Did you know there is a language in Mexico called Ayapaneco that is in danger of dying out because its two remaining speakers refuse to talk to one another? These are 25 stunning things you probably didn’t know about human languages.
25
There are about 7,000 languages in the world.
24
There are 50,000 characters in the Chinese language. You’ll need to know about 2,000 to read a newspaper.
23
12.44% of the world’s population speaks Mandarin as their first language.
22
There are about 2,200 languages in Asia.
21
1/4 of the world’s population speaks at least some English.
20
50% of educational time in Luxembourg is devoted to learning English, German, and French.
19
There are 13 ways to spell the ‘o’ sound in French.
18
There is a language in Botswana that consists of mainly 5 types of clicks.
17
There are 2,400 languages classified as being ‘endangered’.
16
231 languages are now completely extinct.
15
One language dies about every 14 days.
14
Eastern Siberia, the Northwest Pacific Plateau of North America, and Northern Australia are hotspots for endangered languages.
13
There are 12 imaginary languages in Lord of The Rings.
12
Esperanto is an artificial language, but is spoken by about 500,000 to 2,000,000 people, and 2 feature films have been done in the language.
11
There are 24 working languages of the EU.
10
There are 6 official UN languages
9
The bible is available in 2454 languages.
8
The oldest written language was believed to be written in about 4500 BC.
7
South Africa has 11 official languages – the most for a single country.
6
The pope tweets in 9 languages.
5
The US has no official language.
4
After the bible, the most translated book in the world is Pinocchio
3
Basque, a language spoken in the mountains between France and Spain is the only European language not related to any other known language
2
There is a language in Mexico called Ayapaneco that is in danger of dying out because its two remaining speakers refuse to talk to one another
1
You can us an ATM in Latin in Vatican City
