Fascinating facts about languages

How many languages are there?

This question is still hotly debated today. Most reference works give a figure of between 4,000 and 5,000, but it now seems more likely that the figure is close to 6,500. However, estimates vary between 3,000 and 10,000 languages, which is probably too high. There are various reasons why we are so uncertain about this figure. The problems actually start with the question of what actually counts as a language.

Language or dialect?

It is very often not clear whether something is actually a language. To be able to decide whether it is a language at all (or just a dialect), we need to look at the basic facts concerning language, history and culture.

Discovering new languages

Even today, new peoples (and thus new languages) are still being discovered all the time in unexplored areas of the earth, especially in the Amazon region, Central Africa and New Guinea. It also happens that the inhabitants of a region may be known, but that nothing is known about the languages spoken there. In many countries, the local languages are not or only inadequately recorded. Often, the assumption that the people in a particular region speak one of the languages that are standard there, or a related dialect, turns out to be wrong on closer observation. The differences often prove to be so major that what they speak must be described as a separate language.

Living or dead languages?

In addition to the fact, mentioned above, that the total number of known languages is increasing, there is an important factor that reduces them too:

To be able to classify a language as "living", it must be spoken as a mother tongue. In many cases, however, it is hard to say whether there are still people that speak this language and whether they – if they still exist – still use it regularly as their mother tongue.

In small language communities, languages can die out with astonishing speed. All traces of a language can disappear in just one generation.

The exploration of the Amazon region, for example, resulted in the discovery of many new languages – but also led to their rapid decline, since the original inhabitants were absorbed by the all-powerful Western civilisation. Political decisions force tribes to move away or to split up, economic factors drive young people to leave their villages, and new diseases take their toll. In 1962, the language community of the Trumai, consisting of a single village on the lower reaches of the Culuene in Venezuela, was reduced by an influenza epidemic to fewer than 10 speakers. In the 19th century, it was thought that there were around 1,000 Indian languages in Brazil; today, the figure is less than 200.

Names of languages

Often, languages may be counted twice or more, because the names of minor languages are unclear.

The major world languages do not suffer from these problems: they are generally known by a single language which can be clearly translated into other languages (Deutsch, German, Tedesco, Nemetskiy, Allemand). But the situation is often difficult.

Firstly, many language communities do not have a specific name of their language: the language name consists of a normal word or expression from this language (meaning, for example, "our language" or "our people").

This happens very frequently in Africa: the name "Bantu", which describes a whole family of languages, simply means "people".
Language names such as "people", "enemy", "forest people" are also frequently found in Central and South America.
In many languages spoken by the original peoples of Australia, the name of the language is synonymous with the word for "this". The 9 languages of the Yuulngu family, for example, are called Dhuwala, Dhuwal, Dhiyakuy, Dhangu, Dhay'yi, Djangu, Djinang, Djining and Nhangu. - Asking the mother-tongue speakers there what language they speak makes little sense under these circumstances: the answer will always be "this one"!

The other extreme is found in communities whose languages have too many names. A South American Indian tribe may firstly have a name (which is often also the name of their language, see above) which they use to describe themselves, and then a name by which the neighbouring tribes know them (e.g. the Araucanic word puelche means "people from the East"), and finally a name by which the Spanish Conquistadors described them (and their language) (perhaps based on something unusual in their appearance - Coroado is Portuguese for "crowned").

In recent times, anthropologists and linguists may also have come up with a name for their language, often reverting to geographical information about the area where the tribe lives that speaks this language (e.g. "up river" or "down river").

Sometimes, one and the same language can be spelt differently in Spanish, Portuguese, English and their own system of writing (if they have one). If the initial letters differ (which often happens with C, K and Ch), indexation can be particularly prone to errors.

And finally, the same name can also be used for 2 languages, such as when Mexicano is used in Mexico firstly for Spanish (otherwise Espanol or Castellano) and then for the most important Indian language (Nahuatl).

Result

If we take into account all these factors, it becomes clear that the question of how many languages there are cannot be answered with just one sentence.

Difference between language and dialect
One of the most important and most difficult problems in the science of languages is the question of how to define the difference between a language and a dialect.

The answer to this seems to be simple: "It depends on whether you understand the other person."

Because if 2 people speak differently, there are basically only 2 possibilities.

Either they understand each other. - Then we are talking about 2 dialects of the same language.
Or they do not understand each other. - Then they are probably speaking 2 different languages..

But is mutual understanding enough?
And, conversely, is it necessary?

The most important criterion is, of course, mutual understanding. This is actually applied very frequently. With German, for example, no-one would seriously doubt that this is a language.

But unfortunately, things are not always that simple.

Sometimes the people in question think that they are (just) talking about 2 dialects, although they are actually different languages. (In short: assumed dialect - actually language.)
Conversely, dialects are often regarded (for non-linguistic reasons) as separate languages, although they are actually spoken variants of the same language, i.e. dialects. (In short: assumed language - actually dialect.)
And finally, it often happens that we are talking about different dialects of the same language, but that they cannot be mutually understood. (In short: dialects of the same language, but not mutually understood.)

(Here are a few examples for these three groups.)
To date, it has been impossible to come up with a generally recognised definition of the difference between a language and a dialect which would apply in every case. The many thousands of languages and even more dialects are much too multilayered and complex for this.

Essentially, the answer also depends on how the individual criteria are weighted, and in particular what significance is attributed to the need for mutual understanding in each case. Many elements are disputed here. The most important criteria determining whether a language is really a language or (just) a dialect are

mutual understanding,
which overlaps if possible with a national identity
and (ideally): the use of a standardised written language and a common literary heritage