Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com/web.asp) is a site that lists the world’s known languages. It is an excellent resource for scholars and others with language interests and contains statistical summaries of the number of language speakers by language size, family, and country. Using Ethnologue, try the following:

a. Visit the China page. What is the population of China? Of the country’s nearly 300 languages, which has the largest number of speakers? Which has the second-most speakers?

How do these figures compare to the total number of English speakers in the English-speaking countries of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States?

b. Visit the Spain page. How many people live in Spain? How many native Spanish speakers are in Spain? How many languages altogether are spoken in Spain?

c. Switzerland is one of the smallest European countries.

What are the major languages of Switzerland, and how many speakers does each have?

d. Ethnologue’s Statistics section shows the distribution of living languages as a percent of world population. Which world region has the most languages? Which region has the fewest? Why do you suppose those regions evolved in such a way?

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