Show r Worlds World's T orld's Languages In a comprehensive work on languages language'S of the world published in Paris no less than tongues and systems of writing are arc listed But the actual number worthy of classification tion as distinct languages has been computed by b officials oT oI the French Academy to be 2796 Chinese including its many dia dia- dialects dialects a.- a. is used by more people than any other language in the world about million There are arc about different characters used in n Chinese writing English is spoken by about million people far more than cne- cne half of whom are citizens of f the United States Several million more in various parts of the world know v enough English words to make it possible for them to 10 carry carryon on s sim sIm- simple sImple m- m mple conversations conversations- for the th purpose Se of barter and the Eke Russian and its various dialects is spoken by more than mil mil- lion Other principal languages with figures representing the num num- number ber of millions by whom they ar are e spoken include the following Jap Jap- Japanese Japanese anese 90 Spanish SO 8 German 78 is 7 French 62 Portuguese 47 41 Italian 43 The above figures are arc estimates of the number of people actually y speaking the languages named an and d do not include those of native col col- colonies colonies colonies onies and acid t others an who do not use the language of the governing na na- tion India for example while un un- under Under der British rule has more than tha n million inhabitants who vho do not no t speak English but use scores of na native n s tive languages and dialects |