The following table compares the basic characteristics of over 60 major natural languages. "Sequence" refers to the typical order of words in a sentence in that language; for example, SVO means subject-verb-object ("man bites dog"). "Tones?" shows whether that language is tonal (using difference voice tones to distinguish between otherwise identical words).
| Language | Native speakers | Family | Subgroup | Writing system | Noun declensions | Sequence | Tonal? | Agglut? |
| Afrikaans | 6.2 | Indo-European | Germanic | Latin | No | SVO (some VSO) | No | No |
| Akan (Twi) | 7.0 | Niger-Congo | Kwa | unknown | None | SVO | No | |
| Albanian | 8.0 | Indo-European | Albanian | Latin | Four cases | SVO | No | No |
| Amharic | 17.4 | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | Ethiopic | None (uses affixes) | SOV | No | No |
| Arabic | 215.0 | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | Arabic | Three cases | VSO | No | No |
| Armenian | 6.0 | Indo-European | Armenian | Armenian | Six cases | SOV | No | No |
| Awadhi | 20.5 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Devangari | No | |||
| Azerbaijani (Azeri) | 30.5 | Turkic | Southern | Latin & Cyrillic | Six cases | SOV | No | No |
| Bengali | 189.0 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Bengali | None | SOV | No | No |
| Bhojpuri | 25.0 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Devangari or Kaithi | No | |||
| Burmese | 22.0 | Sino-Tibetan | Tibeto-Burman | Burmese | None | SOV | Yes | No |
| Cantonese | 66.0 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Catalan | 6.5 | Indo-European | Italic | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Dutch | 20.0 | Indo-European | Germanic | Latin | None | SVO (some VSO) | No | No |
| English | 322.0 | Indo-European | Germanic | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| French | 72.0 | Indo-European | Italic | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Gan | 20.6 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | No | ||
| Georgian | 4.0 | Caucasian | South Caucasian | Georgian | Four cases | SVO | No | Yes |
| German | 120.0 | Indo-European | Germanic | Latin | Four cases | SVO (some VSO) | No | No |
| Greek | 15.0 | Indo-European | Greek | Greek | Five cases | SVO | No | No |
| Gujarati | 44.0 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Gujarati | Six cases | SOV | No | No |
| Hakka | 34.0 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Hausa | 24.2 | Afro-Asiatic | Chadic | Latin & Ajami | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Hebrew | 6.0 | Afro-Asiatic | Semitic | Hebrew | None | VSO | No | No |
| Hindi | 182.0 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Devangari | Two cases | SOV | No | No |
| Hsiang (Hunan) | 36.0 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | Yes | No | |
| Hungarian (Magyar) | 14.5 | Uralic | Finno-Ugric | Latin | Thirteen cases | Varies | No | Yes |
| Igbo | 18.0 | Niger-Congo | Atlantic-Congo | Latin | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Indonesian (Bahasa) | 35.0 | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Italian | 59.0 | Indo-European | Italic | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Japanese | 125.0 | Japonic | Japanese | Japanese (four scripts) | None | SOV | No | Yes |
| Javanese | 75.5 | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Jinyu | 45.0 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Kannada | 33.7 | Dravidian | Southern | Kannada | No | SOV | No | Yes |
| Khmer | 7.0 | Austro-Asiatic | Mon-Khmer | Khmer | SVO | No | No | |
| Kiswahili (Swahili) | 5.0 | Niger-Congo | Atlantic-Congo | Latin | None | SVO | No | Yes |
| Korean | 75.0 | Isolate | none | Hangul (Korean) | None | SOV | No | Yes |
| Maithili | 24.3 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Kaithi | None | SOV | No | No |
| Malay | 18.0 | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | Latin | None | No | Yes | |
| Malayalam | 34.0 | Dravidian | Southern | Malayalam | Eight cases | SOV | No | Yes |
| Mandarin (Standard) | 885.0 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Marathi | 64.8 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Devangari | SOV | No | No | |
| Min Nan | 49.0 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Nepali | 16.1 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Devangari | SOV | No | No | |
| Occitan | 2.0 | Indo-European | Italic | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Oriya | 31.0 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Nagari | No | |||
| Pashto | 18.0 | Indo-European | Iranian | Perso-Arabic | Two cases | SOV | No | No |
| Persian (Farsi) | 31.3 | Indo-European | Iranian | Arabic | Two cases | SOV | No | No |
| Polish | 44.0 | Indo-European | Balto-Slavic | Latin | Seven cases | SVO | No | No |
| Portuguese | 170.0 | Indo-European | Italic | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Punjabi | 56.0 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Multiple | Three cases | SOV | No | No |
| Romanian | 26.0 | Indo-European | Italic | Latin | Five cases | SVO | No | No |
| Russian | 170.0 | Indo-European | Balto-Slavic | Cyrillic | Six cases | SVO | No | No |
| Sindhi | 19.7 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Devangari or Arabic | No | |||
| Spanish | 332.0 | Indo-European | Italic | Latin | None | SVO | No | No |
| Sunda | 27.0 | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | Latin | None | No | ||
| Tagalog | 22.0 | Austronesian | Malayo-Polynesian | Latin | No (three markers) | VSO | No | No |
| Tamil | 63.1 | Dravidian | Southern | Tamil | Many cases | SOV | No | Yes |
| Telugu | 66.4 | Dravidian | South-central | Telugu | Six cases | SOV | No | Yes |
| Thai | 20.0 | Tai-kadai | Tai | Thai | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Turkish | 67.7 | Turkic | Southern | Latin | Seven cases | SOV | No | No |
| Ukrainian | 41.0 | Indo-European | Balto-Slavic | Cyrillic | SVO | No | No | |
| Urdu | 58.0 | Indo-European | Indo-Aryan | Nasta'liq (Arabic) | Two cases | SOV | No | No |
| Uzbek (Northern) | 18.5 | Turkic | Eastern | Cyrillic | Five cases | SOV | No | No |
| Vietnamese | 67.7 | Austro-Asiatic | Mon-Khmer | Vietnamese (Latin) | None | SVO/OSV | Yes | No |
| Wu | 77.2 | Sino-Tibetan | Chinese | Chinese | None | SVO | Yes | No |
| Yoruba | 20.0 | Niger-Congo | Benue-Congo | Latin | None | SVO | Yes | No |
Sources:
Sources on specific languages:
Malayalam: Comparison of Hindi to Malayalam
Uzbek: UCLA Language Profile
Kannada: S.N. Sridhar, 1990. KANNADA. London: Routledge.
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