Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

is home to hundreds of languages comprising several families and some unrelated isolates. The most spoken language families on the continent include

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Sout ...

, Japonic, Dravidian,

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

, Afroasiatic, Turkic,

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

, Kra–Dai and

Koreanic Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean and Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean but is mutually unintelligible with mainland Korean varieties. Alexander Vovin suggested that the Yukjin dial ...

. Many languages of Asia, such as

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

, have a long history as a written language.

Language groups

The major families in terms of numbers are

, specifically

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east ...

and

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages are a language family, family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia. The most commonly spoken Dravidian l ...

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

; and

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

. Several other families are regionally dominant.

Sino-Tibetan

Sino-Tibetan includes

, Tibetan, Burmese,

Karen Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding white woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand * House of Karen, a historic ...

Boro BORO (Business Objects Reference Ontology) is an approach to developing ontological or semantic models for large complex operational applications that consists of a top ontology as well as a process for constructing the ontology. It was originally ...

and numerous languages of the Tibetan Plateau, Southern China, Myanmar, and North East India.

Indo-European

The

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

are primarily represented in Asia by the Indo-Iranian branch, with its two main subgroups: Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian. Indo-Aryan languages are mainly spoken in South Asia. Examples include languages such as Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu),

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri may refer to: * Bhojpuri language, an Indo-Aryan language of India and Nepal * Bhojpuri grammar, grammatical rules of the language * Bhojpuri nouns, nouns of the language * Bhojpuri people, people who speak the language * Bhojpuri region ...

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabis, Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

Rajasthani Rajasthani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India * Rajasthani languages, a group of Indic languages spoken there * Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the state * Rajasthani architecture, Indian ar ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

, Sylheti etc.)

Iranic Iranian peoples, or Iranic peoples, are the collective ethnolinguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages, which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European langu ...

languages are mainly spoken in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

and

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and neighboring regions. Examples include languages like

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

Pashto Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...

and Balochi which are spoken in In addition, other branches of Indo-European spoken in Asia include the

Slavic Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to: Peoples * Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia ** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples ** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples ** West Slav ...

branch, which includes

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

;

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

around the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

; and

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

; as well as extinct languages such as Hittite of Anatolia and Tocharian of (Chinese) Turkestan.

Altaic families

A number of smaller, but important and separately distinguished language families spread across central and northern Asia have long been linked in a hypothetical, controversial and unproven Altaic family. These are the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic (including

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

, and Japonic languages. But since the mid-20th century a majority of scholars have come to regard it as a

Sprachbund A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...

Austroasiatic

The Mon–Khmer languages (also known as Austroasiatic) are the language family in South and Southeast Asia. Languages given official status are

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

and Khmer (Cambodian).

Kra–Dai

The

Kra–Dai languages The Kra–Dai languages ( , also known as Tai–Kadai and Daic ), are a language family in mainland Southeast Asia, southern China, and northeastern India. All languages in the family are tonal language, tonal, including Thai language, Thai a ...

(also known as Tai-Kadai) are found in southern China, Northeast India and Southeast Asia. Languages given official status are Thai (Siamese) and Lao.

Austronesian

The

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

are widespread throughout

Maritime Southeast Asia Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the Southeast Asian countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor. The terms Island Southeast Asia and Insular Southeast Asia are sometimes given the same meaning as ...

, including major languages such as

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

(

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

and

Timor-Leste Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

), Fijian (

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

), Hiligaynon, Bikol, Ilocano, Cebuano,

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...

(

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

), and Malay (

Brunei Brunei, officially Brunei Darussalam, is a country in Southeast Asia, situated on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Apart from its coastline on the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, with ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

). Other significant Austronesian languages in Indonesia include Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese. Meanwhile, Indonesian is the most widely spoken language in the Austronesian family.

Dravidian

The Dravidian languages of

South India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

and parts of

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

include

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

and Tulu, while smaller languages such as Gondi and Brahui are spoken in central India and Pakistan respectively.

