How Many Languages Are There In The World?
An overview of the languages of our world and their development: Why do some languages disappear while others grow and become more important? And how can you prevent languages from dying out?
I can order my coffee in seven different languages!” Hearing this sentence sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it? But if this same person were to say that he can order his coffee in 0.1% of all the languages in the world, then it no longer sounds so impressive. But the fact is that seven languages only make up about 0.1% of the linguistic diversity on our planet!
The rich diversity of the world’s languages
It’s hard to believe, right? Because I was so surprised, I began asking my friends how many languages they think there are in the world. I got different answers but they all had one thing in common: They were far off from the actual number. Some of my friends said 90 while others said 200 or “surely a few more”.
When I told them the answer, loads of them looked at me in disbelief: According to modern linguists , here are approximately 7000 languages and this does not include dialects!
Although I work with languages and I am aware of this diversity, I still find it difficult to imagine who speaks all of these languages and where they are spoken. If almost a billion people speak Mandarin, and there are half a billion Spanish native speakers and if you then think how many millions…to continue reading the blog click here
Source: Babbel Magazine
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