Top 20 countries by number of languages

While most countries have one or a handful of official or nationally recognized languages, there are typically groups of people residing in each country whose first language is something other than the nation's lingua franca. The numbers of such groups differ from country to country, and the size of these minority language "groups" can range from a single individual to millions of speakers.



Top 20 Languages by Number of Languages Spoken Data source: Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed. (2005) & CIA World Fact Book.

Country # of languages % of world

languages Official or national language(s) Total population

(July 2005 est.) 1. Papua New Guinea 820 11.86% Hiri Motu, Tok Pisin,

English 5,545,268 2. Indonesia 742 10.73% Indonesian 241,973,879 3. Nigeria 516 7.47% Edo, Efik, Adamawa Fulfulde, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Central Kanuri, Yoruba, English 128,771,988 4. India 427 6.18% Lingua franca: English & Hindi

Official languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Meitei, Nepali, Oriya, Eastern Panjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu. 1,080,264,388 5. USA 311 4.50% English

Regional: Hawaiian (in Hawaii), Spanish (in New Mexico) 295,734,134 6. Mexico 297 4.30% Spanish 106,202,903 7. Cameroon 280 4.05% English, French 16,380,005 8. Australia 275 3.98% English 20,090,437 9. China 241 3.49% Mandarin Chinese

Regional: Daur, Kalmyk-Oirat, Lu, Peripheral Mongolian, Central Tibetan, Uyghur, Xibe, Northern Zhuang 1,306,313,812 10. Democratic Republic of Congo 216 3.12% Koongo, Lingala, Luba-Kasai, Congo Swahili, French 60,085,804





Country # of languages % of world

languages Official or national language(s) Total population

(July 2005 est.) 11. Brazil 200 2.89% Portuguese 186,112,794 12. Philippines 180 2.60% Filipino, English 87,857,473 13. Malaysia 147 2.13% Malay 23,953,136 14. Canada 145 2.10% English, French 32,805,041 15. Sudan 134 1.94% Standard Arabic 40,187,486 16. Chad 1.22 1.92% Standard Arabic, French 9,826,419 17. Russia 129 1.87% Russian 143,420,309 18. Tanzania 128 1.85% Swahili, English 36,766,356 19. Nepal 125 1.81% Nepali 27,676,547 20. Vanuatu 115 1.66% Bislama, English 205,754



