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For greater detail, see Distribution of languages in the world. 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 ...
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.
Similarly, Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language. [4] It is also common to describe various Chinese dialect groups, such as Mandarin, Wu and Yue, as languages, even though each of these groups contains many mutually unintelligible varieties. [5]
English is the main language, with over 96% of the population speaking it fluently. Maori has been recognized as official since 1987. [292] Cook Islands – Cook Islands Maori and English. [293] Niue – Niuean and English. [294] Palau – Palauan traditional languages are the national languages. Palauan and English are the official languages ...
Portuguese is the only unofficial language to have its day (May 5) proclaimed as "World Day". [5] See also: Official languages of the United Nations. Universal Postal Union (UPU) French (official) and English (working). Other languages translated: Arabic, Chinese, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish World Bank (WB)
The six official languages spoken at the UN are the first or second language of 2.8 billion people on the planet, less than half of the world population. The six languages are official languages in almost two-thirds of United Nations member states (over 120 states). [citation needed]
A language that uniquely represents the national identity of a state, nation, and/or country and is so designated by a country's government; some are technically minority languages. (On this page a national language is followed by parentheses that identify it as a national language status.) Some countries have more than one language with this ...
SIL International's Ethnologue: Languages of the World lists over 7,100 spoken and signed languages. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns codes for most languages; see ISO 639. List of ISO 639-1 codes – two-letter codes (184 major languages) List of ISO 639-2 codes – three-letter codes