Welcome to the 25th edition

Gary Simons | February 21, 2022

As our contribution to the celebration of International Mother Language Day, we are pleased to announce the release of the 25th edition of Ethnologue. Mother Language Day, February 21, reminds the world of the importance of the lesser-known languages of the world. Because knowledge about lesser-known languages has been a focus of the Ethnologue since its inception in 1951, we are pleased to be able to provide our most up-to-date information about the languages of the world each year on this day. This new edition is the result of over 13,000 updates that have been made to the Ethnologue database since the 24th edition was released one year ago. The descriptions of 3,480 languages contain at least one update. These include both substantive changes to the data, as well as stylistic ones as we continually seek to improve the presentation of the data.

Not only are languages constantly changing, so is what we know about them. Therefore the total number of living languages in the world cannot be known precisely. That number changes as knowledge of the world’s languages improves. This edition lists a total of 7,151 living languages worldwide—a net increase of 12 living languages since the 24th edition of Ethnologue was published one year ago. This is the result of changes in the extinction status of some languages and of updating Ethnologue to keep it aligned with the ISO 639-3 inventory of languages. This edition drops 10 languages that were listed as living in the previous edition (4 being changed in status from living to extinct, 3 having been merged in the ISO standard into another language, and 3 having been removed because they were duplicates or could not be substantiated as ever having been a language). Conversely, 22 languages are newly listed as living (2 having been shifted in status from extinct to dormant, 5 being split from existing languages, and 15 having been added by the ISO standard as not being previously identified—8 of which are sign languages).

The special focus of the editorial team for this new edition has been on updating and improving the information on the use of languages in education. Previous editions have said simply “Taught in primary schools” or “Taught in secondary schools” without making a distinction between use as the language of instruction for the basic curriculum versus as a subject of instruction. The use of a language as one or the other is often limited to particular grade levels; such details were not previously reported. In preparation for this edition, we have consulted with SIL International’s global network of literacy and education specialists to significantly improve our information on language use in education. The statements now say “Taught in” versus “Taught as subject in” to distinguish between a language of instruction versus a subject of instruction. They also include details like “through grade 3” or “from grade 4” to indicate when the described use ends or begins. The current data indicate that 329 of the world’s languages are used as a language of basic curriculum, with an additional 391 being taught as a language subject.

This edition also incorporates a number of improvements to the language maps. These include the addition of new maps for Czechia and Hungary, and the enlargement of some of the maps for Brazil, Myanmar, Nepal, and Nigeria to show greater detail.

Along with these updates and improvements to the website, we have updated all of the country digests to reflect the 25th edition data. The global dataset is similarly updated. The 25th edition of the three print volumes will be released in short order.

And the job is not finished yet! As we work diligently to research the language situation of the world, we will continue to benefit from the knowledge of our users who are familiar with specific countries and languages. We value your input and we encourage you to join our Contributor Program. With a contributor account you will be entitled to complimentary access to the website and will be able to use the Contribute tab on the page for a language or country in order to propose corrections and additions.

On Mother Language Day, we hope you will be able to find your mother language (or perhaps that of one of your ancestors) in the Ethnologue and celebrate the linguistic diversity that enriches our world.