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| The World's Main Languages | |
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Following is a table showing the world's 20 main languages. We
also have a list of two-letter language
indicators taken from the ISO 639 standard; these codes
are used on the Internet to flag languages in accordance
with RFC
1766 recommendations.
Click on the hyperlinks in the table to download information on a language's history, writing, computer considerations, etc. |
The World's Main Languages
| Language | Family | Principal locations | Number of speakers (estimated in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese | Sino-Tibetan | China | 885 |
| English | Indo-European (Germanic group) | North America, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa | 450 |
| Hindi-Urdu | Indo-European (Indo-Iranian group) | India, Pakistan | 333 |
| Spanish | Indo-European (Romance group) | South America, Spain | 266 |
| Portuguese | Indo-European (Romance group) | Brazil, Portugal | 175 |
| Bengali | Indo-European (Indo-Iranian group) | Bangladesh, India | 162 |
| Russian | Indo-European (Slavic group) | Former Soviet Union | 153 |
| Arabic | Afro-Asiatic | North Africa, Middle East | 150 |
| Japanese | Altaic | Japan | 126 |
| French | Indo-European (Romance group) | France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Black Africa | 122 |
| German | Indo-European (Germanic group) | Germany, Austria, Switzerland | 118 |
| Wu | Sino-Tibetan | China (Shanghai) | 77 |
| Javanese | Austronesian | Indonesia (Java) | 75 |
| Korean | Altaic | Korea | 72 |
| Italian | Indo-European (Romance group) | Italy | 63 |
| Marathi | Indo-European (Indo-Iranian group) | South India | 65 |
| Telugu | Dravidian | South India | 55 |
| Tamil | Dravidian | South India, Sri Lanka | 48 |
| Cantonese | Sino-Tibetan | China (Canton) | 47 |
| Ukrainian | Indo-European (Slavic group) | Ukraine | 46 |
Source: Ethnologue, 12th edition, Dallas, Texas, USA, 1992.
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| The Tango Multilingual Browser will properly display all of Babel's languages. | 
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