Critical Languages in Southwest Asia
Arabic: Spoken by more than 160 million worldwide and by more than 3 million in the U.S. and Canada (source: The American Association of Teachers of Arabic).
Languages of Afghanistan:
| Language | Number of Speakers in Afghanistan (from www.ethnologue.com, citing 1978 data) | Number of Students in U.S. Colleges & Universities (source: www.adfl.org, 1998 data) |
|---|---|---|
| Pashto | 8,000,000 | 0 |
| Farsi/Dari | 5,600,000 | 614 |
| Azgari | 1,403,000 | 0 |
| Uzbek | 1,403,000 | 4 |
| Turkmen | 500,000 | 0 |
| Berberi/ Aimaq | 480,000 | 0 |
| Baluchi | 200,000 | 0 |
Languages of neighboring countries:
| Country | Language | Number of speakers in country (source: www.ethnologue.com) | Number of students in U.S. (source: www.adfl.org, 1998 data) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iran | Farsi Azeri |
22,000,000 23,500,000 |
614 0 |
| Uzbekistan | Uzbek Russian |
16,539,000 1,661,000 |
4 24,729 |
| Turkmenistan | Turkmen Russian Uzbek |
3,430,000 349,000 309,000 |
0 24,729 4 |
| Tajikistan | Tajik Uzbek Russian |
3,440,720 873,000 237,000 |
0 4 24,729 |
| Pakistan | Baluchi Punjabi Pashto Siraiki Sindhi Urdu |
5,700,000 30,000,000 11,000,000 15,000,000 17,000,000 11,000,000 |
0 32 0 0 0 483 |
