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We use two criteria to define the word "language" : Today, all around the world, people speak about 3,000 different languages. However, only 100/120 languages are spoken by more than 1 million people and a dozen or so are spoken by more than 100 million people ! * From "Les langages de l'humanité", Michel Malherbe, collection Bouquins, Robert Laffont. Figure #1 : estimate in million speakers as 1st language Chinese : 800 - 200 - 1000 * The 3,000 languages are geographically situated : 5 billion humans speak 100 languages : that means the other 2.900 languages are spoken only by 500/700 million people. |
