The exact number of unwritten languages is hard to determine. Ethnologue (21st edition) has data to indicate that of the currently listed 7,111 living languages, 3,995 have a developed writing system. We don't always know, however, if the existing writing systems are widely used. That is, while an alphabet may exist there may not be very many people who are literate and actually using the alphabet. The remaining 3,116 are likely unwritten.
Subhashish Panigrahi, 22/08/19 22:25:
> Which script (writing system) an oral language speaker would use for
> creating an entry on (gateway [1]) projects like Wiktionary or Wikibooks
I understand the discussion on oral sources and on languages with little
literature and a possibly under-defined orthography, but since when did
this conversation shift to a focus on languages which do not even have
an established writing system?
Out of 7000 or so languages in ISO 639-3, how many lack a recognised
writing system?
Federico
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