The diversity of humanity’s languages is dying. In the wake of cultural globalization and global trade, our languages are becoming
Basque
The
It’s considered to be an extremely unique language as it emerged from a completely separate branch of the family tree from every other language currently used on Earth. From English and Spanish to Hindu and Russian, the overwhelming majority of Europe and significant portions of Asia speak
However, Basque comes from a separate branch on the family tree. While its age is not certain, the language’s origins lie in a time before Indo-European languages had conquered much of Europe. Against all the odds, Basque managed to survive the linguistic invasion and remain relatively unchanged.
Out of a population of around 2.2 million in the
Pirahã
Pirahã is an indigenous language spoken along the Maici River in the Amazon region of Brazil that often
It’s partially unusual because the tone of voice is just as important as the consonants and vowel sounds in their words. There are several other tonal languages, such as Vietnamese and Chinese, but
As just one example, the word for friend and enemy is the same, but the tone of the spoken word dictates how it is interpreted. It also has no words for colors or numbers. Instead of saying something like “seven” they would describe it in a way that loosely translates to something like “a somewhat larger amount”.
Silbo Gomero
Silbo Gomero is a whistling language used by some inhabitants of La Gomera in Spain’s Canary Islands. It originated as a way for people to communicate over vast distances across the island’s deep ravines and narrow valleys, since the sound travels much further (and with less effort) than shouting. It’s far-traveling sound also means it’s a useful tool for public communication.
Users will place their fingers in their mouths to let out short, sharp, and vaguely melodic whistling sounds. It might sound simplistic, but skilled “speakers” can communicate a surprising amount of information with these noises.
Silbo Gomero is only used in specific contexts and no one would consider it their mother tongue. However, it’s estimated that
Taa (Xóõ)
Today, it’s an exceptionally obscure language, spoken by just 3,000 people or so in parts of Botswana and Namibia.
Pormpuraaw
Pormpuraaw is a language spoken by an Indigenous community native to an area within modern-day Queensland, Australia.
It’s a fascinating language simply because it doesn’t have terms that relate to “left” or “right” at all. Instead, they use “north”, “south”, “east”, and “west”.
Esperanto
Esperanto was first developed in the late 19th century in an attempt to create a universal second language for international communication. The language is designed to be neutral and easy-to-learn, encompassing vocabulary that is primarily derived from numerous European languages.
Some basic Esperanto words are “saluton,” which means “hello”, and “dankon”, which means thank you.
The constructed language garnered a fair amount of interest in the 20th century, but it ultimately didn’t catch on. Today, fewer than 2 million people speak it, but it’s largely faded from public consciousness.
Nüshu
Nüshu was a language used exclusively by women. It was developed some 400 years ago by ethnic Yao women in Jiangyong county of southern China as a means to communicate with each other without men understanding. Loosely translated to “women’s writing” in today’s Chinese, it’s the world’s only script designed and used exclusively by women.
“Women used their own script to tell stories, to comfort each other, to sing out sorrow and to express admiration. In the process, a paradise was built,”
“The content of Nüshu works comes from women’s everyday lives – marriage, family, social interactions, anecdotes, songs and riddles. These are rich in folk custom and are important for the study of linguistics, grammatology, archaeology, anthropology, and other human and social sciences,” added Zhao.
It fell into extinction in the 20th century, but there
Mixtec (Chalcatongo)
Computational linguists used data from the World Atlas of Language Structures
One of its most peculiar features is that it doesn’t have any way to distinguish between questions and statements. For instance, statements like “Are you well?” and “You are well” sound exactly the same.
The Incas’ Talking Knots
Although not technically a language, Quipu is sometimes considered to be a writing system and deserves a mention in any article about fascinating linguistic systems. It involves a series of color-coded cords that a tied in knots at certain points to signify numerical information.
Also known as Talking Knots, it was used by the
Last but not least: English
English is one of the most widely spoken languages on the planet, but
English has 44 phonemes, way more than the average of 25 to 30. It also features a bunch of unusual consonant sounds as well. For instance, the “th” sounds heard in the words “bath” and “bathe” are found in fewer than 10 percent of the world’s languages.
On top of that, English is filled with