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There are currently about 7,000 languages.
APPROXIMATE FIGURES OF SPEAKERS (in millions):
Mandarin Chinese 950/1100
Spanish 550/900
English 500/1000
Hindi 340/500
French 290
Russian 285
Portuguese 240
Arabic 240/274
Bengali 230/260
Malay-Indonesian 200
Urdu 163
Punjabi 119
German 140
japanese 128
Telugu 80
Korean 78
Turkish 78
Egyptian Arab 78
Chinese Wu 77
Javanese 75/84
Vietnamese 77
marati 74
Tamil 74
Farsi or Persian 72
Chinese Cantonese-Yue 70
Italian 70
Marathi-Indo-Iranian 65
Tamil 60
polish 50
Min Nan 49
Chinese Yinyu 45
Ukrainian 41
Gujarati 44
Kannada or Kannada 44
Hausa 39
Arabe argelino 38
Chino Xiang 36
Chino Harka 34
Panyabi 33
Oriya 31
Cebuano 31
Rumano 30
Neerlandés 30
Azerí o Azerbaiyano 30
Sunda 27
Bopurí 25
Maithili 24
Burmese Myanmar 21
Servo-Croata 21
Chino Gan 20
Awadhi 20
Thai 20
Yoruba 20
Sindhi 19
Arabe marroquí 19
Uzbeko 19
Arabe Saidi 18
Igbo 18
Malayo 18
Amharic 17
Tagalo 17
Nepalí 16
Arabe sudanés 16
Saraiki 15
Arabe sirio 15
Thai 15
Assamese 14
Húngaro 15
Chittaginiano 14
Arabe mesopotámico 14
Madura 13
Sinhala 13
Haryanvi 13
Marwari 12
Checo 12
Griego 12
Mahahi 12
Chattisgarhi 11
Deccan 10
Chino Min Bei 10
Belarusano 10
Chino Zhuang 10
Arabe Najdi 10
Pashto 9
Somalí 9
Malgache 9
Arabe tunecino 9
Rwandés 9
Zulú 9
Búlgaro 9
Sueco 9
Lombardo 9
Oromo 9
Kazako 8
Ilocano 8
Tatar 8
Fulfulde nigeriano 7
Arabe sanaani 7
Uyghur 7
Haitiano Criollo Francés 7
Azerbaiyano 7
Napolitano Calabres 7
Khmer 7
Akan 7
Hiligaynon 7
Kurmanji 7
Shona 7
Notwithstanding the data consigned in the previous list, the following must be pointed out:
In the English language, if we add the number of those who have it as their mother tongue (about 378 million) plus those who use it as a second language (about 743 million), the total figure could add up to about 1,121 million.
Similarly, in Mandarin Chinese: mother tongue (908 million) plus second language (198 million) would add up to about 1,106 million
And in Spanish: mother tongue (513 million) plus second language (442 million), which would total about 995 million
And the other languages could be considered in a similar way, which would provide a higher calculation of speakers that is reflected in the second figures that appear in some other languages of the aforementioned list; all of this making use of several sources that establish data that are not always coincident, so the accuracy must be estimated as relative.
300 languages are used by more than 1 billion people. 80% of the world's population speaks 83 main languages. On the other hand, 3,000 small languages are only spoken by 0.2%
The most used languages on the Internet are English, Chinese, Japanese and, in fourth place, Spanish.
In the blogosphere Japanese is the predominant language (35-40% among about 100 million blogs)
Currently, English is the language that has spread the most, interspersing many words (especially scientific, technical and computer) in the vocabulary of other languages.
Chinese-Mandarin will become the most influential language followed by Hindi-Urdu and Arabic.
More than half of the world's languages are not documented in writing and are in danger of extinction; many of them could disappear during this century.
Will languages merge over the centuries to form a single universal language? It seems that this is happening in some cases giving rise to mixed languages (as in spanglihs)
More efforts should be made for the diffusion of Esperanto or another universal language, created for this purpose, that would facilitate the understanding and the linguistic brotherhood of humanity!
Until then, those of us who use and share the GREAT SPANISH LANGUAGE can feel satisfied and proud to think, write and converse in this important international language, vehicle of the highest world levels of culture, science, philosophy and literature.
