Languages of the World
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Language family

Sino-Tibetan

Several hundred languages of East and South-East Asia and the Himalayas. The Sinitic (Chinese) languages – Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min, Hakka and others – account for most speakers; the family also includes Tibetan, Burmese, Dzongkha and many smaller languages of north-eastern India, Nepal and Myanmar. Most are tonal.

15 languages on this site · c. 1.7 billion speakers in total (sum of estimates, bilingual people counted more than once) · the main official language in 6 countries.

Highlighted countries: the main official language belongs to this family.

Sinitic (Chinese) 7

  1. Chinese 1.3 billion
  2. Wu Chinese 85 million
  3. Cantonese 82 million
  4. Xiang Chinese 41 million
  5. Min Nan Chinese 41 million
  6. Hakka Chinese 35 million
  7. Gan Chinese 24 million

Lolo-Burmese 2

  1. Burmese 37 million
  2. Sichuan Yi 8.5 million

Bodic (Tibetic) 3

  1. Tibetan 3.1 million
  2. Dzongkha 419 thousand
  3. Tshangla 133 thousand

Brahmaputran 1

  1. Bodo 2.0 million

Kuki-Chin-Naga 1

  1. Manipuri 1.6 million

Himalayish 1

  1. Newari 1.0 million

Classification: Glottolog (CC BY 4.0). Branches are selected nodes of the Glottolog tree.