Afro-Asiatic

The

Afroasiatic languages The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...

(in older sources Hamito-Semitic) are represented in Asia by the Semitic branch. Semitic languages are spoken in

Western Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

, and include the various dialects of

and

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

, and

Modern South Arabian languages The Modern South Arabian languages, also known as Eastern South Semitic languages, are a group of endangered languages spoken by small populations inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen and Oman, and Socotra Island. Together with the Ethiose ...

in addition to extinct languages such as Akkadian and

Ancient South Arabian Ancient South Arabian (ASA; also known as Old South Arabian, Epigraphic South Arabian, Ṣayhadic, or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct languages ( Sabaean/Sabaic, Qatabanic, Hadramitic, Minaic) spoken in the far southern ...

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 The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

of western Siberia (better known for Hungarian and Finnish in Europe), the

Yeniseian languages The Yeniseian languages ( ; sometimes known as Yeniseic, Yeniseyan, or Yenisei-Ostyak;" Ostyak" is a concept of areal rather than genetic linguistics. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages of Khanty and ...

( linked to Turkic and to the Athabaskan languages of North America),

Yukaghir The Yukaghirs, or Yukagirs ( (), ), are a Siberian ethnic group in the Russian Far East, living in the basin of the Kolyma River. Geographic distribution The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Y ...

Nivkh Nivkh or Amuric or Gilyak may refer to: * Nivkh people (''Nivkhs'') or Gilyak people (''Gilyaks'') * Nivkh languages or Gilyak languages * Gilyak class gunboat, ''Gilyak'' class gunboat, such as the Russian gunboat Korietz#Second gunboat, second R ...

of Sakhalin, Ainu of northern Japan, Chukotko-Kamchatkan in easternmost Siberia, and—just barely—

Eskimo–Aleut The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...

. Some linguists have noted that the

Koreanic languages Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean and Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean but is mutually unintelligible with mainland Korean varieties. Alexander Vovin suggested that the Yukjin dial ...

share more similarities with the

Paleosiberian languages The Paleo-Siberian languages are several language isolates and small language families spoken in parts of Siberia. They are not known to have any genetic relationship to each other; their only common link is that they are held to have antedated ...

than with the

Altaic languages The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic languages, Koreanic and Japon ...

. The extinct

Rouran The Rouran Khaganate ( Chinese: zh, c=, p=Róurán, label=no), also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan ( zh, c=, p=Ruǎnruǎn, label=no) (or variously ''Jou-jan'', ''Ruruan'', ''Ju-juan'', ''Ruru'', ''Ruirui'', ''Rouru'', ''Rouruan'' or ''Tantan'') ...

language of Mongolia is unclassified, and does not show genetic relationships with any other known language family.

Caucasian families

Three small families are spoken in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...

, such as Georgian; 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 Hurro-Urartian is an extinct language, extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, comprising only two known languages: Hurrian language, Hurrian and Urartian language, Urartian. Origins It is often assumed that the Hurro-Urartian languag ...

may be related as well.

Small families of Asia

Although dominated by major languages and families, there are number of minor families and isolates in

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

. From west to east, these include: * Hattic, an unclassified language in Anatolia. *extinct languages of the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent () is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include ...

such as Sumerian and

Elamite Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite i ...

. *extinct languages of South Asia; mainly the unclassified

Harappan language The Harappan language is the unknown language or languages of the Bronze Age () Harappan civilization (Indus Valley civilization, or IVC). The Harappan script is yet undeciphered, indeed it has not even been demonstrated to be a writing system ...

*small language families and isolates of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

Burushaski Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...

