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This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect . For example, Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages, but each includes several mutually unintelligible varieties , and so they are sometimes considered language families instead.
The languages are broken into tiers based on their difficulty level for a native English speaker as determined by the Defense Language Institute. The category into which a language is placed also determines the length of its basic course as taught at DLI. To qualify to pursue training in a language, one needs a minimum score of 95.
Lists which are global in scope (all living natural languages would classify for inclusion): by country: List of official languages by country and territory; Number of languages by country; by name: List of language names (native names) by phylogenetic relation: List of language families (phylogenetic)
This article is a list of language families. This list only includes primary language families that are accepted by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics ; for language families that are not accepted by the current academic consensus in the field of linguistics, see the article " List of proposed language families ".
The following languages are listed as having at least 50 million first-language speakers in the 27th edition of Ethnologue published in 2024. [7] This section does not include entries that Ethnologue identifies as macrolanguages encompassing all their respective varieties, such as Arabic, Lahnda, Persian, Malay, Pashto, and Chinese.
Lists of endangered languages are mainly based on the definitions used by UNESCO. In order to be listed, a language must be classified as "endangered" in a cited academic source. Researchers have concluded that in less than one hundred years, almost half of the languages known today will be lost forever. [1] The lists are organized by region.
This is a list of countries by number of languages according to the 22nd edition of Ethnologue (2019). [ 1 ] Papua New Guinea has the largest number of languages in the world.
Language complexity is a topic in linguistics which can be divided into several sub-topics such as phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic complexity. [1] [2] The subject also carries importance for language evolution. [3] Language complexity has been studied less than many other traditional fields of linguistics.