Literature/Catalogs
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List of literatures
One scholar[1] says there are 106 languages with significant literatures: 78 living and 28 dead. Others might disagree with some details.
Living
This means that significant literature continues to be written. Arranged by number of native speakers.
- Chinese
- English
- Spanish
- Russian
- Hindi
- Malay
- Japanese
- Bengali
- German
- Arabic
- Portuguese [1]
- French
- Italian
- Urdu
- Ukrainian
- Tamil
- Korean
- Telugu
- Marathi
- Polish
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
- Punjabi
- Gujarati
- Thai
- Persian
- Kannada
- Dutch
- Roumanian
- Rajastani
- Malayalam
- Serbo-Croat
- Oriya
- Burmese
- Hungarian
- Tagalog
- Pushtu
- Swahili
- Belarussian
- Czech
- Nepali
- Swedish
- Greek
- Ethiopian
- Sinhalese
- Bulgarian
- Provençal
- Tibetan
- Assamese
- Catalan
- Sindhi
- Malagasy
- Danish
- Afrikaans
- Slovak
- Armenian
- Norwegian
- Finnish
- Cambodian
- Kashmiri
- Georgian
- Lithuanian
- Latvian
- Galician
- Hebrew
- Albanian
- Mongolian
- Estonian
- Yiddish
- Basque
- Frisian
- Icelandic
- Irish
- Maltese
- Romansh
- Slovenian
- Sorbian
- Khasi
Dead
This means no significant literature is being produced nowadays, though some of these languages are still spoken.
- Babylonian
- Breton
- Cakchiquel
- Cherokee
- Chontal
- Cornish
- Egyptian
- Etruscan
- Gothic
- Hittite
- Ilocano
- Irish
- Javanese
- Ladino
- Latin
- Madurese
- Manchu
- Manx
- Nahuatl
- Prakrit (including Pali)
- Quechua
- Quiché
- Sanskrit
- Saxon
- Scottish
- Sumerian
- Syriac
- Welsh
- Yucatec
Reference
- ↑ Munro S. Edmonson, Lore: an Introduction to the Science of Folklore and Literature, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, pages 322f, 330f