Major Language Families
Below is a list of phylogenetic units. They are the top ten languages in the world; the means of measurement is the number of native speakers as a proportion of world population, listed with their surrounding geographic regions.
- Indo-European languages?46% (Europe,?Southwest to?South Asia,?America,?Oceania)
- Sino-Tibetan languages?21% (East Asia)
- Niger-Congo languages?6.4% (Sub-Saharan Africa)
- Afro-Asiatic languages?6.0% (North Africa?to?Horn of Africa,?Southwest Asia)
- Austronesian languages?5.9% (Oceania,?Madagascar,?maritime Southeast Asia)
- Dravidian languages?3.7% (South Asia)
- Altaic languages?2.3% (Central Asia,?Northern Asia,?Anatolia,?Siberia)
- Japonic languages?2.1% (Japan)
- Austro-Asiatic languages?1.7% (mainland Southeast Asia)
10. Tai-Kadai languages?1.3% (Southeast Asia)
Phyla* with historically wide geographical distributions but comparatively few contemporary speakers include?Eskimo-Aleut,?Na-Den?,?Algic,?Quechuan and?Nilo-Saharan.