Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism
Samoan 90.6% (closely related to Hawaiian and other Polynesian languages), English 2.9%, Tongan 2.4%, other Pacific islander 2.1%, other 2%; note: most people are bilingual
Papiamento (a Spanish-Portuguese-Dutch-English dialect) 66.3%, Spanish 12.6%, English (widely spoken) 7.7%, Dutch (official) 5.8%, other 2.2%, unspecified or unknown 5.3%
German (official nationwide) 88.6%, Turkish 2.3%, Serbian 2.2%, Croatian (official in Burgenland) 1.6%, other (includes Slovene, official in Carinthia, and Hungarian, official in Burgenland) 5.3%
Portuguese (official and most widely spoken language); note - less common languages include Spanish (border areas and schools), German, Italian, Japanese, English, and a large number of minor Amerindian languages
Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages (see Ethnic groups entry)
Tetum (official), Portuguese (official), Indonesian, English; note: there are about 16 indigenous languages; Tetum, Galole, Mambae, and Kemak are spoken by significant numbers of people
Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9%; note: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 41% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language
Italian (official), German (parts of Trentino-Alto Adige region are predominantly German speaking), French (small French-speaking minority in Valle d'Aosta region), Slovene (Slovene-speaking minority in the Trieste-Gorizia area)
Bahasa Malaysia (official), English, Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainan, Foochow), Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Panjabi, Thai; note: in East Malaysia there are several indigenous languages; most widely spoken are Iban and Kadazan
Spanish only 92.7%, Spanish and indigenous languages 5.7%, indigenous only 0.8%, unspecified 0.8%; note - indigenous languages include various Mayan, Nahuatl, and other regional languages
Emakhuwa 26.1%, Xichangana 11.3%, Portuguese 8.8% (official; spoken by 27% of population as a second language), Elomwe 7.6%, Cisena 6.8%, Echuwabo 5.8%, other Mozambican languages 32%, other foreign languages 0.3%, unspecified 1.3%
English 7% (official), Afrikaans common language of most of the population and about 60% of the white population, German 32%, indigenous languages 1% (includes Oshivambo, Herero, Nama)
Nepali 47.8%, Maithali 12.1%, Bhojpuri 7.4%, Tharu (Dagaura/Rana) 5.8%, Tamang 5.1%, Newar 3.6%, Magar 3.3%, Awadhi 2.4%, other 10%, unspecified 2.5%; note: many in government and business also speak English
Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Siraiki (a Punjabi variant) 10%, Pashtu 8%, Urdu (official) 8%, Balochi 3%, Hindko 2%, Brahui 1%, English (official; lingua franca of Pakistani elite and most government ministries), Burushaski and other 8%
Palauan 64.7% official in all islands except Sonsoral (Sonsoralese and English are official), Tobi (Tobi and English are official), and Angaur (Angaur, Japanese, and English are official), Filipino 13.5%, English 9.4%, Chinese 5.7%, Carolinian 1.5%, Japanese 1.5%, other Asian 2.3%, other languages 1.5%
Melanesian Pidgin serves as the lingua franca, English spoken by 1%-2%, Motu spoken in Papua region; note: 820 indigenous languages spoken (over one-tenth of the world's total)
Filipino (official; based on Tagalog) and English (official); eight major dialects - Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinan
Serbian 88.3% (official), Hungarian 3.8%, Bosniak 1.8%, Romany (Gypsy) 1.1%, other 4.1%, unknown 0.9%; note: Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak, Ukrainian, and Croatian all official in Vojvodina
English (official, regular use limited to literate minority), Mende (principal vernacular in the south), Temne (principal vernacular in the north), Krio (English-based Creole, spoken by the descendants of freed Jamaican slaves who were settled in the Freetown area, a lingua franca and a first language for 10% of the population but understood by 95%)
Sinhala (official and national language) 74%, Tamil (national language) 18%, other 8%; note: English is commonly used in government and is spoken competently by about 10% of the population
Arabic (official), English (official), Nubian, Ta Bedawie, diverse dialects of Nilotic, Nilo-Hamitic, Sudanic languages; note: program of "Arabization" in process
Dutch (official), English (widely spoken), Sranang Tongo (Surinamese, sometimes called Taki-Taki, is native language of Creoles and much of the younger population and is lingua franca among others), Caribbean Hindustani (a dialect of Hindi), Javanese
German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch (official) 0.5%, other 2.8%; note: German, French, Italian, and Romansch are all national and official languages
Kiswahili or Swahili (official), Kiunguja (name for Swahili in Zanzibar), English (official, primary language of commerce, administration, and higher education), Arabic (widely spoken in Zanzibar), many local languages; note: Kiswahili (Swahili) is the mother tongue of the Bantu people living in Zanzibar and nearby coastal Tanzania; although Kiswahili is Bantu in structure and origin, its vocabulary draws on a variety of sources including Arabic and English; it has become the lingua franca of central and eastern Africa; the first language of most people is one of the local languages
French (official and the language of commerce), Ewe and Mina (the two major African languages in the south), Kabye (sometimes spelled Kabiye) and Dagomba (the two major African languages in the north)
English (official national language, taught in grade schools, used in courts of law and by most newspapers and some radio broadcasts), Ganda or Luganda (most widely used of the Niger-Congo languages, preferred for native language publications in the capital and may be taught in school), other Niger-Congo languages, Nilo-Saharan languages, Swahili, Arabic
English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other Indo-European 3.8%, Asian and Pacific island 2.7%, other 0.7%; note: Hawaiian is an official language in the state of Hawaii
local languages (more than 100) 72.6%, pidgin (known as Bislama or Bichelama) 23.1%, English 1.9%, French 1.4%, other 0.3%, unspecified 0.7% (1999 Census)
Vietnamese (official), English (increasingly favored as a second language), some French, Chinese, and Khmer; mountain area languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian)
This is great that people can receive the loans moreover, that opens up new possibilities.
