5 ms·

How many languages are there in the world?

19 points by breck 9y ago

shervinafshar 9y ago
In the meantime; – Wikipedia is available in 299 languages [1]; – Facebook is localizing into 117 languages [2]; – Unicode is covering 139 modern and historic writing system [3]. To cover the other half of the speakers of these 7099 languages, the community of software and digital technology practitioners have a long way to go and much to do. [1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias [2]: https://m.facebook.com/language.php https://m.facebook.com/language.php [3]: note that language:writing system could be n:1 Edit: formatting.
- peterburkimsher 9y ago
  The full Bible has been translated into 636 languages. Parts have been translated into 3,223 languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations A convenient feature of Bible translations is that the text is truly bilingual. Every sentence is numbered (verses) and lines up nicely with the corresponding verse in other languages. Using the Chinese/English Bible text to improve a Chinese dictionary and teach me Chinese is one of the main motivations behind Pingtype. https://pingtype.github.io https://pingtype.github.io
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    Using the Bible for language learning is perhaps better than nothing, but one does get frustrated by the very limited lexicon used within. For many languages, even those with few speakers, there are often resources available that better prepare you to use the language in a 20th/21st century context, not the Middle East of 2000 years ago+. As for Bible translations matching up perfectly, one has to consider that a great many New Testament translations are in fact translations of translations, and this process has sometimes introduced some striking innovations. A good example of this are the Bible translations produced for Russia’s minority peoples by the Stockholm Institute for Bible Translation. Most of these are translations from Russian, not Greek, and in using them you have to be aware of quirks introduced by that intermediary layer.
- rspeer 9y ago
  The factoid about Unicode seems out of place. Those 139 writing systems cover nearly every language that we have evidence of ever being written. If you can find an exception... it'll probably be in the next version of Unicode. Unicode is leading here, not lagging. Also, given that we're counting languages, the majority of languages are unwritten.
jdale27 9y ago
I found this article to be rather more illuminating on this question, as it addresses the ambiguity in how you slice up the world into distinct linguistic chunks: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages-are-there-world https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages...
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  Much better! The other one is all data but not much knowledge.
- ufmace 9y ago
  Much more interesting article at least mentioning the difficulties that came to mind reading the other one. Like exactly how do we distinguish a different language when some say it's a dialect of another language? At exactly what point is it and is it not another language?

19 points by breck 9y ago

In the meantime; – Wikipedia is available in 299 languages [1]; – Facebook is localizing into 117 languages [2]; – Unicode is covering 139 modern and historic writing system [3]. To cover the other half of the speakers of these 7099 languages, the community of software and digital technology practitioners have a long way to go and much to do. [1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias [2]: https://m.facebook.com/language.php https://m.facebook.com/language.php [3]: note that language:writing system could be n:1 Edit: formatting.

peterburkimsher 9y ago
The full Bible has been translated into 636 languages. Parts have been translated into 3,223 languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations A convenient feature of Bible translations is that the text is truly bilingual. Every sentence is numbered (verses) and lines up nicely with the corresponding verse in other languages. Using the Chinese/English Bible text to improve a Chinese dictionary and teach me Chinese is one of the main motivations behind Pingtype. https://pingtype.github.io https://pingtype.github.io
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  Using the Bible for language learning is perhaps better than nothing, but one does get frustrated by the very limited lexicon used within. For many languages, even those with few speakers, there are often resources available that better prepare you to use the language in a 20th/21st century context, not the Middle East of 2000 years ago+. As for Bible translations matching up perfectly, one has to consider that a great many New Testament translations are in fact translations of translations, and this process has sometimes introduced some striking innovations. A good example of this are the Bible translations produced for Russia’s minority peoples by the Stockholm Institute for Bible Translation. Most of these are translations from Russian, not Greek, and in using them you have to be aware of quirks introduced by that intermediary layer.
rspeer 9y ago
The factoid about Unicode seems out of place. Those 139 writing systems cover nearly every language that we have evidence of ever being written. If you can find an exception... it'll probably be in the next version of Unicode. Unicode is leading here, not lagging. Also, given that we're counting languages, the majority of languages are unwritten.

jdale27 9y ago

I found this article to be rather more illuminating on this question, as it addresses the ambiguity in how you slice up the world into distinct linguistic chunks: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages-are-there-world https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages...

kwhitefoot 9y ago
Much better! The other one is all data but not much knowledge.
ufmace 9y ago
Much more interesting article at least mentioning the difficulties that came to mind reading the other one. Like exactly how do we distinguish a different language when some say it's a dialect of another language? At exactly what point is it and is it not another language?