Kiwaian languages map

6 Kiwaian languages are on the map, most of them in Papua New Guinea. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

Tap or scroll to load the interactive map

The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Kiwaian family at a glance

  • 6languages
  • 6drawn as areas
  • 0shown as points

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Kiwaian alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Where Kiwaian languages are spoken

Countries with the most Kiwaian languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 6 Kiwaian languages, A to Z

Questions about Kiwaian languages

How many Kiwaian languages are there?

6 living Kiwaian languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Kiwaian languages spoken?

Papua New Guinea (6) have the most Kiwaian languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

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