Languages are a part of everyday life – whether you speak one or more, they are one of the main keys of communication. There are also a lot of fun facts about languages, and the Verbalists Education & Language Network brings you some of them:
Fun facts about languages – did you know?
- There are about 7,000 languages in the world.
- There are 50,000 characters in the Chinese language. You’ll need to know about 2,000 to read a newspaper.
- 12.44% of the world’s population speaks Mandarin as their first language.
- There are about 2,200 languages in Asia.
- 1/4 of the world’s population speaks at least some English.
- 50% of educational time in Luxembourg devoted to learning English, German, and French.
- There are 13 ways to spell the ‘o’ sound in French.
- There is a language in Botswana that consists of mainly 5 types of clicks.
- There are 2,400 languages classified as being ‘endangered’.
- 231 languages are now completely extinct.
- One language dies about every 14 days.
- Eastern Siberia, Northwest Pacific Plateau of North America, And Northern Australia are hotspots for endangered languages.
- There are 12 imaginary languages in Lord of The Rings.
- 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.
- There are 24 working languages of the EU.
- There are 6 official UN languages.
- The bible is available in 2454 languages.
- The oldest written language was believed to be written in about 4500 BC.
- South Africa has 11 official languages – the most for a single country.
- The pope tweets in 9 languages.
- The US has no official language.
- You can use an ATM in Latin in Vatican City.
