natlang
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Synonym for natural language: a human-usable language that is not a conlang. May be living or dead. There are about 000 living natlangs, many of which are nearly dead (no new native speakers).
It's interesting that the number I hear keeps growing. I first heard 3000-5000, then 4000-6000, now you say it's 7000.
The SIL (which runs [1] are notorious for calling lects languages which others would call dialects. 7000 is a sensible upper limit; the question of what counts as a language is ultimately political rather than linguistic.