World Languages at a Glance

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
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World Languages at a Glance

Some facts about the world’s 6,800 languages.

Eight countries account for more than half of all languages.

-Papua New Guinea, 832 languages.

-Indonesia, 731.

-Nigeria, 515.

-India, 400.

-Mexico, Cameroon and Australia, just under 300 each.

-Brazil, 234.

-The island of New Guinea, which the nation of Papua New Guinea shares with the Indonesian state of Irian Jaya, is home to just 0.1 percent of the world’s population, yet its residents speak one-sixth of all languages, or some 1,100 tongues.

-More than 100 languages can be heard on the tiny archipelago of Vanuatu, in the South Pacific Ocean near Australia. It is home to about 190,000 people.

-India has 18 official languages, more than any other nation. (Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Assamese, Oriya, Punjabi, Urdu, Kashmiri, Konkani, Manipuri, Sindhi, Nepali, Sanskrit)

The 10 most common first languages, and number of speakers:

-Mandarin Chinese, 885 million.

-Spanish, 332 million.

-English, 322 million.

-Arabic, 220 million.

-Bengali, 189 million.

-Hindi, 182 million.

-Portuguese, 170 million.

-Russian, 170 million.

-Japanese, 125 million.

-German, 98 million.

-Percentage of world’s languages of Asian origin: 32

-Percentage of world’s languages of African origin: 30

-Percentage of world’s languages of Pacific origin: 19

-Percentage of world’s languages of American origin: 15

-Percentage of world’s languages of European origin: 4

-Percentage of world’s children raised as bilingual speakers: 66 percent.

-Percentage of U.S. residents who are bilingual: 6.3 percent.

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In this top 10 list of First languages Punjabi should not fall very far off the list may be in low teens. Here are my estimates of the number of people whose First language is Punjabi or atleast they speak it as their first language.

Sikhs world wide who speak Punjabi as their First language = 22 to 24 million
Hindus in Indian Punjab = about 14 million
People speaking Punjabi as their first language in J&K, Haryana,Delhi,Chandigarh, Himachal, UP etc= 10 to 15 million

Muslims in Pakistan who speak Punjabi as their First language = 50 to 60 million

Total = Approx 96 to 115 million

These are very conservative estimates. People speaking various dialects of Punjabi as their mother language is probably a bit higher than 115 million. I don't have the link right now but someone qouted it to be 140 million or so to me sometime back.

If all Punjabis could take pride in their language and promote it in the written and education media...it is certainly one of the major languages of the world..atleast in the top 15.

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And how many ppl live in PNG???

http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/biggrin.gif

Gosh! those guys must be lingo-crazy. “Huh! what are you talking about? I don’t speak your language. Get out!”… haha

This curious. I wll grant that more ppl speak mandarin as a first language, but I will be interested in knowing if more ppl in the world know how to read/speak/write English compared to anyother language. I say this, because many countries of the world, they don’t speak English as a first language, but majority ppl speak it as a matter of routine.

Plus this → “Percentage of world’s children raised as bilingual speakers: 66 percent.”

This is hilarious. Is this correct? With so many immigrants now, this statistic seems outdated.

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ChannMahi and friends. If you love Punjabi, then you will enjoy these songs. Take it fromm an ex-Punjabi. I miss my Punjab.
http://www.apnaorg.com/poetry/Bullahn/

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Tanha, I already know about that page and love their song collection.

I also listened to your ghazals and man you got something there. It is beautiful. Keep it up.

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“If all Punjabis could take pride in their language and promote it in the written and education media…it is certainly one of the major languages of the world..atleast in the top 15.”

Indian languages can only be “promoted” in India. It is difficult to promote your language outside of your country. Try convincing your kids to speak your language fluently and most importantly to read Punjabi literature.

http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/smile.gif

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I totally agree with you Bombaykid…fortunately 98% of the Punjabis, I checked last time, live in their own countries…India and Pakistan.
I hope you don’t differ with me on that

http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/smile.gif

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I am not differing with you on anything. Its just that in so many states in India (including the Hindi speaking states), people crib how the native language is not promoted and English is given preference, specially by the younger generation.
Being a Goan, my native language is Konkani but having been born and brought up all my life in Maharashtra, I consider my language to be Marathi. So its important for parents to speak to their kids in their language at home. Even in India a lot of parents speak to their kids in English (this is mostly in the urban areas of course).

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Papua New Guinea, 832 languages!!!!!!!!

I beg to differ. I think it's impossible
for such a small group of people to speak so many languages. You got to understand that
within every hundred miles radius language changes it's accent. I think there might be only 20 or probably less languages in that area and it's dialect that is bumping the count if you conside the dialect as a separate language i.e.

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BK, with fast travel and trade, people are moving and intermingling very quickly. It is hard that every language to be taught everywhere but every place/state/country does have a native or local language and culture that should be given fair opportunity to sustain.
e.g. Since you lived and studied in Maharashtra thats the language you learned. Similar if a Maratha or a Punjabi goes and lives in Goa he will study the language of that place(Konkani).
Problem is when in places like Haryana where half of the population still speaks some dialects of Punjabi, but Telgu is the second language of the state and it is not taught in primary and high schools at all in Pakistani Punjabi. I am not asking that Punjabi be taught in Maharashtra or Goa or Balochistan. But in Punjab(both sides which itself makes populaiton of about 100 million all together)) it is our right to ask for its promotion with Govt. support. Everywhere else it is upto individual people. I know lot of families in USA who don't care about anyother language other than English...on the other hand there are some who make the effort and spend time and money on teaching their kids their native languages.

Eventually I think all business and education will happen in English..so people will feel more need to learn and cling to their native languages and cultures. It takes only couple of years effort on a kid to teach him/her the language spoken in the home. Most kids can easily learn 3 languages before the age of 13/15...

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[quote]
Originally posted by ChannMahi:
Problem is when in places like Haryana where half of the population still speaks some dialects of Punjabi, but Telgu is the second language of the state and it is not taught in primary and high schools at all in Pakistani Punjabi..
[/quote]

forget pakistani punjab. if punjabis in pak want to learn punjabi, they will. if they dont want, u cant complain.

but this in interesting info about haryana. do they teach at least telugu in school or they teach nothing. in fact, i have always felt that it will be good to make north indian hindi students learn at least one indian languge apart from hindi, say from south or east. so while we from maharashtra often know hindi, the hindi speakers no none except their mothertoungue.

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It was Telgu until mid 90s I remember but there was some movement there for teaching Punjabi as second language I am not sure if got anywhere or not.
South Indians, even educated ones don't know hindi very good...our unpaRh paindoos can speak better Hindi than that.
Our local desi theatre has Telgu movies once in a while. May be I will try my hands on it after I get better than NYAhmadi in Urdu:)

About forgetting Pakistani Punjabis....no way. Thats what I am here for to remind them always. I am reading this book on Punjabi music and folklore and it is amazing how much common we have with them other than the religion.

[This message has been edited by ChannMahi (edited June 21, 2001).]

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[quote]
Originally posted by ChannMahi:
**
South Indians, even educated ones don't know hindi very good...our unpaRh paindoos can speak better Hindi than that.
**
[/quote]

Not true in my opinion! many South Indians I know speak excellent Hindi. The Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha offers excellent after school courses and exams. State school leaving exams in Hindi are of a very high level (and as far as I know you can choose different levels of the language). All in all I find that the average educated South Indians' knowledge of Hindi is far superior to that of a North Indian's knowledge of any South Indian language.