English, 40 selected French, and 20 wanted to use Spanish.
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Though 90% of internet traffic is English, the percentage of Internet users who are not native English speakers is increasing rapidly, especially in Asia. China estimated in 2008 that there are now more people who have online access in their country than in the United States, which had been the global leader in internet access.
Global Internet Users |
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| NATIVE LANGUAGE |
NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE INTERNET ACCESS |
PERCENTAGE OF ONLINE POPULATION |
| English |
291,000,000 |
34% |
| European Language |
275,000,000 |
36% |
| Asian Language |
248,000,000 |
31% |
In reality, the distribution of languages globally is very complex and difficult to easily describe. Numerous migrations of people over the last several centuries have resulted in most large nations now having many different languages. There are at least 165 languages spoken in the United States today. Consequently, it is somewhat misleading to describe the U.S. as being an English speaking country. The same caution applies to other multicultural nations as well.
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 LANGUAGE DECLINE:
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- The majority of the languages in the world are unwritten and many of them are disappearing. Around 50% of the world's languages are no longer spoken by children. This is the first step in the extinction of a language. About 2,150 languages now have less than 5,000 speakers. The most threatened are the indigenous languages of Australia and the Americas. By the end of the 20th century, about 210 Australian languages survived, but more than 50% had less than 50 speakers. Two dozen had a single elderly speaker. Young Aborigines now predominantly speak English, especially in urban areas. There has been a similar pattern in California where Indian languages disappeared at the rate of nearly one a year during the late 20th century. Globally, the rate of language loss now is one every two weeks. The areas where indigenous languages are being lost the most rapidly are central South America, Oklahoma and the American Southwest, the Northwest coastal region of the U.S. and Canada, eastern Siberia, and northern Australia.
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