How many languages are used throughout the world today?

There are over 3,000 languages that are used throughout the world today. Almost all of these languages belong to a much smaller number of language families. All of the languages within a language family are related and all of them have a similar history. Therefore, the grammar, vocabulary, and sounds of related languages are similar. In addition, the way of thinking and the style of talking among related languages is similar.
    Even though there are over 3,000 languages that are used today, there are only 20 or 30 major language families.
    Let’s take a brief look at some of the largest language families. Each of these large families includes many individual languages. The language that we are using now is English and English is, of course, a member of a large language family. English is a member of the Indo-European language family. The Indo-European language includes most of the languages that are spoken throughout Europe, languages such as English, French and Greek. Of course, nowadays, many Indo-European languages are spoken in other parts of the world. For instance, Spanish, which is an Indo-European language is spoken throughout South and Central America, but originally it was spoken only in Europe.
    Another large language family is the Afro-Asiatic family. The Afro-Asiatic family includes most languages in the area of North Africa and the Middle East. Language such as Arabic, which is spoken throughout the Middle East, and many of the local languages of the Sahara Desert region such as Hausa are members of the same family. Another large family is Bantu. Bantu includes most of the languages spoken in central and southern Africa.
    In the past few hundred years, there has been a great deal of change in Africa, and outside languages, such as French, are now spoken in some areas of central Africa and southern Africa. A fourth large group of languages is the Sino-Tibetan family. Sino-Tibetan includes all dialects of Chinese, which is perhaps the most widely used language in the world. There are nearly eight hundred million speakers of Chinese dialects. Sino-Tibetan also includes the languages of Southeast Asia, languages such as Vietnamese and Thai. Of course, not all the languages of East Asia belong to this family. Some languages such as Japanese seem to be completely unrelated to the Sino-Tibetan family.
    Still another major language family is Polynesian. The Polynesian languages are island languages. They are spoken on the islands around Indonesia, and on the many islands eastward all the way to Hawaii, and on the islands west all the way to Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa. Hawaiian and Indonesian are examples of Polynesian languages. Apparently, these languages were spread by travelers from islands to islands, and then each group of islands developed its own individual language.
    These five language groups, or language families, which we have mentioned here are only a few of the major language families from around the world. There are many more. You should also note that each major language family has several smaller families within it.