Summary by language status

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Table 4 summarizes the distribution of living languages in the world by their status in terms of language development or language endangerment. The EGIDS column categorizes the languages by their level on the EGIDS scale. Consult Language Status for a description of the levels in the scale.

The next six columns are as in Table 2. In addition, the Mean column gives the average population of all the languages with the given EGIDS level and the Median column gives the median population for the languages at that level, that is, half of the languages at that level have a higher population and half have a lower population. If there are any languages with an unknown population, these are ignored in the calculation of the mean and the median.

Table 4. Distribution of world languages by vitality status

EGIDS Living languages Number of speakers
Count Percent Cumulative Total Percent Cumulative Mean Median
0 6 0.1 0.1% 2,001,333,200 27.4137 27.4137% 333,555,533 263,451,885
1 100 1.4 1.5% 2,204,789,226 30.2006 57.6143% 22,047,892 6,087,050
2 76 1.1 2.5% 830,057,322 11.3699 68.9842% 10,921,807 1,254,800
3 165 2.3 4.9% 691,837,580 9.4766 78.4608% 4,192,955 782,800
4 185 2.6 7.4% 286,215,369 3.9205 82.3813% 1,547,110 248,700
5 1,602 22.4 29.8% 891,947,187 12.2176 94.5990% 556,771 33,000
6a 1,972 27.6 57.4% 309,584,366 4.2406 98.8396% 156,990 13,600
6b 1,629 22.8 80.2% 72,668,359 0.9954 99.8350% 44,609 2,630
7 426 6.0 86.2% 10,865,157 0.1488 99.9838% 25,505 1,500
8a 358 5.0 91.2% 1,114,076 0.0153 99.9990% 3,112 225
8b 319 4.5 95.6% 69,364 0.0010 100.0000% 217 12
9 313 4.4 100.0% 0 0.0000 100.0000% 0 0
Totals 7,151 100.0 7,300,481,206 100.0000