Languages of Asia

Of the many language families of Asia, Indo-European (purple, blue, and medium green) and Sino-Tibetan (chartreuse and pink) dominate numerically, while Altaic families (grey, bright green, and maroon) occupy large areas geographically. Regionally dominant families are Japonic in Japan, Austronesian in the Malay Archipelago (dark red), Kadai and Mon–Khmer in Southeast Asia (azure and peach), Dravidian in South India (khaki), Turkic in Central Asia (grey), and Semitic in the Mideast (orange).

There is a wide variety of languages spoken throughout Asia, comprising a number of families and some unrelated isolates. Asian languages usually have a long tradition of writing, but not always.

Language groups

The major families in terms of numbers are Indo-European in South Asia and Sino-Tibetan in East Asia. Several other families are regionally dominant.

Sino-Tibetan

Sino-Tibetan includes Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, and numerous languages of the Tibetan Plateau, southern China, Burma, and North east India.

Indo-European

The Indo-European family is represented by the Indic branch, which includes Hindi, Urdu and many other languages of India (Assamese, Bengali etc.), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives; the Iranian branch, which includes Persian, Pashto, and other languages of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia; the Slavic branch, which includes Russian in Siberia; Greek around the Black Sea; and Armenian; as well as extinct languages such as Hittite of Anatolia and Tocharian of (Chinese) Turkestan.

Altaic families

A number of smaller, but important language families spread across central and northern Asia have long been linked in an as-yet unproven Altaic family. These are the Turkic languages, Mongolic languages, Tungusic languages (including Manchu), Korean, and Japonic languages.

Mon–Khmer

The Mon–Khmer languages (Austroasiatic languages) are the oldest family in Asia. They include Vietnamese and Khmer (Cambodian).

Tai–Kadai

The Tai-Kadai languages (or just Kadai) of southern China spread in historic times into Southeast Asia, where Thai (Siamese) and Lao are official languages.

Austronesian

The Austronesian languages include the languages of the Philippines and most of the languages of Indonesia (excluding inland New Guinea), such as Malay (Indonesian) and Tagalog (Filipino).

Dravidian

The Dravidian languages of southern India and parts of Sri Lanka include Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam, while smaller languages such as Gondi and Brahui are spoken in central India and Pakistan respectively.

Afro-Asiatic

The Afroasiatic languages are represented by the Semitic group spoken in Southwest Asia. It includes Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and extinct languages such as Babylonian.

Siberian families

Besides the Altaic families already mentioned (of which Tungusic is today a minor family of Siberia), there are a number of small language families and isolates spoken across northern Asia. These include the Uralic languages of western Siberia (better known for Hungarian and Finnish in Europe), the Yeniseian languages (linked to the Athabaskan languages of North America), Yukaghir, Nivkh of Sakhalin, Ainu of northern Japan, Chukotko-Kamchatkan in easternmost Siberia, and—just barely—Eskimo–Aleut.

Caucasian families

Three small families are spoken in the Northeast Caucasian (Dagestanian languages), such as Chechen; and Northwest Caucasian, such as Circassian. The latter two may be related to each other. The extinct Hurro-Urartian languages may be related as well.

Small families of South Asia

Although dominated by major languages and families, there are number of minor families and isolates in South Asia. From west to east, these include

• extinct languages of the Fertile Crescent such as Sumerian and Elamite;
• small groups of the Indian subcontinent and Andaman Islands: Burushaski, Kusunda, Nihali, Great Andamanese, Ongan, and the recently proposed Siangic;
• Hmong–Mien (Miao–Yao) scattered across southern China and Southeast Asia;
• several "Papuan" families of the central and eastern Malay Archipelago: languages of Halmahera, East Timor, and the extinct Tambora of Sumbawa. Numerous additional families are spoken in Indonesian New Guinea, but this lies outside the scope of an article on Asian languages.

Creoles and pidgins

The eponymous pidgin ("business") language developed with European trade in China. Of the many creoles to have developed, the most spoken today are Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole of the Philippines, and various Malay-based creoles such as Manado Malay influenced by Portuguese. A very well-known Portuguese-based creole is the Kristang, which is spoken in Malacca, a city-state in Malaysia.

