The Asian continent has an area of over 44 million square meters, making it the largest in the entire world at the same time. Approximately 4.5 billion people live in Asia's 47 internationally recognized states, who speak more than 2,000 different languages. The development and maintenance of languages is quite different from that of continental Europe, where the exchange and mixing of vocabulary has been ensured over short distances and over long periods of time. However, on the vast continent of Asia, some languages have been able to develop and survive for centuries without significant outside influence. This is why many people in Asia grow up bilingual. While rural communities and families use their local languages privately, their official languages are used officially in relation to authorities and schools. Therefore, there are several Asian languages that contribute to the understanding of the entire continent.
1. 1.4 billion people speak Chinese in Asia
Chinese is the most spoken language in the entire world. Kanji has a history of more than 3,000 years and is among the most complex written languages in the world. Nevertheless, this spoken language has one thing in common with many other modern languages. It's a dialect. The language of Beijing and its surrounding areas is Mandarin, which is why most Asians speak this form of Chinese. There are nine other dialects of Chinese, including Min, Yue, and Wu.
2. 600 million people in Asia speak Hindi
600 million people in Asia speak Hindi. This makes Hindi the third most spoken language in the world after Chinese and English. Hindi is spoken not only in India but also in Mauritius and the United Arab Emirates. However, Hindi is not declared the only official language of India as not all Indians speak it. Therefore, English is considered the second official language.
3. 300 million people speak English in Asia
English is the official language of some Asian countries, and is used alongside their respective national languages. These include India, Mauritius, Hong Kong, Singapore and Seychelles. Although unofficial, English is also widely spoken in the Philippines and Brunei. Papua New Guinea uses Pidgin English, a highly simplified version of English.
4. 260 million people speak Russian in Asia
Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan are part of the Asian continent, so it's no surprise that Russian is one of the most widely spoken languages in Asia. Russian has its own alphabet, just like Chinese and Hindi. The Cyrillic alphabet is used not only in Russian, but also in the Chinese dialect Dangan.
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Frequently asked questions and answers about Asian languages
Approximately 2,300 languages are spoken in Asia, which maintains linguistic diversity today. There are 81 different languages spoken in China alone. Of these, 55 are used on a daily basis by ethnic minorities.
If you count all the kanji, there are over 100,000 characters. However, some of them are no longer used at all or are rarely used. Currently, 3,000 to 5,000 characters are used every day.
Most Asian languages originate from the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is the second largest in the world considering active language users.
