Ethnologue (http://www.ethnologue.com/enterprise-faq/how-many-languages-world-are-unwritten) claims that of their currently listed 7,105 living languages, 3,570 have a developed writing system, and 698 are unwritten, with no knowledge about the writing system, if any, of the remaining 2,839 languages.
SIL lists 451 languages as having died in the last millennium, and 116 languages as having died more than a millennium ago. Inasmuch as primary consideration is given to languages that have been reduced to writing, it probably is a gross underestimate of the number of languages that are either dead, or extinct.
The most recent UBS Translation Report I've found, is from 2007. As of 31 December 2007, the Bible (Protestant Canon) had been completely translated into 438 languages. The Bible had been either completely, or partially translated into 2,454 languages.
Wycliffe Global Alliance, which is arguably the largest organization translating the Bible, claims that as of 1 October 2014, the Bible (Protestant Canon) had been completely translated into 531 languages. The Bible has been completely, or partially translated into 2,883 languages. Furthermore, there is active translation work in 2,195 languages.
ISO 15924 lists 199 writing systems, of which 35 are not included in the Unicode Standard.
The breakup of the Iron Curtain validated Max Weinrich's maxim: A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
By defining one IETF Language Tag, as one language, one might be able to avoid the dialect/language difference, and the language/writing system difference. By way of example:
- TUR-Latn-TR;
- TUR-Arab-TR;
- TUR-Cyrl-TR;
And that is how Windows 8.1 claims to support almost 7,000 languages.
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