Interesting Language-Related Facts
There are 7,168 living languages in the world
The Ethnologue – the world’s most extensive language catalogue – notes that there are 7,168 languages all over the world, more than 90% of which are spoken by less than 100,000 people.
The Oldest Written Language
Sumerian is recognized as the oldest written language which dates to 3500 BCE. It is followed by Ancient Egyptian, which dates to 3300 BCE, then Chinese, which dates to 1250 BCE.
Languages Can Become Extinct
A language dies or becomes extinct if there is no one to speak it or record it using written variations. The Ethnolouge notes that there are 451 languages that’ve become extinct, while there are 3072 that’re endangered.
Half of the World is Bilingual
Experts note that at least half of the world’s population speaks more than one language, which means that more than half of the world’s population is bilingual or plurilingual.
Bilingualism and plurilingualism brings with it many benefits. For one, it makes the learning of additional languages easier and fosters contact with other cultures. It also entails economic advantages, what with jobs and business opportunities being more readily available to those who are fluent in more than one language.
There is such a thing as “perfect bilinguals”
“Perfect bilinguals” refer to individuals who can speak two different languages at equal proficiencies. However, most bilinguals don’t exhibit a perfect balance between the languages that they know.
Half of the global population speaks 23 languages
It is estimated that half of the global population cumulatively speak only 23 languages. This number is very small, considering that there are more than 7,000 languages all over the world.
There’s a country that has more than 800 languages
Experts note that Papua New Guinea is home to 841 languages, which makes it the country with the most number of languages. Researchers, however, cite that 40 of these are at risk of becoming extinct since only few people actively speak them.
The country with the most number of official languages
South Africa is known to have the most number of official languages, which totals to 12: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, English and South African Sign Language.
South African Sign Language was recognized as the 12th official language in the country on May 3, 2023. There are at least 35 languages indigenous to South Africa, and these are protected under its constitution as equal in legal status.
The continent with the most number of languages
Asia is noted to be the continent with the most number of spoken languages at 2,300. Africa has 2, 138 languages.
The language with the smallest alphabet
Rotokas – a language spoken in the island of Bougainville located east of New Guinea – is identified as the language with the smallest alphabet, consisting of only 12 letters.
The language with the largest alphabet
If Rotokas has the smallest alphabet, Cambodian is noted to have the largest alphabet with more than 73 letters/characters.
Chinese Mandarin, however, is identified as the language to have the most number of symbols, which is estimated to be more than 8,000. Instead of alphabets, Chinese Mandarin uses symbols to represent different things, words, ideas and the like.
A language with no correlation to any other language
Basque – a language spoken in the mountains between Spain and France – is noted to be the only language in the world that has no correlation to any other language.
The Fastest Spoken Language
Various experts note that Japanese speakers tend to speak faster compared to others, which has characterized Japanese as the fastest spoken language.
The “most evolving language”
English is identified as the “most evolving language” in that new words are added to its vocabulary every year. This is largely caused by the diversification of the language and its use, coupled with advances in technology. It is estimated that English has more than 250,000 words.