Which country has the highest number of languages spoken?

Papua New Guinea has the highest number of languages spoken in any country.

Depending on how languages and dialects are counted, Papua New Guinea is home to roughly 830 to 840 living languages. More than 820 are indigenous, representing about 12% of the world’s languages. Most are spoken by small communities, and many have fewer than 1,000 speakers.

The country’s rugged geography helps explain this extraordinary diversity. Mountains, dense forests and isolated valleys historically kept communities apart, allowing languages to develop independently. The languages belong mainly to diverse Papuan groups, alongside Austronesian languages introduced through earlier migration across the Pacific.

English, Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu are widely recognized national languages, while Papua New Guinean Sign Language also has statutory recognition. India and Indonesia are also highly multilingual, but their totals are lower under common global language databases. Counts can shift as linguists distinguish a separate language from a dialect or document previously unrecorded speech communities.