Glottolog is a catalogue of the world's languages, dialects and language families, run by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. It gives each one a unique identifier and places it in a family tree. Our map uses it for language lists, families and endangerment status.
Key takeaways
- Glottolog is a free catalogue of languages, dialects and families, with a family tree based on historical-comparative research.
- Our map takes its language list, families, countries and endangerment status from Glottolog.
- Glottolog lists 8,618 languages at language level, and the map shows 6,722 living languages.
- Other catalogues count differently, so totals vary by source.
How Glottolog works
Glottolog is a catalogue of the world's languages, language families and dialects. It aims to give each of them, which it calls languoids, a unique and stable identifier, and to arrange them in a genealogical tree based on the available historical-comparative research [1]. It pays particular attention to lesser known languages, and it also keeps a large bibliography of grammars, dictionaries, word lists and texts [1].
The project is run by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. It is published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence, the data are kept in a public repository, and anyone can report errors, with input from expert linguists described as essential [1].
Glottolog makes some choices that affect what you see on our map. It treats sign languages, mixed languages, pidgins and artificial languages as pseudo-families, groups it handles like families although they cannot be classified by descent in the usual way [2]. It marks some languages as unclassified, when information is too thin to say which family they belong to [2]. It also splits the inhabited world into six macro-areas, areas of roughly continent size, which our map uses to sort languages shown as dots [2].
Different catalogues draw lines differently, which is why the answer to "how many languages are there" depends on whose list you use. Glottolog is an open, documented list, which is the main reason this map is built on it.
An example from our data
Glottolog lists 8,618 entries at the language level. Our map shows 6,722 living languages, and 1,023 extinct languages from Glottolog's list were left off. Of those shown, 4,008 (59.6%) are drawn as areas from published atlases, and 2,714 are placed as dots at the position Glottolog gives them.
The classification gives the map its 211 families, including 103 language isolates. For any one language, Glottolog also supplies the identifier: Welsh carries the code wels1247, and Basque carries basq1248. The endangerment shares on the facts page, such as 59.6% at risk, come from the same source. The data sources page lists the licences.
The thing people get wrong
Some assume Glottolog is the same as the better-known catalogue Ethnologue, or that it is a single fixed answer. It is a curated database that changes with each release, and its decisions on what counts as a language or a family are the work of its editors and are open to revision. Another mistake is to treat the endangerment shown on the map as UNESCO's. It is Glottolog's own scale. The map follows Glottolog and does not take a side where scholars disagree.
Glottolog vs ISO 639-3
| Glottolog | ISO 639-3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Identifier | Glottocode, such as wels1247 | Three-letter code, such as cym |
| Covers | Families, languages and dialects | Mainly languages |
| Includes a family tree | Yes | No |
Frequently asked questions
Who runs Glottolog?
It is an initiative of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and expert linguists help improve it.
Is Glottolog the same as Ethnologue?
No. They are separate catalogues with different methods, so their counts and groupings can differ.
Does Glottolog include dialects?
Yes. It aims to give an entry to every family, language and dialect, though our map shows languages only.
Sources
- Glottolog, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- Glottolog glossary, Glottolog.
- Every figure from our own map is worked out from the datasets on the data sources page (checked against Glottolog and Glottography, retrieved 13 October 2026).