Languages of China

Languages of China• Chinese has the most speakers of any language.• It is one of the world’s oldest languages spoken by

the greatest contiguous population on Earth.• Southern China-the most variety and dialects-most

are mutually unintelligible.• Some scholars argue that for this reason-it is not one

language, but several.• Mandarin-the dominate language of the North

spoken by 700 million including Beijing.• Wu is next with 100 million speakers in Shanghai

area.• Yue-or Cantonese is spoken by 70 million in the SE.

Languages of China

Chinese Ideograms

Fig. 5-13: Chinese language ideograms mostly represent concepts rather than sounds. The two basic characters at the top can be built into more complex words.

Street scene in Hong Kong,Now known as XianggangSince 1997 take over byRed China.

Languages of India• India had 4 language

families with the largest being Indo-European and Dravidian.

• There are 15 major languages-all but 4 are Indo-European.

• Over 1,600 lesser languages.

• The largest Indo-European language is Hindi

• Largest Dravidian tongue is Telugu.

South Asian Languages & Language Families

Fig. 5-7: Indo-European is the largest of four main language families in South Asia. The country of India has 18 official languages.

Languages of Africa

• There are 1,000 spoken languages in Africa and many are unwritten.

• There are 4 major indigenous language families;

• Afro-Asiatic of N. Africa• Nilo-Saharan• Niger-Congo• Khosian• Largest ethnic groups are

associated with a language.

Languages of Subsaharan Africa

- extreme language diversity

- effects of colonialism

NigeriaMore than 400 different languages.