Key points from the chart
- The Great Language Race draws the world’s major language families as branching tracks on a circular timeline, from 5000 BC at the centre to the present at the edge.
- 139 living languages and language groups end in a label with their name in their own script and an English name, and a speaker count.
- English (1,500,000,000) and Standard Mandarin (1,100,000,000) have the largest counts, followed by Spanish (560,000,000) and Hindi (500,000,000).
- Extinct languages such as Gothic, Akkadian, Etruscan and Classical Nahuatl end early, marked with a skull.
- Badges mark events such as the Bronze Age Collapse in 1200 BC, the Fall of Rome and the Mongol Empire Expansion.
- All figures are from the graphic, by Kolya Fabrika, which names no data source.
Every language on the Great Language Race
Title in the centre: Great Language Race. Credit: (cc) Kolya Fabrika, kolyafabrika.com. Time rings: 5000 BC, 2000 BC, 1000 BC, AD 1, AD 500, AD 1000 and AD 1500. Each label gives the native name in its own script, which we have not reproduced, then the English name and speaker count below. “Liturgical” replaces a count for languages used in worship. Entries marked * are discussed in the notes.
| Family or branch | Living languages and speakers as printed | Extinct (skull icon) |
|---|---|---|
| Indo-European, Germanic | Yiddish 600,000; Standard German 130,000,000; Swiss German 4,500,000; Afrikaans 20,000,000; Dutch 10,000,000*; Flemish 5,300,000*; English 1,500,000,000; Danish 6,000,000; Swedish 24,000,000*; Norwegian 6,500,000*; Icelandic 360,000 | Gothic, Vandal, Crimean Gothic, Norn |
| Indo-European, Baltic-Slavic | Latvian 2,000,000; Lithuanian 3,500,000; Polish 50,000,000; Czech 11,000,000; Slovak 6,000,000; Slovene 2,600,000; Croatian 7,000,000; Serbian 10,000,000; Bulgarian 10,000,000; Church Slavonic (Liturgical); Russian 260,000,000; Belorussian 6,000,000; Ukrainian 40,000,000; Rusyn 10,000 | Prussian, Old Novgorod |
| Indo-European, Celtic | Irish 1,800,000; Welsh 900,000 | Manx, Pictish, Gaulish |
| Indo-European, Hellenic | Greek 13,000,000 | Aeolic, Ionic, Doric |
| Indo-European, Italic | Church Latin (Liturgical); Sardinian 1,350,000; Romanian 28,000,000; Venetian 3,800,000; French 300,000,000; Occitan 2,200,000; Catalan 10,000,000; Italian 67,000,000; Sicilian 4,700,000; Spanish 560,000,000; Portuguese 264,000,000 | Umbrian, Oscan |
| Indo-European, Albanian and Armenian | Albanian 7,500,000; Armenian 7,000,000 | |
| Indo-European, Indo-Iranian | Ossetian 600,000; Pashto 44,000,000; Mazanderani 4,600,000; Gilaki 1,450,000; Kurdish 40,000,000; Tajik 9,000,000; Persian 110,000,000; Sanskrit (Liturgical); Kashmiri 7,000,000; Marathi 83,000,000; Oriya 35,000,000; Bengali 265,000,000; Nepali 25,000,000; Punjabi 130,000,000; Sindhi 30,000,000; Gujarati 55,000,000; Hindi 500,000,000; Urdu 230,000,000; Kamkata-Vari 150,000 | Bactrian, Scythian, Avestan, Tocharian |
| Dravidian | Brahui 2,800,000; Malaylam 38,000,000; Tamil 80,000,000; Kannada 45,000,000; Gondi 3,000,000; Telegu 83,000,000 | |
| Niger-Congo | Ibibio 6,000,000; Edo 1,500,000; Yoruba 50,000,000; Igbo 30,000,000; Kru (Bassa Vah) 7,000,000; Akan 12,000,000; Ewe 5,000,000; Soninke 2,100,000; Mandinka 3,300,000; Bambara 15,000,000; Mende 2,000,000; Xhosa 8,200,000; Zulu 12,000,000; Nyanja 14,000,000; Chiga 2,000,000; Swahili 150,000,000; Kongo 7,000,000; Rundi 20,000,000; Izon 3,000,000 | |
| Nilo-Saharan | Kanuri 4,500,000; Nubian 2,500,000; Acholi 1,700,000; Kalenjin 5,000,000; Luo 4,200,000 | |
| Languages of the Americas | Cariban languages (Makuxi) 70,000; Guarani 7,000,000; Aymara 2,500,000; Quechua I/II 10,000,000; Nahuatl 1,700,000; Yucatec Maya 800,000 | Classic Maya, Quechua Inca, Classical Nahuatl |
| Austronesian, Austro-Asiatic and New Guinea | Trans-New Guinea languages 3,000,000; Oceanic Languages 2,000,000; Sundanese 40,000,000; Malay 77,000,000; Indonesian 200,000,000; Tagalog 70,000,000; Santali 7,600,000; Mon 850,000; Khmer 16,000,000; Vietnamese 85,000,000 | |
| Sino-Tibetan | Tibetan 7,000,000; Burmese 33,000,000; Suzhou 2,300,000; Hokkien 30,000,000; Min Nan 49,000,000; Jin 63,000,000; Cantonese 85,000,000; Pinghua 3,000,000; Hakka 34,000,000; Standard Mandarin 1,100,000,000; Taiwanese Mandarin 16,000,000 | Old Tibetan |
| Kra-Dai, Hmong-Mien, Japanese and Korean | Tai 80,000,000; Hmong 4,100,000; Japanese 128,000,000; Korean 80,000,000 | |
| Turkic and Mongolic | Chuvash 1,100,000; Uyghur 11,000,000; Kirgiz 4,500,000; Tatar 5,200,000; Uzbek 27,000,000; Kazakh 14,000,000; Turkmen 7,500,000; Turkish 90,000,000; Yakut 450,000; Mongol 5,200,000 | Bulgar, Pecheneg, Hunnic |
