These maps will help you see how diverse parts of the word are in terms of languages. They provide insightful data about indigenous languages spoken in each continent. There are three things you have to keep in mind:
- Some continents have more languages than others.
- Having the most languages doesn’t mean having the most speakers.
- Two-thirds of the world’s population speak only 12 native languages.
Percentage of the world’s languages, by region.
Languages by region of origin.
Regions by native speakers.
The orange section represents the Pacific with 6 million speakers.
Bubble chart of languages by proportion of native speakers worldwide.
Comments
How about Hebrew? How does that get classified? I didn’t see it on the Wikipedia list.
Hebrew is probably included in one of the unmarked bubbles. According to Google, there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide of whom 7 million speak it fluently. I wonder whether this figure includes people who only use it in their prayers.
I understand that Papua New Guinea (or is the entire island of Papua?) accounts for 12% of all living languages.