♥♥27♥♥ 11th July 2009
.i think ,, philippines is the country with the most number of dialects spoken ..
Rohit 20th May 2009
Hindi is very different from Urdu. Speaker of one language can hardly understand the other. If you read some Hindi text and Urdu text, you can see the difference. So please dont write Hindi/Urdu. And moreover if you ask any Hindi speaker in India, he would perefer to say he speaks Hindi rather than Urdu. So both are very different languages. Why don't you people then write like English/French and combined population of both.
Mark Williamson 1st December 2005
There are a _lot_ of languages in Chad.
8% of the population speaks Ngambay,
8% speaks Chadian Arabic,
4% speaks Kanembu,
3% speaks Dazaga,
3% speaks Maba,
2% speaks Naba,
2% speaks Sar,
2% speaks Musey,
2% speaks Gulay,
2% speaks Mundang.
The remaining 64% speaks any one of 122 languages, none of which has more than 150000 speakers.
In the capital, N'Djamena, the predominant languages are Chadian Arabic and French.
In the Northern half of the country, the main 3 languages are Tedaga, Dazaga, and Zaghawa, which are spoken over huge areas.
However, due to uneven population distribution, Tedaga and
Zaghawa, although they cover more land than any other two languages in the country, are not in the top 10 languages.
If you're planning to travel to Chad, your best bet is French and Chadian Arabic. Although there are many places where they're not understood, there will usually be at least somebody who can help you who speaks one of those languages, wherever you go.
Arun 2nd June 2005
India is a country which have most number of languages including loacal languages.and it is not ratedin the top list
Ian Graham Staff Editor 28th April 2005
South Africa’sAfrikaans language – which gave the word apartheid to the world – is now being celebrated for the 11th straight year at the Litlle Karoon National Arts Festival in the western Cape town of Oudtshoorn. The festival - one of South Africa’s most noteworthy cultural events – features rock music, theater, art, public debate, and opera, all in Afrikaans.
Though Afrikaans was closely associated with the white minority’s decades-long domination of the country and segregationist politics, not all Afrikaans speakers are white. While there are about 2.5 million white Afrikaners, the majority of the country’s four million mixed-race people also speak Afrikaans as their first language.
White Afrikaners were the country’s rulers and elite until the first all-race elections held 11 years ago. Now, many complain that they can’t get jobs because of their skin color and are fighting for the right to educate their children in Afrikaans.
Afrikaans is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages, but it is a source of political tension. Some Afrikaners claim it is being replaced by English in schools and universities and on the radio as part of plan to eliminate it. They also say other languages like Zulu and Xhosa are benefiting from government programs that encourage their use. A language born of a combination of Dutch, spoken by the first white settlers, and the Malay spoken by imported slaves, Afrikaans was promoted by the apartheid government as the main language of white officialdom.
An estimated 6700 languages are commonly spoken in the world today (This number increases to over 40,000 when regional dialects are considered). Estimates indicate that almost half of these languages could disappear during the next hundred years. Languages become extinct when the population decreases or the majority of the speakers use another language more often (either due to government / educational pressure or perceived social and economic advantage).
An official language is usually the language of law and goverment, however many countries require that important documents be translated into other languages. About half of the world's countries have at least one official language. The official language is not necessarily the most widely spoken especially when it defines nationalism (eg Ireland) or describes former colonial control (eg Liberia). In others (including Australia, Sweden and the United States) there is no official language but one language is commonly used by custom.
In most countries many local languages are spoken. As these languages are usually linked to ethnic groups, the choice of language in particular situations can be a political issue. In some countries (eg.Iraq - Arabic and Kurdish languages) language issues are serious enough to threaten the unity of the country or involve violent protest. For further information on some of the current language issues see Languages - a note
Ian Graham Staff Editor 22nd March 2005
Samuel, you’re correct in saying that many languages are spoken in India. The 1991 Indian census, which says there are 18 languages spoken by at least 50,000 people in India, has a list of the languages recorded.
Hindi is the most widespread language, spoken by about 40 percent of the population, followed by Bengali (8.3 percent), Telugu (7.87 percent) and Marathi (7.45 percent).
There are 12 languages with more than 10 million speakers in the country, and four more with more than a million speakers each. Almost four percent of people in India speak a language other than the 18 named in the census.
Ian Graham Staff Editor 21st February 2005
Three of the most widely dispersed languages in the world are of European origin, a reflection of the influence of colonialism on the spread of language and culture. French is used in 40 countries in Europe, the Americas and Africa. Spanish is used in 28 countries, including most of Central and South America. English is used in 85 countries in Europe, North America, Africa, and Australia, and in Asian countries such as India, Singapore and the Philippines.
According to the Summer Institute for Linguistics Ethnologue Survey conducted in 1999, there are 937,132,000 native speakers of Chinese in the world. The other languages with more than 100 million native speakers are Spanish, English, Bengali/Bangla, Hindi/Urdu, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.
Africa is the most linguistically diverse continent, with over 2,000 languages. The most widely spoken languages in Africa are Arabic (in the north), Swahili and Hausa. Some African languages are spoken by only a few thousand people.
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