An awesome infographic that shows the number of people that speak each of the world’s 23 most spoken languages and which country those speakers come from.

The coolest part is actually hidden right at the bottom — the chart that shows the countries with the highest number of first languages (their native language / the language they learnt from birth) being spoken. Papua New Guinea, a country of only around 7 million people, has 839 (?!) first languages!

However, Papua New Guinea isn’t actually the country with the highest density of languages per capita… there is another countr

The languages of the world

y on that chart that has fewer total languages but also has a far smaller population (and therefore more languages per capita). I’ll leave you to figure that one out…

My takeaway from the infographic? The world is incredibly diverse — we just need to embrace it, despite what politicians might tell us.

Credit: Alberto Lucas López for SCMP.