The country with the most spoken languages

Time of India

12 hours ago

It's not India or China, if that's what you thought. Surprisingly, the answer lies in the islands of Oceania. Papua New Guinea, a nation with a population of just 9.4 million, holds the distinction of being the most linguistically diverse country on Earth.
According to the Our World in Data compiled by SIL International, Papua New Guinea is home to 840 living languages, which is far more than any other country in the world.When this is taken in context of 7,000 living languages spoken globally, this means more than 10% of the world's linguistic wealth is concentrated in this one island nation.
What is meant by a 'living language?'
It's defined as that language which is spoken as a first language by at least one person.
It is distinct from 'extinct' languages, which no longer have native speakers, or 'second languages,' which are learned in addition to one's mother tongue. By this measure, Papua New Guinea is unmatched in variety and richness.
How did so many language emerge?
Papua New Guinea's linguistic kaleidoscope has roots stretching way back. Humans first settled the region nearly 50,000 years ago, which gave it ample amount of time to develop, diverge, and multiply, and eventually shape-shift into hundreds of distinct forms.
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Fast forward about 3,500 years, a new wave of settlers arrived, the Austronesian-speaking seafarers landed on the island, which further added their voices to the mix.
This further added even more linguistic variety.
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It's also interesting to note that unlike many parts of the world, this island nation never developed a strong, centralised authority in its early history. In other regions, empires and kingdoms often promoted a dominant language for administration and trade, which reduced linguistic fragmentation over time.
In Papua New Guinea, that process never occurred.
Geography also played a decisive role. The country's rugged mountain ranges, deep valleys, and isolated river systems separated communities from one another for centuries. Cut off from one another, villages and clans invented their own ways of speaking, passing them down like family heirlooms. The result? Even two settlements just a short distance apart might speak entirely different languages.
Languages by the numbers
(sourced from
ourworldindata.org
)
Papua New Guinea's tally of 840 living languages places it far ahead of other multilingual nations. The top 10 countries with the highest number of living languages as of 2024 are:
Papua New Guinea – 840
Indonesia – 710
Nigeria – 530
India – 453
China – 306
Mexico – 293
Cameroon – 279
United States - 236
Australia – 224
Brazil – 222
What makes Papua New Guinea especially remarkable is that its linguistic diversity exists despite its relatively small population compared to giants like India, the United States., or China.
Papua New Guinea's languages span a wide range of families, from the Papuan languages, spoken by communities long before the Austronesian migration, to the Austronesian group itself.
In fact, many Papua New Guineans grow up in multilingual environments, speaking their village language, a regional lingua franca, and often Tok Pisin (a creole widely used as a national language).
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For outsiders, it can be difficult to imagine such a landscape. In some cases, two villages separated by only a few kilometers may speak entirely different languages, with little mutual intelligibility. Each language often carries with it unique oral traditions, cultural practices, and knowledge systems, making the country a treasure trove for linguists and anthropologists alike.
Why it matters
The preservation of languages in Papua New Guinea is not just a matter of statistics, it is about safeguarding cultural identity. Each tongue encodes stories, ecological knowledge, and ways of seeing the world that are irreplaceable once lost. With globalisation and modern pressures, many of these languages face challenges of survival, as younger generations shift toward more widely spoken tongues.
Still, the sheer number of living languages in Papua New Guinea reflects a resilience of cultural diversity that few places on Earth can match.
It serves as a reminder that language is more than a means of communication—it is a living record of human history.
The world's linguistic capital
While nations like Indonesia, Nigeria, and India boast hundreds of languages, Papua New Guinea stands in a category of its own. Its unparalleled linguistic mosaic makes it the world's linguistic capital, where language is not just a tool but a symbol of identity, heritage, and continuity.