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Tabasaran
Is a member of the Lezgian subfamily of the Northeast Caucasian languages. It is spoken in the southern parts of the Russian Caucasus republic of Dagestan. Tabasaran speakers live in the basin of Upper Rubas-chai and Upper Chirakh-chai. There are two main dialects: North (Khanag) and South Tabasaran. It has a literary language based on the Southern dialect, one of six in the Dagestan Republic.

Tashelhiyt
Is the largest Berber language of Morocco both by number of speakers (between 8 and 10 million) and by the extent of its area. Tashelhiyt is spoken in Southern Morocco an area ranging from the northern slopes of the High-Atlas to the southern slopes of the Anti-Atlas, bounded to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The eastern limit of the Tashelhiyt area is difficult to pinpoint because of a smooth transition into Southern Middle Atlas Berber (Tamazight).

Tagalog
Is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. It is the largest of the Philippine languages in terms of the number of speakers. Being a Malayo-Polynesian language of the larger Austronesian language family, it is related to Indonesian, Malay, Fijian, Maori (of New Zealand), Hawaiian, Malagasy (of Madagascar), Samoan, Tahitian, Chamorro (of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Tetum (of East Timor), and Paiwan (of Taiwan).

Tahitian
A Tahitic language, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia (along with French). It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan, New Zealand Maori, and Hawaiian.

Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL)
Is the sign language most commonly used in Taiwan. It is the native language of some 50,000 people in the nation. Serious linguistic research on TSL began in the 1970s and is continuing at present. The first International Symposium on Taiwan Sign Language Linguistics was held on March 1-2, 2003, at Chung Cheng University in Minhsiung, Chiayi Co., Taiwan.

Tajik
Is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. It is an Indo-European language, more specifically part of the Iranian language group. Speakers of Tajik live mostly in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and western Pakistan (the "Tajik" language spoken by approximately 30,000 people near the Tajikistan border in China is in fact a quite different Pamir language also called Sarikoli). Tajik is the official language of Tajikistan. Tajik is an offspring of the Persian language, and belongs - along with Afghanistan's Dari - to the Eastern dialects of Persian. Historically, it was considered the local dialect of Persian spoken by the Tajik ethnic group in Central Asia. The language has diverged somewhat from Persian as spoken in Afghanistan and Iran, because of political borders and the influence of Russian. The standard language is based on the north-western dialects of Tajik, which have been influenced by the neighbouring Uzbek language as a result of geographical proximity.

Talossan
Talossan is a Gallo-Romance language, inspired by French, Provençal and Occitan, and very naturalistic (with quite a few irregularities). In an effort to create a kind of "national mythology" for his micronation, Madison discovered in 1985 that one of the Berber sub-tribes of Morocco was called the Talesinnt, and decided that Talossans were inexplicably and inextricably connected somehow to Berbers. This resulted in the Talossan language being inspired by Berber languages.

Talysh
Is a language spoken in the northern regions of the Iranian provinces of Gilan and Ardabil and the southern parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is classified as an Iranian language Talysh has two major mutually intelligible dialects — Northern (in Azerbaijan and Iran), and Southern (in Iran). Northern Talysh (the part in the Republic of Azerbaijan) was historically known as Talish-i Gushtasbi.

Tamil
Is a classical language and one of the major languages of the Dravidian language family. Spoken predominantly by Tamils in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, it has smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. As of 1996, it was the eighteenth most spoken language, with over 74 million speakers worldwide. It is one of the official languages of India, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

Tanacross
Is an endangered Athabaskan language spoken by fewer than 60 persons in eastern Interior Alaska.

Tangut
Also known as the Western Xia were a Qiangic-Tibetan people who moved to the highlands of western Sichuan sometime before the 10th century AD. They spoke the Tangut language, a now-extinct Qiangic language (Tibeto-Burman).

Tarifit
Is a Northern Berber language of the Zenati subgroup, spoken mainly in the Moroccan Rif by about 2 million people. Tarifit is a Berber language, belonging to the Zenati subgroup of Northern Berber, and possibly the Rif subgroup of Zenati.

Tat
Is an Iranian language spoken by the Tat ethnic group in Azerbaijan and Russia. There is also a Jewish language called Judeo-Tat that is derived from the Tat language.

Tatar
Is a Turkic language belonging to the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages. It is spoken by the Tatars.

