Post by Zazar on Oct 24, 2017 1:01:19 GMT
Languages are really important to me.
I'm currently learning French because I have family who know the language and it would be neat to communicate with them. I also live very close to Quebec, and French is commonly spoken where I live, so it would be useful. I want to study Dutch because I think it would be useful (but then I fell completely in love with the language). I’ve been hoping to learn Italian because Italy is a spectacular country in my opinion.
I’m really just learning languages for both practical, emotional, and traveling reasons.
I really love learning new languages and more about the cultures that they’re attached to so it’s quite hard for me to stop myself from looking into a new one (even if it’s only for a short time). For me, it's harder to learn a large number of languages.
For the fun of it, I've decided to put together some interesting statistics about the world's languages.
Number of living languages: 7,100+ languages
Language with the greatest amount of native speakers: Mandarin Chinese
Language spoken by the greatest amount of non-native speakers: English (over 470 million people speak English as their second language)
Country with the most languages spoken: Papua New Guinea has over 850 living languages.
How long have languages existed: Complex human language originated between 50,000 and 150,000 years ago
First language ever written: Sumerian or Egyptian (about 3200 BC)
Oldest written language still in existence: Chinese or Greek (about 1500 BC)
Language with the most words: English (approximately 250,000 distinct words)
Language with the fewest words: Toki Pona (120 root words)
Language with the shortest alphabet: Rotokas (12 letters). Approx. 4300 people speak this East Papuan language. They live primarily in the Bougainville Province of Papua New Guinea.
The language with the fewest sounds (phonemes): Rotokas (11 phonemes)
The language with the most sounds (phonemes): !Xóõ (112 phonemes). Approx. 4200 speak !Xóõ, the vast majority of whom live in the African country of Botswana.
Language with the most consonant sounds: Ubyx (81 consonants). This language of the North Causasian Language family, once spoken in the Haci Osman village near Istanbul, has been extinct since 1992. Among living languages, !Xóõ has the most consonants (77).
Language with the fewest vowel sounds: Ubyx (2 vowels). The related language Abkhaz also has 2 vowels in some dialects. There are approximately 106,000 Abkhaz speakers living primarily in Georgia.
Language with the most vowel sounds: !Xóõ (31 vowels)
The most widely published language: English
The most translated document: Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, written by the United Nations in 1948, has been translated into approzimately 370 languages and dialects.
The most common consonant sounds in the world's languages: /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/
I'm currently learning French because I have family who know the language and it would be neat to communicate with them. I also live very close to Quebec, and French is commonly spoken where I live, so it would be useful. I want to study Dutch because I think it would be useful (but then I fell completely in love with the language). I’ve been hoping to learn Italian because Italy is a spectacular country in my opinion.
I’m really just learning languages for both practical, emotional, and traveling reasons.
I really love learning new languages and more about the cultures that they’re attached to so it’s quite hard for me to stop myself from looking into a new one (even if it’s only for a short time). For me, it's harder to learn a large number of languages.
For the fun of it, I've decided to put together some interesting statistics about the world's languages.
Number of living languages: 7,100+ languages
Language with the greatest amount of native speakers: Mandarin Chinese
Language spoken by the greatest amount of non-native speakers: English (over 470 million people speak English as their second language)
Country with the most languages spoken: Papua New Guinea has over 850 living languages.
How long have languages existed: Complex human language originated between 50,000 and 150,000 years ago
First language ever written: Sumerian or Egyptian (about 3200 BC)
Oldest written language still in existence: Chinese or Greek (about 1500 BC)
Language with the most words: English (approximately 250,000 distinct words)
Language with the fewest words: Toki Pona (120 root words)
Language with the shortest alphabet: Rotokas (12 letters). Approx. 4300 people speak this East Papuan language. They live primarily in the Bougainville Province of Papua New Guinea.
The language with the fewest sounds (phonemes): Rotokas (11 phonemes)
The language with the most sounds (phonemes): !Xóõ (112 phonemes). Approx. 4200 speak !Xóõ, the vast majority of whom live in the African country of Botswana.
Language with the most consonant sounds: Ubyx (81 consonants). This language of the North Causasian Language family, once spoken in the Haci Osman village near Istanbul, has been extinct since 1992. Among living languages, !Xóõ has the most consonants (77).
Language with the fewest vowel sounds: Ubyx (2 vowels). The related language Abkhaz also has 2 vowels in some dialects. There are approximately 106,000 Abkhaz speakers living primarily in Georgia.
Language with the most vowel sounds: !Xóõ (31 vowels)
The most widely published language: English
The most translated document: Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, written by the United Nations in 1948, has been translated into approzimately 370 languages and dialects.
The most common consonant sounds in the world's languages: /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/
