Languages Flashcards
Roughly how many people speak Korean as their native language?
81 million
What is the language learning platform Busuu named after?
An unclassified, nearly extinct, Bantoid language spoken by only a few people in Cameroon.
Which three countries are on the podium for having the most languages?
1st Papua New Guinea, 2nd Indonesia, 3rd Nigeria
Which three countries are on the podium for having the most officially-recognised languages?
1st Bolivia, 2nd India, 3rd Zimbabwe
What is a dormant language?
A language which has died out but still serves as a significant symbol of an ethnic group
What is the opposite to a dead language?
Modern/living language
What is a Lingua Franca
A foreign language that is adopted as a common language by natives of a place with multiple languages
Roughly how many natively-spoken languages exist worldwide?
7,000
What did a 2004 study predict about the future of the number of languages worldwide?
90% of currently spoken languages could become extinct by 2050
What language now spoken by roughly 9 million people worldwide was once extinct in terms of spoken language for roughly 2000 years?
Hebrew
Name some recently extinct languages
Tandia (2024), Mednyj Aleut (2022), Moghol (2022), Luhu (2024)
Roughly what percentage of people in the world are bilingual or multilingual?
43% Bilingual and 17% multilingual
Which book is the world’s most translated?
The Bible
Which language has the smallest number of letters?
Rotokas from Bougainville with 12 letters
Which language has the largest alphabet?
Khmer, 74 letters
What is a language isolate?
a language that has no demonstrable genetic likeness to any other language
Name some language isolates.
Basque, Ainu, Haida
What is the estimated number of new words added to the English dictionary each year?
800-1000
What was the first language spoken in space?
Russian
How many different sign languages are there worldwide?
about 300
What do you call a language developed between twins that only they understand?
Cryptophasia or idioglossia
What are the top seven most spoken first languages?
Mandarin, Spanish English, Hindi Portuguese, Bengali and Russian
How many people in the world can speak Mandarin?
990 million or 12.3%
How many people in the world can speak Spanish?
More than 480 million (6%)
