|
Rough proportion of |
 |
Users of Writing Systems |
|
The following summary is based on: (a) Ethnologue figures for the top 50 world languages in terms of number of speakers (1995) (b) Coulmas and other information on type of writing system used for each language (c) literacy rates from UNESCO (1995) for typical countries for each language (China, Egypt, India, Spain) So it's all a bit dicey but gives ball-park minimum figures! | |||
|
Total languages (top 50) |
total speakers |
total users of writing system | |
| Character-based systems |
8 (all Chinese) + Japanese |
1,087,770,000 | 930 million |
| Syllabic systems |
13 (mostly in India) + Japanese, Korean |
560,923,000 | 329 million |
| Consonantal systems |
4 (2 Arabic, Urdu, Persian) |
148 million | XXX million |
| Alphabetic systems |
21 (worldwide) |
1,572,230,122 | 1232 million |
|
Rough proportion of |
|
| Top 50 Languages (Ethnologue with writing system added) | ||
|
Type |
Language |
No of speakers |
|
Characters |
Chinese Mandarin |
885,000,000 |
|
Chinese Wu |
77,175,000 | |
|
Chinese Yue |
66,000,000 | |
|
Chinese Min |
49,000,000 | |
|
Chinese, JINYU |
45,000,000 | |
|
Chinese, XIANG |
36,015,000 | |
|
Chinese, HAKKA |
34,000,000 | |
|
Chinese, GAN |
20,580,000 | |
|
(Japanese) |
(125,000,000) | |
|
Syllabic |
Bengali |
189,000,000 |
|
Telugu |
66,350,000 | |
|
Tamil |
63,075,000 | |
|
Gujarati |
44,000,000 | |
|
Malayalam |
34,022,000 | |
|
Kannada |
33,663,000 | |
|
Oriya |
31,000,000 | |
|
Panjabi, Western |
30,000,000 | |
|
Sunda |
27,000,000 | |
|
Panjabi, Eastern |
26,013,000 | |
|
Maithili |
24,260,000 | |
|
Burmese |
22,000,000 | |
|
Awadhi |
20,540,000 | |
|
(Japanese) |
(125,000,000) | |
|
(Korean) |
75,000,000 | |
|
Consonantal |
Arabic Egypt |
42,500,000 |
|
Arabic, Algeria |
22,400,000 | |
|
Persian, Western |
24,280,000 | |
|
Urdu |
58,000,000 | |
|
Alphabetic |
Spanish |
332,000,000 |
|
English |
322, 000,000 | |
|
Hindi |
182,000,000 | |
|
Portuguese |
170,000,000 | |
|
Russian |
170,000,000 | |
|
German |
98,000,000 | |
|
Javanese |
75,500,800 | |
|
French |
72,000,000 | |
|
Vietnamese |
67,662,000 | |
|
Marathi |
64,783,000 | |
|
Turkish |
59,000,000 | |
|
Polish |
44,000,000 | |
|
Ukranian |
41,000,000 | |
|
Italian |
41,000,000 | |
|
Romanian |
26,000,000 | |
|
Azerbaijani, South |
24,364,000 | |
|
Hausa |
24,200,000 | |
|
Serbo-Croatian |
21,000,000 | |
|
Dutch |
20,000,000 | |
|
Yoruba |
20,000,000 | |
|
Sindhi |
19,720,000 | |