Papua New Guinea: Land of 800 languages

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

12-30-2009 @ 2:09PM

Doug said...

If 5 people speaking a language counts (as it does for Papa New Guinea), then the United States should be much larger, and Europe should probably be larger too. I would wager that there are at least 5 people in the United States (as well as England, France, and Germany) speaking each of the major languages on earth, and a whole boatload of the minor ones as well. How many native american languages are still spoken?

12-30-2009 @ 3:26PM

Zack said...

Doug, the text right under the map says languages produced, not languages spoken. English only counts for England, French only for France. The size of the U.S. on that map is therefore almost entirely due to Native American languages ("almost" due to Hawaiian and Hawaiian Pidgin, if nothing else).

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