Sign languages

A number of sign languages are spoken throughout Asia. These include the Japanese Sign Language family, Chinese Sign Language, Indo-Pakistani Sign Language, as well as a number of small indigenous sign languages of countries such as Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam. Many official sign languages are part of the French Sign Language family.

Official languages

Asia and Europe are the only two continents where most countries use native languages as their official languages, though English is also widespread.

Language	Speakers	Language Family	Official Status in a Country	Official Status in a Region
Abkhaz	240,000	Northwest Caucasian	Abkhazia	Georgia
Arabic	230,000,000	Afro-Asiatic	Qatar,  Jordan,  Saudi Arabia,  Iraq,  Yemen,  Kuwait,  Bahrain,  Syria,  Palestine,  Lebanon,  Oman,  UAE,  Israel
Armenian	5,902,970	Indo-European	Armenia	Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan)
Azerbaijani	37,324,060	Turkic	Azerbaijan	Iran,  Dagestan (Russia)
Bengali	150,000,000	Indo-European	Bangladesh	India (in West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Andaman and Nicobar islands and Jharkhand)
Burmese	33,000,000	Sino-Tibetan	Myanmar
Cantonese	7,800,000	Sino-Tibetan		Hong Kong(China),  Macau(China)
Dari	9,600,000	Indo-European	Afghanistan
Dhivehi	400,000	Indo-European	Maldives
Dzongkha	600,000	Sino-Tibetan	Bhutan
English		Indo-European	The Philippines,  Singapore,  India,  Pakistan	Hong Kong (China)
Filipino	90,000,000	Austronesian	The Philippines
Georgian	4,200,000	Kartvelian	Georgia
Greek	11,000,000	Indo-European	Cyprus,  Greece
Hebrew	7,000,000	Afro-Asiatic	Israel
Hindi	400,000,000	Indo-European	India
Indonesian	240,000,000	Austronesian	Indonesia
Japanese	120,000,000	Japonic	Japan
Kazakh	18,000,000	Turkic	Kazakhstan
Khmer	14,000,000	Austroasiatic	Cambodia
Korean	80,000,000	Koreanic	South Korea,  North Korea	China (in Yanbian and Changbai)
Kurdish	20,000,000	Indo-European	Iraq
Kyrgyz	2,900,000	Turkic	Kyrgyzstan
Lao	7,000,000	Tai-Kadai	Laos
Mandarin	1,300,000,000	Sino-Tibetan	China,  Taiwan,  Singapore
Malay	30,000,000	Austronesian	Malaysia,  Brunei,  Singapore
Marathi	73,000,000	Indo-European		India (in Maharashtra and Dadra and Nagar Haveli)
Mongolian	2,000,000	Mongolic	Mongolia
Nepali	29,000,000	Indo-European	Nepal	India (in Sikkim and West Bengal)
Odia	33,000,000	Indo-European		India (in Odisha and Jharkhand)
Ossetian	540,000 (50,000 in South Ossetia)	Indo-European	South Ossetia	Russia)
Pashto	45,000,000	Indo-European	Afghanistan
Persian	50,000,000	Indo-European	Iran
Urdu	62,120,540	Indo-European	Pakistan	India (in Jammu and Kashmir, Telangana, Delhi, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
Saraiki	18,179,610	Indo-European	Pakistan	Pakistan (in Bahawalpur )  India (in Andhra Pradesh )
Portuguese	1,200,000	Indo-European	Timor Leste	Macau (China)
Russian	260,000,000	Indo-European	Kyrgyzstan,  Kazakhstan,  Russia
Sinhala	18,000,000	Indo-European	Sri Lanka
Tamil	80,000,000	Dravidian	Sri Lanka,  Singapore	India (in Tamil Nadu, Andaman and Nicobar islands and Puducherry)
Telugu	100,000,000	Dravidian		India (in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Puducherry,)
Tajik	4,500,000	Indo-European	Tajikistan
Tetum	500,000	Austronesian	Timor Leste
Thai	60,000,000	Tai-Kadai	Thailand
Turkish	70,000,000	Turkic	Turkey,  Cyprus	Northern Cyprus
Turkmen	7,000,000	Turkic	Turkmenistan
Uzbek	25,000,000	Turkic	Uzbekistan
Vietnamese	80,000,000	Austroasiatic	Vietnam

See also

• Asianic languages
• East Asian languages
• Languages of South Asia
• List of extinct languages of Asia
• Classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages