Virtually every country in the world has more than one language spoken within its borders, but Papua New Guinea has the most, with around 840 living languages.
Papua New Guinea is the world's most multilingual country, with a total of 840 languages spoken.
Papua New Guinea stands far above all other nations, with 841 living languages documented in 2025.
Papua New Guinea has 840 living languages — more than any other country. A living language is one that is spoken by at least one person as their first language. The chart shows the ten countries with the most living languages as of 2024.
While many countries in the world have one de facto official language, there are plenty of countries with multiple official languages. Canada, for example, has two official languages, Belgium has three, and South Africa has 11.
Switzerland has four national languages; German, French, Italian, and Romansh.
There's no single "hardest" language, but Mandarin Chinese is consistently ranked #1 for English speakers due to its tonal nature (four tones change word meanings) and complex logographic writing system requiring thousands of characters. Other top contenders often cited include Arabic (right-to-left script, complex sounds, grammar) and Japanese (multiple writing systems like Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, plus honorifics). The difficulty depends heavily on your native language, with languages like Tibetan, Estonian, and Polish also challenging learners with unique grammar or cases.
Powell Alexander Janulus (born 1939) is a Canadian polyglot who lives in White Rock, British Columbia, and entered the Guinness World Records in 1985 for fluency in 42 languages.
Tamil. The record holder for the world's oldest language still in use today goes to Tamil. Around 78 million people speak Tamil, mostly in Sri Lanka (an island nation southeast of India), southern India, and Singapore. Tamil is one of 300+ languages Propio works in for translation and interpretation services.
Nineteen-year-old Mahmood Akram from India has amazed the world by mastering 400 languages while simultaneously pursuing multiple university degrees. His linguistic journey began early under the guidance of his father, a linguistics expert, and by the age of six, he had already surpassed his mentor's knowledge.
Canada is one of the world's most bilingual countries, recognizing English and French as its two official languages at the federal level. This system reflects the country's history, shaped by both British and French colonization.
Top 10 Easiest Languages for English Speakers to Learn
South Africa is a linguistically diverse country and has twelve official languages: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, South African Sign Language, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and English, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official languages are equal in ...
Mexico has 69 official languages, including Spanish and 68 indigenous languages (like Nahuatl and Maya), making it incredibly linguistically diverse, though South Sudan is also listed with 69 living languages in some counts, showing many countries have rich linguistic diversity. While Mexico is famous for this, the number refers to recognized languages, with hundreds of variations and dialects existing within them.
Ziad Fazah (1954–), Liberian-born Lebanese language teacher, now living in Brazil. He is famous for claiming to speak more than fifty languages, and for a time was listed in The Guinness Book of Records. It is unclear how many languages he can in fact speak.
Papua New Guinea has the most languages in the world – over 800. Indonesia isn't far behind with over 700. Languages are spread unequally throughout the world.
She's said in interviews that she's tried to learn Spanish and French a few times but never did. There are videos of her saying a few words in at least Spanish, French , Japanese, German, Welsh, Gaelic, etc. during concerts or interviews but it's just memorized words.
However, with the right motivation, a person can learn as many languages as possible. Sir John Bowring, a Hong Kong governor in the 19th century, was said to know more than 200 languages. He was also fluent in 100 languages. In history, he is the polyglot who knows most languages.
Indeed, while some languages might have more entries in a standard dictionary, linguists and historians often crown Arabic as the undisputed richest language in the world due to its unique root system and massive lexical volume.
The Top 10 Hardest Languages to Learn in the World
Ancient Egyptian
This language has left a remarkable mark on the history of mankind. It was spoken by the inhabitants of ancient Egypt from around 3,200 BC and is known for the hieroglyphs they used to record their beliefs, culture and historical events on murals and papyrus.
While both languages can be challenging for English speakers, Mandarin is generally seen as being more difficult. This is due to the fact that there are thousands of Chinese characters, while Arabic only includes 28 letters in its alphabet.
Here's the spoiler: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Hindi are the top 10 most useful languages to learn in today's globalized world. But why these specific languages?
– though it is certainly different from English grammar. However, studies have shown that Japanese is the single language that takes English people the longest to learn.