Language Statistics

•    Quantity of living languages: 6912

•    Quantity of language on the verge of extinction: 516

•    Language with the largest quantity of native speakers: Mandarin Chinese

•    Language spoken by the largest quantity of non-natives: English (250 million native speakers versus 350 million non-native speakers)

•    Country where the largest variety of languages are spoken: Papua New Guinea (820 living languages)

•    Date of birth of languages: 100,000 years BC

•    First written language: Sumer or Egyptian (circa 3200 BC)

•    Oldest written living language: Chinese or Greek (circa 1500 BC)

•    Language with the most words: English (250,000)

•    Language with the fewest words: Takki Takki (also referred to as Sranang Tongo), 340 words

•    Language with the longest alphabet: Khmer (74 letters), official language of Cambodia

•    Language with the shortest alphabet: Rotokas (12 letters)

•    Language with the fewest sounds: Rotokas (11 phonemes)

•    Language with the most sounds: !Xóõ (112 phonemes)

•    Language with the least amount of consonant sounds: Rotokas (6 consonants)

•    Language with the largest amount of consonant sounds: Ubyx (81 consonants)

•    Language with the fewest vowel sounds: Ubyx and Abkhaz, in some dialects (2 vowels)

•    Language with the most vowel sounds: !Xóõ (31 vowels)

•    Most published language: English

•    Language with the least amount of irregular verbs: Esperanto (none)

•    Language that has won the most Oscars: Italian (12 prizes in the category Best Foreign Film)

•    Document translated into the most languages: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of the United Nations, 1948, translated into 321 languages and dialects

•    Most frequent consonant sounds in the world’s languages: /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/ and /n/

•    Longest word in the English language: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)