In the process of communication, language plays an important part. Indeed, all the living beings in this world communicate in their own language.
Language is a complex and fascinating aspect of our lives that scientists believe to have evolved out of a series of grunts and hand gestures.
Here are some amazing facts about languages from around the world.
- There are 2,700 languages with over 7,000 individual dialects spoken around the world today. The most widely spoken languages are Chinese, Spanish, English, and Hindi, in that order. Chinese, the most spoken language around the world, has over 50,000 characters. But you only need to know 2,000 of those characters to be able to read the newspaper.
- Every two weeks, another language dies. Or, perhaps, a dialect. There are over 231 completely extinct languages and 2,400 of the world’s languages are considered to be in danger of dying out.
- The Bible is the most widely translated book available in 2,454 different languages. Pinnochio is a close second. But the world’s most translated author is Agatha Christie.
- The language with the largest alphabet in the world belongs to the Cambodian language Khmer and is 74 characters long. The shortest alphabet is 12 characters long, and belongs to Rotokas. The language with the most words, however, is English, boasting over 250,000 words.
- Over 300 languages are spoken in the United States, but South Africa holds the record for the country with the most official languages (11). The small country Papua New Guinea has 12% of all spoken languages on Earth. They boast 840 living languages.