Do I speak 4 or 7 languages?

There is always some confusion on my part whether I call Hiligaynon, Cebuano and Hokkien dialect or language. On top of those 4, I can also speak English, Spanish, Chinese (mandarin) and Filipino (tagalog). Not very fluent in some of them but I can communicate with them.

Wikipedia defines LANGUAGE a system of visual, auditory, or tactile symbols of communication and the rules used to manipulate them. And it defines DIALECT a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class.

Are Tagalog and Hiligaynon a separate language or just a dialect of one another? Certainly there are enough differences between the two that an illiterate tagalog speaker and an illiterate hiligaynon speaker would find talking to each other very confusing. For example, in tagalog shark is "pating" but in hiligaynon, "pating" is pigeon. Another example, in tagalog penis is "titi" but in hiligaynon, "titi" is breast/mammary glands. But there are also many similarities between the two. For example, both would refer to head as "ulo", you as "ikaw, eyes as "mata" and belly as "tiyan". Some words between the two are cognates. For example, hand is "kamay" in tagalog and "kamot" in hiligaynon. Another example, clothes is "baru" in tagalog and "bayo" in hiligaynon. And another, house in tagalog is "bahay" and "balay" in hiligaynon. See the similarities? This brings me back to my original question. Are they dialects or languages?

Between Mandarin and Hokkien, the spoken words may sound different but the written characters are the same. Wikipedia actually refer to these two as belonging to a chinese language family. Example would be the word man. In mandarin it is pronounced as "ren" and hokkien it is pronounced as "lang". Another is the word big. In mandarin it is pronounced as "tah" and in hokkien it is "tua". Then again, an illiterate mandarin speaker and illiterate hokkien speaker would not understand each other. Dialect? Language?

Then there is Swedish and Norwegian. Both are classified as languages yet from what I was told, they are very similar to each other that one does not have to formally learn the other language to understand each other. Why are they not dialect of each other?

I encountered this article that discusses when it is a language and when it is a dialect. One point it is saying is that developed nations promote their language as language while less developed nations delegate their languages a dialects. Sometimes the line between it being a language and a dialect is just very blurred. Very interesting, is it not?

I am proud that I can speak so many languages and from now on, I will proudly refer to them as languages. Enough of this dialect thing. Henceforth, I speak 7 languages. haha