More than 90 percent of the people in the world use a language that belongs to one of seven language families (Figure 5-7). Two-thirds use a language that belongs to the Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan language family (Figure 5-8). Five other language families are used by between 2 and 7 percent of the world.

Language Families By Share of World Population

The chart shows the percentage of people who use a language from each major family.

The two Largest Language Families

Indo-European (which includes English) and Sino-Tibetan (which includes the Chinese languages) are the two most widely used language families.

The remaining 9 percent of the world’s people use a language belonging to the other 134 smaller families. For example, Quechuan is the most widely used language family in the Western Hemisphere other than Indo-European. Its speakers live primarily in the Andes Mountains of western South America. Ethnologue estimates that around 8 million people use a language belonging to the Quechuan family. Ethnologue identifies 44 distinct Quechuan languages. Quechua Cusco is the only one with more than 1 million users. According to Ethnologue, Spanish is the first language for most users of a Quechuan language. Aymara, another indigenous language family in the Andes, has 3 million users, mostly in Bolivia.

Below depicts the world’s major languages and language families as a forest. Individual languages are displayed as leaves. The larger the leaf, the more users of that language. Language families are represented as trunks of the trees, again sized to be proportional to the number of users. Some trunks divide into several branches, which logically represent language branches, sized according to the number of users. The branches representing Germanic, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian divide a second time into language groups.

Language families with at least 5 million users, according to Ethnologue, are shown as trunks of trees. Individual languages that have more than 5 million users are shown as leaves. Some trunks divide into several branches, which represent language branches. Possible superfamilies are shown as roots below the surface because their existence is speculative and highly controversial.

The above figure displays each language family as a separate tree at ground level because differences among families predate recorded history. Some linguists speculate that language families were joined together as a handful of superfamilies tens of thousands of years ago. Superfamilies are shown as roots below the surface because their existence is speculative and highly controversial.

Pause & Reflect 5.1.3

Based on Figure 5-9, which four other languages with at least 5 million users belong to the same language family, branch, and group as English?