Don forwarded:

> I have a query to the members of the Multilingual literacy discussion
> group. I have a source that puts the figure of number of languages in
> the world today to around 6000. The number of languages with a written
> system is often put to 100-120. I bumped into another source recently
> that suggests that 10-12 procent of the worlds known languages have a
> written system.

Some crucial things:
Define "language";
Define "writing system"

http://www.ontopia.net/i18n/scripts.jsp lists roughly 200 writing systems.
http://www.omniglot.com/ lists about 200 writing systems (excluding
writing systems for conlangs.)

The next step is:
* Do they want the number of languages in which something can be written?
* Do they want the number of languages which have their own, unique
writing system?

To explain the difference:
The first question would treat Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino as 3;
The second question would treat Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino as 1;

Then decide whether Moon, Braille, BlissSymbolics, and ASL should be
included, or excluded from your count. If they should be included,
decide for how many languages they should be counted. [Moon would be
one or two. BlissSymbolics would be zero or one. Braille can be/has
been used for every language that has been reduced to a writing
system.]



xan

jonathon
--
Ethical conduct is a vice.
Corrupt conduct is a virtue.

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