Tausug
Is a Visayan language spoken in Sulu province in the Philippines. It is also spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Telugu
Belongs to the Dravidian language family but with ample influence from the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family and is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is the Dravidian language with the greatest number of speakers (including non-native speakers), the second largest spoken language in India after Hindi and one of the 22 official national languages of India.

Tetum
Is an Austronesian language, the basis of the national language of East Timor, Tetun Prasa. This is a creole with many words from Portuguese, with which it has equal status as an official language, as well as Malay or Indonesian.

Thai
Is the national and official language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai-Kadai language family. The Tai-Kadai languages are thought to have originated in what is now southern China, and some linguists have proposed links to the Austroasiatic, Austronesian, or Sino-Tibetan language families. It is a tonal and analytic language. The combination of tonality, a complex orthography, relational markers and a distinctive phonology can make Thai difficult to learn for those who do not already speak a related language.

Tharu
Tharu are indigenious people living in the Terai plains of South Nepal and India. According to Nepal’s 2001 census, there are 1,533,879 ethnic Tharu (6.75% of Nepal's total population) of which 1,331,546 speak one of the seven Tharu dialects as a mother tongue.

Thracian
Was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times by the Thracians in South-Eastern Europe.

Tibetan
Is spoken by Tibetan people across a wide area of eastern Central Asia. Its classical written form is a major regional literary language, particulary in its use as in Buddhist writings. Tibetan is typically classified as a Tibeto-Burman language which in turn is, according to the most widespread theory, a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Spoken Tibetan includes numerous regional varieties which, in many cases, are not mutually intelligible. Moreover, the boundaries between Tibetan and certain other Himalayan languages are sometimes unclear. In general, the dialects of central Tibet (including Lhasa), Kham, Amdo, and some smaller nearby areas are considered Tibetan dialects, while other forms, particularly Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Sherpa, and Ladakhi, are considered closely-related but separate languages. By this definition, Tibetan is spoken by approximately 6 million people across the Tibetan Plateau as well as by approximately 150,000 exile speakers in India and other countries.

Tigre
Is a Semitic language of the North Ethiopic branch, descended from Ge'ez and closely related to Tigrinya. It is spoken by approximately one million people in Eritrea, with a few speakers in Sudan. Tigre is also the name for the people. The Tigre language, speakers and area should not be confused with the Tigray-Tigrinya people who live in the Tigray region of Ethiopia and in Eritrea and who speak Tigrinya.

Tigrinya
Is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigray-Tigrinya people in central Eritrea, where it is one of the main working languages (Eritrea does not have official languages), and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, where it also has official status, and among groups of emigrants from these regions, including some of the Beta Israel now living in Israel. Tigrinya should not be confused with the related Tigre language, which is spoken in a region in Eritrea to the west of the region where Tigrinya is spoken.

Tiv
Is spoken by over 6 million people in Nigeria, with a few speakers in Cameroon. Most of the Language's Nigerian speakers are found in Benue State of Nigeria. The language is also widely spoken in the Nigerian States of Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa as well as the FCT Abuja. It is part of the Southern Bantoid Tivoid family, a branch of Benue-Congo and ultimately of the Niger-Congo phylum.

Tlingit
Is the language of the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada. It is considered to be a branch of the Na-Dené language family. Tlingit is very endangered, with about 500 native speakers still living, essentially all of whom are bilingual or near-bilingual in English. Extensive effort is being put into revitalization programs in Southeast Alaska to revive and preserve the Tlingit language and its culture.

Tobian
Also Tobi is, with English and the Sonsorolese language the language spoken on the Palau islands of Tobi (or Hatobohei), Pulo Anna, Merir, Fana, Helen Reef and Sonsoral (or Sonsorol). It has about 100 speakers over the world.

Tocharian
Is one of the most obscure branches of the group of Indo-European languages. It consisted of two languages, Tocharian A (Turfanian, Arsi, or East Tocharian) and Tocharian B (Kuchean or West Tocharian). These languages were spoken roughly from the 6th to 8th centuries; before they became extinct, their speakers were absorbed into the expanding Uyghur tribes. Both languages were once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, now the Xinjiang province of China.

Toda
Is a Dravidian language well known for its many fricatives and trills. It is spoken by the Toda people, a population of about one thousand who live in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India.

