Language family

Language families are groups of languages that are related to each other because they come from a common older language. The languages in such a family are similar in their vocabulary or structure.

For example, French and Spanish both come from Latin. Latin was spoken a long time ago, and some of the people who spoke it started to speak different ways - for the word "good", one group started saying "bueno" while another group started saying "bon". Most words are said a little differently in Spanish and French, so the two are called different languages.

Most languages belong to a language family, but some languages do not. These languages are called language isolates.

There also are constructed languages, such as Esperanto. Constructed languages are made for different reasons: making a 'world language', for fun, for use in fiction, etc.

Major language families

By number of languages

Ethnologue 22 (2019) lists these language families as "major". Each has at least 1% of all languages on Earth:

Niger–Congo (1,542 languages) (21.7%)
Austronesian (1,257 languages) (17.7%)
Trans–New Guinea (482 languages) (6.8%)
Sino-Tibetan (455 languages) (6.4%)
Indo-European (448 languages) (6.3%)
Australian [dubious] (381 languages) (5.4%)
Afro-Asiatic (377 languages) (5.3%)
Nilo-Saharan [dubious] (206 languages) (2.9%)
Oto-Manguean (178 languages) (2.5%)
Austroasiatic (167 languages) (2.3%)
Tai–Kadai (91 languages) (1.3%)
Dravidian (86 languages) (1.2%)
Tupian (76 languages) (1.1%)

Glottolog 4.0 (2019) lists the following as the largest families, of 8,494 languages:

Atlantic–Congo (1,432 languages)
Austronesian (1,275 languages)
Indo-European (588 languages)
Sino-Tibetan (494 languages)
Afro-Asiatic (373 languages)
Nuclear Trans–New Guinea (314 languages)
Pama–Nyungan (248 languages)
Oto-Manguean (180 languages)
Austroasiatic (159 languages)
Tai–Kadai (94 languages)
Dravidian (81 languages)
Arawakan (78 languages)
Mande (75 languages)
Tupian (71 languages)