How many language families are there?
According to Ethnologue, there are 218 language families in the world. This figure is probably an overestimate because of our limited knowledge about the languages of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. For example, the Austronesian family (Pacific area) has 1,262 languages, many of them little known. So the actual number of families, once these languages are studied and relationships among them are established, will probably be smaller.
The largest language families are listed below. Together they account for nearly two-thirds of all languages and five-sixths of the world's population. The Indo-European language family has the largest number of speakers, followed by Sino-Tibetan. Niger-Congo has the largest number of languages, followed by Austronesian. | Language family & membership | Number of languages | Number of speakers | Where the languages that belong to the family are spoken | | Afro-Asiatic | 353 | 339,478,607 | Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, Chad, Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen | | Austronesian | 1,246 | 311,740,132 | Brunei, Cambodia, China, Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Indonesia, Kiribati, Madagascar, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mayotte, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, USA, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Wallis and Futuna | | Indo-European | 430
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2,562,896,428
| Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Maldives, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, USA, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Venezuela | | Niger-Congo | 1,514 | 358,091,103 | Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe | | Sino-Tibetan | 399 | 1,275,531,921 | Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Viet Nam | | Trans New Guinea | 564 | 3,359,894 | Australia, East Timor, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea |
There are no large language families in the Americas and in Australia. Instead, these continents have a large number of small language families consisting of languages with small numbers of speakers.
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