Tok Pisin
Is the creole spoken in northern mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG), the National Capital District, and the New Guinea Islands. It is one of the official languages of PNG and the most widely used language in that country, spoken by about 4 million people as a second language and over a hundred thousand as a first language. Tok Pisin is also—perhaps more commonly in English—called New Guinea Pidgin and, largely in academic contexts, Melanesian Pidgin English or Neo-Melanesian.

Tokelauan
Is an Austronesian language spoken by about 1,700 people on the atolls of Tokelau. It is a member of the Samoic family of Polynesian languages. It is, alongside English, the official language of Tokelau. In addition to the population of Tokelau, it is spoken by approximately 2,900 Tokelauan expatriates in New Zealand.

Tonga
Is a Bantu Language primarily spoken by the Tonga tribe of the South, Southern and Western provinces of Zambia and Northern Zimbabwe (although also spoken by the Toka and Leya, as well as many bilingual Zambians and Zimbabweans.) It is one of the major lingua francas in Zambia, after Bemba and Nyanja.

Tongan
Is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has 100,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO (Verb-Subject-Object) language.

Tongva
(Also known as the Gabrielino language) is an Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Tongva, a Native American people who live in and around Los Angeles, California. Tongva is closely related to several other indigenous languages of the area, including the Cahuilla language and the Serrano language. Modern Southern Californian place-names from Tongva include: Pacoima, Tujunga, Topanga, Azusa, the Cahuenga in Cahuenga Pass and the Cucamonga in Rancho Cucamonga.

Trasianka
Is a Belarusian–Russian patois or a kind of interlanguage (from the linguistic point of view). It is often labeled "pidgin" or even "creole", which is not correct by any widespread definition of pidgin or creole language. The motivation for labelling trasianka as "pidgin" or a "creolized (language form)" (cf. Cychun, 2000) relies probably in the fact that the words "pidgin" and "creole" have pejorative, derogatory connotations (among non-experts, but also among a part of linguists in Belarus) as well as the word "trasianka" itself.

Tregami
Or Trigami is a language spoken in the villages of Gambir and Katar in the Nurestan Province of Afghanistan. Tregami belongs to the Indo-European language family, and is on the Nuristani group of the Indo-Iranian branch. Ethnologue estimates its speakers at 1,000 (1994). It's speakers are overwhelmingly Muslim, and literacy rates are low: below 1% for people who have it as a first language, and between 5% to 15% for people who have it as a second language. It has a lexical similarity of approximately 76% to 80% with the Waigali language.

Tsat
(Also known as Utsat, Utset, Huihui, Hui, or Hainan Cham) is a language spoken on Hainan Island in China by the Utsuls. Tsat is a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within the Austronesian language family, and is related to the Cham languages, originally from the coast of present-day Vietnam. Unusually for a Malayo-Polynesian language, Tsat has developed into a solidly tonal language, probably as a result of areal linguistic effects and contact with Chinese, Hlai/Li, and the other tonal languages of Hainan.

Tsez
Is a Northeast Caucasian language with about 7000 speakers spoken by the Tsez, a muslimic people in the mountainous Tsunta district of southern and western Dagestan, Russia. The name derives from the Tsez word for eagle.

Tshiluba
(Also called Luba-Kasai and Luba-Lulua) is a Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is a national language.

Tshivenda
Is a Bantu language. The majority of Venda speakers live in South Africa (where Venda is an official language), but there are also speakers in Zimbabwe. Before South Africa became a democratic country, the bantustan of Venda was set up to cover the Venda speakers of South Africa.

Tsimshian
(Pronounced Sim-SHE-an), translated as "People Inside the Skeena River," are a Native American and First Nation people who live around Terrace, Prince Rupert, and Kitimat, on the north coast of British Columbia and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. Currently there are about 10,000 Tsimshians, of which about 1,300 live in Alaska. Canadian Tsimshian live along the Skeena and Nass rivers, as well as the many inlets and islands on the coast. The Tsimshian obtained food through fishing (halibut and salmon) and hunting (seals, sea lions and sea otters).

Tsonga
Or Xitsonga language is spoken in southern Africa by the Tsonga people, also known as the Shangaan. Tsonga belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo languages. Tsonga is spoken by about 1,646,000 people in South Africa's Limpopo province, as well as 1.5 million people in Mozambique, and 19,000 people in Swaziland. There are also 5 000 speakers in Zimbabwe.

