Mapped: The 7,000 languages across the world

Many countries are home to hundreds of languages, sometimes despite having very small populations

Chief of the Huli tribe in Papua New-Guinea, Mundiya Kepanga, at the Paris climate conference

There are thought to be more than 7,000 languages around the world, shared between almost seven billion speakers.

These languages are spread unevenly across the globe, with Asia and Africa being home to higher levels of linguistic diversity.

Some languages could be spoken by fewer than 36 people - with Pitcaim, the country with the fewest speakers per language, having two languages for a population of just 36 speakers.

Countries with the most spoken languages
Languages
Papua New Guinea 839
Indonesia 707
Nigeria 529
India 454
United States 422
China 300
Mexico 289
Cameroon 281
Australia 245
Brazil 229

Papua New Guinea has the most languages of any country, with 839 different "living languages" - almost three times as many as Europe combined.

All of these 839 languages are indigenous, owing to the countries' cultural and tribal diversity.

Indonesia and Nigeria have the next highest linguistic diversity, according to Ethnologue, a catalogue of the world’s known languages. Together, these three countries share 29 per cent of the world's languages.

Chief of the Huli tribe in Papua New-Guinea, Mundiya Kepanga, at the Paris climate conference
Chief of the Huli tribe in Papua New-Guinea, Mundiya Kepanga, at the Paris climate conference

Its research documents "living" languages, which are those that have at least one speaker for whom it is their first language.

The UK is home to 56 languages - 13 of which are indigenous and 43 immigrant languages. It has previously been reported that emoji is Britain's fastest growing language.

It was ranked 171st out of 235 countries for Ethnologue's language diversity index.

Bottom and top 10 most linguistically diverse countries
Diversity
North Korea 0
Haiti 0
Isle of Man 0
San Marino 0
British Indian Ocean Territory 0
Cuba 0.001
Burundi 0.002
Samoa 0.002
Rwanda 0.004
El Salvador 0.004
South Sudan 0.929
Benin 0.929
Mozambique 0.936
Chad 0.945
Democratic Republic of the Congo 0.947
Central African Republic 0.959
Solomon Islands 0.968
Vanuatu 0.973
Cameroon 0.974
Papua New Guinea 0.988

Of the world's regions, Asia has the most languages - at 2,301 living languages - reflecting its 60 per cent share of the global population.

Africa has 2,138 living languages, while the Americas has 1,064 and Europe just 286 - despite its 26 per cent share of the world's population.

While the Pacific region has just 0.1 per cent of the world's population, it enjoys incredible linguistic diversity, with 18.5 per cent of the world's living languages - totalling 1,313.

Languages and speakers by world region
Languages Speakers
Asia 32.4 60.1
Africa 30.1 13
Pacific 18.5 0.1
Americas 15 0.8
Europe 4 26

The countries with the largest proportion of languages from immigration are Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and New Zealand, all of which have four in five languages from immigrants.

50 countries, including Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Morocco, had 100 per cent of their languages from indigenous sources.