Skip to page content

Languages of Asia

East Asia

1. Chinese

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Chinese-Americans are the largest Asian group in the USA, at more than 2.7 million. About 1.5 billion people worldwide speak Chinese, which makes it the most spoken language in the world.

Difference between Mandarin and Cantonese Mandarin is the official language of China and is spoken by many more people worldwide than Cantonese. Cantonese (or Yue) is one of the five major Chinese languages. These are often called “dialects,” but in actuality their differences are great enough to consider them separate languages.

Cantonese is spoken by about 100 million people in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi and in neighboring areas such as Hong Kong and Macau, as well as throughout South-East Asia in such places as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Due to the migration of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong and the Guangdong area, Cantonese is the dominant form of Chinese spoken in the Chinatowns of many major cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere.

The word Cantonese comes from Canton, the former English name of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, which was once considered the home of the purest form of Cantonese. However, through years of mass media and pop culture influence, Hong Kong is now regarded as the cultural center of Cantonese.

Although Mandarin (or putonghua) is the standard and official language in mainland China, it has been around for only about 700 or 800 years, compared to the 2000-year history of Cantonese. Cantonese has been the dominant language in overseas Chinese communities. This comes from the fact that, around the world, the first and largest flow of Chinese immigrants originates from Hong Kong.

Cantonese is mainly an oral language. People in Hong Kong use standard Chinese (putonghua) when they read and write. They speak Cantonese in their daily interactions with people. As a colloquial language, Cantonese is full of slang and nonstandard usage. The language of youth is rapidly evolving, and new slang and trendy expressions are constantly emerging.

The standard written language in Hong Kong is essentially the same Chinese as everywhere else in China. The only difference is that Hong Kong and overseas communities, like Taiwan, have kept what are called traditional characters, whereas mainland China uses simplified characters. In an attempt to increase literacy in China, thousands of characters were "simplified" in a 1950 spelling reform initiated by chairman Mao Zedong.

CHINESE, MANDARIN: a language of China

Speakers 874 million first-language speakers, additional 1 million second-language speakers.
Region Covers all of mainland China. Also spoken in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Laos, Malaysia (Peninsular), Mauritius, Mongolia, Philippines, Russia (Asia), Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam.
Classification Sino-Tibetan, Chinese.
Order OCLC Language Sets

2. Japanese

JAPANESE: a language of Japan

Speakers 125 million first-language speakers; additional 1 million second-language speakers.
Region Throughout the country of Japan. Also spoken in 26 other countries including American Samoa, Argentina, Australia, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Dominican Republic, Germany, Guam, Mexico, Micronesia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines.
Classification Japanese, Japanese.
Order OCLC Language Sets

3. Korean

The Korean language is classified as a member of the Ural-Altaic family (other members of this family include the Mongolian, Finnish, and Hungarian languages.) Until the early 1400s, most documents were written in classical Chinese characters (known in Korean as Hanja). As the idiographs are difficult to learn, only the educated people could read and write. King Sejong, the fourth ruler of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), set up a special committee of scholars in 1443 to create a new writing system specifically suited to the Korean language. The result was Han-gul (meaning 'the one script'). It originally contained 28 symbols, although four have dropped out of use.

KOREAN: a language of Korea

Speakers 78 million first-language speakers. Less than 1 million second-language speakers
Region Also spoken in 31 other countries including American Samoa, Australia, Bahrain, Belize, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, China, Germany, Guam, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Mongolia, New Zealand, North Korea, Northern Mariana Islands.
Classification Language Isolate.
Order OCLC Language Sets

Southeast Asia

1. Vietnamese

Located on the eastern Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia, Viet Nam is for the most part a tropical country. It has over 3,000 kilometers of coastline on the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea, and borders China to the north, the Lao People's Democratic Republic to the west, and Cambodia to the southwest.

The Vietnamese language is a mix of Austro-Asiatic languages and Mon-Khmer languages. Although it is distinct from Chinese, much of the language incorporates thousands of Chinese words. Vietnamese is a tonal language. The script was phonetically romanized in 1548 by a French missionary and called quoc ngu. The most widely spoken foreign languages in Viet Nam are Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), English, French and Russian.

The numerous hill tribes have their own languages, but overall these are a small minority of the total population.

VIETNAMESE: a language of Vietnam

Speakers 68 million first-language speakers; additional 12 million speak Vietnamese as a second language.
Region The entire country. Also spoken in Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Finland, France, Germany, Laos, Martinique, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, Philippines, Senegal, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA, Vanuatu.
Classification Austro-Asiatic, Mon-Khmer, Viet-Muong, Vietnamese.
Order OCLC Language Sets

South Asia

1. Bengali

Bengali is spoken by nearly 207 million people in the world, most of them in the West Bengal province of India and in Bangladesh. It developed as a language in the 13th century and is the official state language of the eastern state of West Bengal.

BENGALI: a language of Bangladesh

Speakers 207 million first-language speakers; additional 211 million second-language speakers.
Region Western. Also spoken in India, Malawi, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UAE, United Kingdom, USA.
Classification Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Bengali-Assamese.
Order OCLC Language Sets