Tswana
Also known as Setswana, is a Bantu language. Tswana is the national and majority language of Botswana, whose people are the Batswana (singular Motswana). The majority of Tswana speakers are in South Africa (where it is an official language), but there are also speakers in Zimbabwe and Namibia. Internationally there are about 4 million speakers. Before South Africa became a multi-racial democracy, the bantustan of Bophuthatswana was set up to cover the Tswana speakers of South Africa. Setswana is a Bantu language, belonging to the Niger-Congo language family. It is most closely related to two other languages in the Sotho language group, Sesotho (Southern Sotho) and Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa). It has also been known as Beetjuans, Chuana (hence Bechuanaland), Coana, Cuana, and Sechuana.

Tu
The Tu language (also known as Mongour, Monguor, and Mongor) is closely related to Mongolian. It is not a written language. It is spoken by the Tu people.

Tuareg
Or Tamasheq/Tamajaq/Tamahaq is a Berber language or family of closely related languages spoken by the Tuareg, in parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso (with a few speakers, the Kinnin, even in Chad.) They are quite mutually comprehensible, and are commonly regarded as a single language (as for instance by Karl Prasse); they are distinguished mainly by a few sound shifts (notably affecting the pronunciation of original z and h.) They are unusually conservative in some respects; they retain two short vowels where northern Berber languages have one or none, and have a much lower proportion of Arabic loanwords than most Berber languages. They are traditionally written in the indigenous Tifinagh alphabet; however, the Arabic alphabet is commonly used in some areas (and has been since medieval times), while the Latin alphabet is official in Mali and Niger.

Tulu
Is an Dravidian language of India with fewer than two million speakers. Most of its speakers are in the districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in the west of the state of Karnataka. Its also spoken in most part of Kasargod district of Kerala. The original written script of the language, similar to Malayalam script, is rarely used today. It is normally written in the Kannada script.

Tumbuka
Is a Bantu language which is spoken in parts of Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania. The language of the Tumbuka is called chiTumbuka - the 'chi' in front of Tumbuka meaning 'the language of', similar to 'ki' in kiSwahili or 'se' in seTswana. The World Almanac (1998) estimates approximately 2,000,000 Tumbuka speakers exist in the aforementioned three countries.

Old Tupi
Is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the native people from Brazil, mostly those who lived close to the sea. The language belongs to the Tupi-Guarani language subfamily. It enjoyed a brief period of literacy, in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries but was later suppressed to extinction, leaving only one modern descendant: Nheengatu.

Tupinikin
Is a language which is spoken by 800 Indian tribesmen in Espirito Santo and Bahia, Brazil. The language belongs to Tupi-Guarani language subfamily.

Turkish
Is a Turkic language spoken natively in Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece and other countries of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as by several million emigrants in the European Union. The number of native speakers is uncertain, primarily due to a lack of minority language data from Turkey. The figure of 60 million used here assumes that Turkish is the mother tongue of 80% of the Turkish population, with Kurdish making up most of the remainder. However, the vast majority of the linguistic minorities in Turkey are bilingual, speaking Turkish as a second language.

Turkmen
Is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by approximately 3,430,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by an additional approximately 3,000,000 people in other countries, including Iran (2,000,000), Afghanistan (500,000), and Turkey (1,000). Up to 50% of speakers in Turkmenistan also claim a good knowledge of Russian.

Turoyo
Is a Modern West Syriac language, a dialect of Aramaic. It is traditionally spoken in eastern Turkey and north-eastern Syria by members of the Syriac Orthodox Church. From the word turo, meaning 'mountain', turoyo is the mountain tongue of the Tur Abdin in southeastern Turkey. A far older name for the language is Surayt, and it is used by a number of speakers of the language in preference to Turoyo. The etymology of this name is difficult, but is probably linked to the word 'Syriac'.

Tuvaluan
Is a Nuclear Polynesian language of the Ellicean group spoken in Tuvalu. It is more or less distantly related to all other Polynesian languages, such as Hawai'ian, Maori, Tahitian, Samoan, and Tongan, and most closely related to the languages spoken on the Polynesian Outliers in Northern and Central Melanesia. Tuvaluan has borrowed considerably from Samoan, the language of Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are about 11000 Tuvaluan speakers worldwide.

Tuvan
Also known as Tuvinian, Tyvan, or Tuvin, is one of the Turkic languages. It is spoken by around 200,000 people in the Republic of Tuva in south-central Siberia. The language borrows a great number of roots from the Mongolian language and more recently from the Russian language. There are small diaspora groups of Tuvans that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in the People's Republic of China and in Mongolia.