World Language Map

Tai-Kadai languages map

91 Tai-Kadai languages are on the map, most of them in China, Vietnam and Laos. It divides into 3 main branches, the largest being Kam-Tai (75 languages). The best-known members include Thai, Northeastern Thai and Northern Thai. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Tai-Kadai family at a glance

  • 91languages
  • 32drawn as areas
  • 59shown as points
  • 3main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Tai-Kadai alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Tai-Kadai languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Thai spoken? (about 20.7 million speakers)
  2. Where is Northeastern Thai spoken? (about 15 million speakers)
  3. Where is Northern Thai spoken? (about 6 million speakers)
  4. Where is Lao spoken? (about 5.2 million speakers)
  5. Where is Southern Thai spoken? (about 4.5 million speakers)
  6. Where is Shan spoken? (about 3 million speakers)
  7. Where is Bouyei spoken? (about 2 million speakers)
  8. Where is Yongbei Zhuang spoken? (about 2 million speakers)
  9. Where is Tày spoken? (about 1.5 million speakers)
  10. Where is Southern Dong spoken? (about 1.5 million speakers)

Branches of Tai-Kadai

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Kam-Tai (75)
  • Kadaic (13)
  • Hlaic (3)

Where Tai-Kadai languages are spoken

Countries with the most Tai-Kadai languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 91 Tai-Kadai languages, A to Z

Questions about Tai-Kadai languages

How many Tai-Kadai languages are there?

91 living Tai-Kadai languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 3 main branches, the biggest being Kam-Tai (75 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Tai-Kadai languages spoken?

China (65), Vietnam (31), Laos (21), Thailand (16), Myanmar (9) and India (5) have the most Tai-Kadai languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Tai-Kadai languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Thai (about 20.7 million), Northeastern Thai (about 15 million) and Northern Thai (about 6 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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