IV.Linguistic Diversity

A “living language” is simply one which is in wide use as a primary form of communication by a specific group of living people.The exact number of known living languages varies from 6,000 to7,000,depending on the precision of one’s definition of “language”,and in particular,on how one defines the distinction between languages and dialects.As of 2015,SIL Ethnologue cataloged 7,102living human languages.The Ethnologue establishes linguistic groups based on studies of mutual intelligibility,and therefore often includes more categories than more conservative classifications.For example,the Danish language that most scholars consider a single language with several dialects is classified as two distinct languages by the Ethnologue.

The Ethnologue is also sometimes criticized for using cumulative data gathered over many decades,meaning that exact speaker numbers are frequently out of date,and some languages classified as living may have already become extinct.According to the Ethnologue,389(or nearly 6%)languages have more than a million speakers.These languages together account for 94% of the world’s population,whereas 94% of the world’s languages account for the remaining 6% of the global population.Table 3-1 shows the world’s 10 most spoken languages with population estimates from the Ethnologue(2009 figures).

Table 3-1　The World’s 10 Most Spoken Languages with Population Estimates from the Ethnologue(2009 Figures)

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(1)Languages and dialects.There is no clear distinction between a language and a dialect,notwithstanding a famous aphorism attributed to linguist Max Weinreich that “a language is a dialect with an army and navy”.For example,national boundaries frequently override linguistic difference in determining whether two linguistic varieties are languages or dialects.Cantonese and Mandarin are,for example,often classified as “dialects” of Chinese,even though they are more different from each other than Swedish is from Norwegian.Before the Yugoslav civil war,Serbo-Croatian was considered a single language with two dialects,but now Croatian and Serbian are considered different languages and employ different writing systems.In other words,the distinction may hinge on political considerations as much as on cultural differences,distinctive writing systems,or degree of mutual intelligibility.

(2)Language families of the world.The world’s languages can be grouped into language families consisting of languages that can be shown to have common ancestry.Linguists recognize many hundreds of language families,although some of them can possibly be grouped into larger units as more evidence becomes available and in-depth studies are carried out.At present,there are also dozens of language isolates:languages that cannot be shown to be related to any other languages in the world.Among them are Basque,spoken in Europe,Zuni of New Mexico,P'urhépecha of Mexico,Ainu of Japan,Burushaski of Pakistan,and many others.

The language family of the world that has the most speakers is the Indo-European languages,spoken by 46% of the world’s population.This family includes major world languages like English,Spanish,Russian,and Hindustani(Hindi/Urdu).The Indo-European family achieved prevalence first during the Eurasian Migration Period(c.400—800 AD),and subsequently through the European colonial expansion,which brought the Indo-European languages to a politically and often numerically dominant position in the Americas and much of Africa.The Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken by20% of the world’s population and include many of the languages of East Asia,including Mandarin Chinese,Cantonese,and hundreds of smaller languages.

Africa is home to a large number of language families,the largest of which is the Niger-Congo language family,which includes such languages as Swahili,Shona,and Yoruba.Speakers of the Niger-Congo languages account for 6.9% of the world’s population.A similar number of people speak the Afroasiatic languages,which include the populous Semitic languages such as Arabic,Hebrew language,and the languages of the Sahara region,such as the Berber languages and Hausa.

The areas of the world in which there is the greatest linguistic diversity,such as the Americas,Papua New Guinea,West Africa,and South-Asia,contain hundreds of small language families.These areas together account for the majority of the world’s languages,though not the majority of speakers.In the Americas,some of the largest language families include the Quechumaran,Arawak,and Tupi-Guarani families of South America,the Uto-Aztecan,Oto-Manguean,and Mayan of Mesoamerica,and the Na-Dene and Algonquian language families of North America.In Australia,most indigenous languages belong to the Pama-Nyungan family,whereas Papua-New Guinea is home to a large number of small families and isolates,as well as a number of Austronesian languages.