第1292期：你学过几门外语？你最擅长哪一门？

发布于2021年10月19日2021年10月19日作者:佛老

你一共学过几门外语？你程度最高的是哪门外语？你觉得哪门外语最难？你最喜欢哪门外语？

如果你也喜欢学语言，今天咱们随便聊聊。

“A different language is a different vision of Life.” — Federico Fellini

关于外语学习有很多谚语和名言，我最喜欢的一句大意是：“一个人若最终可以熟练使用一门外语,那他原本生存的世界就多了一扇门,跨过那个门槛,就是另一个世界——他比那些只能讲母语的人多拥有一个世界。”

我喜欢学语言，从小就喜欢。我从小到大曾经会说的方言不下八种，但现在都不会了。我最想学的方言是广东话和闽南语。

不过，今天我们先不聊方言，先聊外语吧。下面的数据均采自互联网，仅供参考。

1. How many languages are there in the world? 全世界一共有多少种语言？

According to Ethnologue.com, 7,139 languages are spoken today; Roughly 40% of the world’s languages (3,018 languages) are endangered today; 2200 languages are in Asia.

2. Which languages are most spoken? 使用人数最多的语言是哪些？

第一种说法

According to The United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):

(1) Mandarin Chinese; (2) English; (3) Spanish; (4) Hindi; (5) Arabic; (6) Bengali; (7) Russian; (8) Portuguese; (9) Japanese; (10) German

*source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/guide/languages.shtml

此说法存疑，因为 (11) French? 有冇搞错啊 dai go?

第二种说法

According to Statistica.com, the top 10 most spoken languages are:

* Top languages by population — Ethnologue (2021, 24th edition), total speakers (L1+L2)

注意，这个榜单统计的不仅是母语人数，而是把该语言作为第一语言和第二语言的总人数。例如很多人的母语不是英语，但工作语言主要是英语，并且日常生活中主要使用英语，则计入English speakers. 请勿过度解读，与“爱国“无关。

(1) English — 1,348 million

(2) Chinese (Mandarin) — 1,120 million

(3) Hindi — 600 million

(4) Spanish — 543 million

(5) Arabic (standard) — 274 million

(6) Bengali — 268 million

(7) French — 267 million

(8) Russian — 258 million

(9) Portuguese — 258 million

(10) Urdu — 230 million

*Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/

还有其他几个榜单，方法和名次都不同。但基本上每种排名榜单上前四名都是：

Mandarin — 921.2 million native speakers

English — 369.9 million native speakers

Spanish — 471.4 million native speakers

Hindi — 342.2 million native speakers

3. UN’s 6 official languages and the language days 联合国的六种官方工作语言

The United Nations uses six official languages to conduct business: English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Arabic.

Language Days at the UN (listed in alphabetical order): 每种官方语言都有一个语言日。

Arabic (18 December)

Chinese (20 April)

English (23 April)

French (20 March)

Russian (6 June)

Spanish (23 April)

4. Did you know the EU has 23 official languages? 欧盟有23种官方工作语言（最新好像是24种了）

As of 2010, the EU has 23 official working languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish.

5. Which languages are disappearing? 哪些语言在消亡？

“Every year the world loses around 25 mother tongues.” — Foundation for Endangered Languages

*Foundation for Endangered Languages — https://www.ogmios.org/

6. Did you know that (most) languages belong to a family? 语系的概念

A family is a group of languages that can be shown to be genetically related to one another. The best-known languages are those of the Indo-European family, to which English belongs.

Major language families: 主要语系如下

Niger–Congo (1,542 languages) (21.7%) – 尼日尔-刚果语系，非洲中南部。

Austronesian (1,257 languages) (17.7%) – 南岛语系，南太平洋群岛。

Trans–New Guinea (482 languages) (6.8%) – 跨新几内亚语系，巴布亚新几内亚及邻近岛屿

Sino-Tibetan (455 languages) (6.4%) – 汉藏语系，大中华、南亚、东南亚地区。

Indo-European (448 languages) (6.3%) – 印欧语系，分布地域最广，欧洲、南美、南亚、大洋洲

Australian [dubious] (381 languages) (5.4%) – 澳洲语系（存疑）

Afro-Asiatic (377 languages) (5.3%) – 非亚语系（亦称亚非语系，闪含语系），阿拉伯半岛、非洲北部

Nilo-Saharan [dubious] (206 languages) (2.9%) – 尼罗-撒哈拉语系（存疑）

Oto-Manguean (178 languages) (2.5%) – 欧托-曼格语系，美洲原住民，墨西哥

Austroasiatic (167 languages) (2.3%) – 南亚语系，中南半岛

Tai–Kadai (91 languages) (1.3%) – 壮侗语系，中国南部、东南亚