| Caucasian, Uralic and Basque | Nakh-Dagestani 4,600,000; Northwest Caucasian 2,300,000; Georgian 4,500,000; Hungarian 13,000,000; Udmurt 400,000; Finnish 5,400,000; Estonian 1,100,000; Basque 800,000 | Sumer, Hattic, Etruscan |
| Afro-Asiatic | Wolaytta 2,000,000; Hausa 2,000,000; Kabyle 7,000,000; Shilha 4,000,000; Coptic 2,000,000; Oromo 37,000,000; Somali 17,000,000; Amharic 25,000,000; Tigrinya 9,000,000; Neo-Aramaic 600,000; Arabic 470,000,000; Quranic Arabic (Liturgical); Hebrew 9,000,000 | Old South Arabian, Ethiopic/Ge’ez, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Amorite, Minoan, Hittite |
Branch labels on the lines: Indo-European Languages, Germanic, Old Dutch, Old Norse, Baltic-Slavic, Baltic, Slavic, West, South, East, Old Rus, Celtic, Hellenic, Italic, Latin, Vulgar Latin, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Caspian, Old Persian, Indo-Aryan, Nuristani, Magadhi, Shauraseni, Dravidian, Niger-Congo, Volta-Congo, Volta-Niger, Kwa, Mande, Bantoid, Ijoid, Nilo-Saharan, Je-Tupi-Carib, Quechumaran, Quechuan, Uto-Aztecan, Austronesian, Western Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Austro-Asiatic, Vietic, Sino-Tibetan, Old Chinese, Tibeto-Burman, Bodic, Kra-Dai, Hmong-Mien, Turkic, Common Turkic, Oghuric, Uralic, Baltic-Finnic, Semito-Hamitic, Semitic, Egyptian.
Event badges: Viking Expansion; Migration Period AD 500; Alexander the Great 300s BC; Rise of Rome; Fall of Rome; Aryan Migration to India 1500 BC; Bronze Age Collapse 1200 BC; Mongol Empire Expansion.
How the speaker counts compare with Ethnologue
The graphic does not say where its speaker numbers come from or whether they count first language speakers only or everyone who speaks a language. Wikipedia’s summary of Ethnologue’s 2026 figures [2] shows the counts for the largest languages are close to total speakers (first and second language), with some clear exceptions:
| Language | Speakers on the graphic | Ethnologue first language (millions) | Ethnologue total (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 1,500,000,000 | 372 | 1,493 |
| Standard Mandarin | 1,100,000,000 | 988 | 1,183 |
| Hindi | 500,000,000 | 347 | 611 |
| Spanish | 560,000,000 | 487 | 561 |
| French | 300,000,000 | 75 | 334 |
| Bengali | 265,000,000 | 234 | 274 |
| Portuguese | 264,000,000 | 252 | 269 |
| Indonesian | 200,000,000 | 78 | 255 |
| Russian | 260,000,000 | 133 | 210 |
| Swahili | 150,000,000 | 4 | 95 |
| Hausa | 2,000,000 | 58 | 94 |
English, Mandarin, Spanish and Portuguese sit close to Ethnologue’s totals. Hindi, Indonesian and French are lower, Russian and Swahili are higher, and Hausa is far lower (see the notes).
Language families on the chart
The Indo-European family takes up the largest part of the circle, and it is the largest family by number of living speakers [3]. Counting languages rather than speakers gives a different picture: Ethnologue lists Niger-Congo with 1,552 languages and Austronesian with 1,256, ahead of Trans-New Guinea, Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European [3]. The chart shows only a selection of languages from each family, so the number of branches drawn does not reflect the size of a family.
Notes on this infographic
- Germanic labels swapped. Four labels pair a native name with the wrong English name: “Svenska” is labelled Dutch, “Norsk” Flemish, “Nederlands” Swedish and “Vlaams” Norwegian. The counts follow the native names, so read Dutch (Nederlands) 24,000,000, Swedish (Svenska) 10,000,000, Flemish (Vlaams) 6,500,000 and Norwegian (Norsk) 5,300,000.
- Hausa. The graphic gives 2,000,000. Ethnologue’s figure is 58 million first language and 94 million total speakers [2].
- Spellings as printed. “Malaylam” (Malayalam), “Telegu” (Telugu), “Belorussian” (Belarusian) and “Tai” for Thai, whose native name ภาษาไทย is the Thai language.
- Small print. The speaker counts are printed very small. We read each one from zoomed crops of the full 4000 pixel image, but a few may still be misread.
- No source or date. The graphic gives no data source and no date for its counts.
Questions about language families
What are the 7 major language families?
There is no single agreed list of seven. By number of languages, Ethnologue’s seven largest families are Niger-Congo (1,552), Austronesian (1,256), Trans-New Guinea (481), Sino-Tibetan (458), Indo-European (454), Australian (384) and Afroasiatic (382) [3]. By number of speakers, Indo-European is the largest [3].
Sources
- Kolya Fabrika, kolyafabrika.com (archived December 2024). The creator’s site, printed on the graphic.
- Wikipedia, List of languages by total number of speakers (Ethnologue 2026 figures).
- Wikipedia, Language family.
Last reviewed 30 October 2026