, Kusunda, and Nihali. The

Vedda The Vedda ( ; (''Vēḍar'')), or Wanniyalaeto, are a minority indigenous group of people in Sri Lanka who, among other sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Veddas, are accorded indigenous status. The Ved ...

language of

is likely an isolate that has mixed with Sinhala. *the two

Andamanese The Andamanese are the various indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the union territory in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal. The Andamanese are a designated Scheduled Tribe in Indi ...

language families:

Great Andamanese The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely rela ...

and Ongan;

Sentinelese The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are Indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in the northeastern Indian Ocean. Designated a particularly vulnerable tribal group a ...

remains undocumented to date, and hence unclassified. *unclassified languages in Southeast Asia: Kenaboi. *the difficult to classify

Arunachal languages Arunachal languages are various languages in Arunachal Pradesh, India traditionally classified as Sino-Tibetan languages, but that may be language isolates and independent language families according to some scholars. Blench (2011) proposed four l ...

: Digaro, Hrusish (including the Miji languagesBlench, Roger. 2015
''The Mijiic languages: distribution, dialects, wordlist and classification''
m.s.), Midzu, Puroik, Siangic, and Kho-Bwa. * Hmong–Mien (Miao–Yao) scattered across southern China and Southeast Asia *a few " Papuan" (Non-Austronesian) families of the central and eastern Malay Archipelago: such as the Timor-Alor-Pantar and North Halmahera languages, and the little known extinct

Tambora language Tambora is the poorly attested non- Austronesian ( Papuan) language of the Tambora culture of central Sumbawa, in what is now Indonesia, that was made extinct by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. It was the westernmost known Papuan language ...

Sumbawa Sumbawa, is an Indonesian island, located in the middle of the Lesser Sunda Islands chain, with Lombok to the west, Flores to the east, and Sumba further to the southeast. Along with Lombok, it forms the province of West Nusa Tenggara, but th ...

. Numerous additional families are spoken in Indonesian

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

, which is generally considered to part of

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

Creoles and pidgins

The eponymous

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

("business") language developed with European trade in China. Of the many creoles to have developed, the most spoken today are

Chavacano Chavacano or Chabacano () is a group of Spanish-based creole language varieties spoken in the Philippines. The variety spoken in Zamboanga City, located in the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, has the highest concentration of spea ...

, a

Spanish-based creole A Spanish creole (), or Spanish-based creole language, is a creole language (contact language with native speakers) for which Spanish serves as its substantial ''lexifier''. A number of creole languages are influenced to varying degrees by the ...

of the Philippines, and various Malay-based creoles such as

Manado Malay Manado Malay, Manadonese or simply the Manado language, is a creole language spoken in Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province in Indonesia, and the surrounding area. The local name of the language is , and the name Minahasa Malay is also ...

influenced by Portuguese. A very well-known Portuguese-based creole is the Kristang, which is spoken in

Malacca Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...

, a city-state in

Sign languages

A number of sign languages are spoken throughout Asia. These include the

Japanese Sign Language family The Japanese Sign Language (JSL) family is a language family of three sign languages: * Japanese Sign Language (JSL) family ** Japanese Sign Language (JSL) ** Korean Sign Language (KSL) ** Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL) There is little diffi ...

Chinese Sign Language Chinese Sign Language (abbreviated CSL or ZGS; ) is the main sign language used in China. It is not related to the Taiwanese Sign Language used in Taiwan. Manually coded Mandarin is referred to as ''Wénfǎ Shǒuyǔ'' (). History The first ...

, Indo-Pakistani Sign Language, as well as a number of small indigenous sign languages of countries such as

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

, and

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

. Many official sign languages are part of the

French Sign Language family The French Sign Language (LSF, from ) or Francosign family is a language family of sign languages which includes French Sign Language and American Sign Language. The LSF family descends from Old French Sign Language (VLSF), which developed among ...

Official languages

Asia and Europe are the only two continents where most countries use native languages as their

official languages An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

, though English is also widespread as an international language.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Languages Of Asia

Language groups

Sino-Tibetan

Indo-European

Altaic families

Austroasiatic

Kra–Dai

Austronesian

Dravidian

Afro-Asiatic

Siberian families

Caucasian families

Small families of Asia

Creoles and pidgins

Sign languages

Official languages

See also

References