S09: Languages
  
 

3. Languages of the world
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Some details on categorization and statistics of languages:

  • International Partners in Language Development (SIL) counts 7,000 different languages (see Grimes, 2002)
  • Languages are grouped into families / phyla
  • Ca. 100 families and phyla
  • More than 75% of the known languages belong to 10% of the families
  • 2/3 of the world population speak languages belonging to only 2 families: Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan
  • For toponymy, numbers of speakers are not the sole criterium of ‘importance’.


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Copyright United Nations Statistics Division and International Cartographic Association, July 2012