Photo by Karina Vorozheeva on Unsplash
By Federica Lupis, https://www.federicalupis.com/
Author of "Fluent On The First Try" and "Why You're Not Fluent and How To Fix It"
Language trainer, interpreter and translator.
After three years of waiting, I was finally able to see my family and friends in Europe. I had a great time, and it was comforting to see so many people gathering and travelling.
On the way back to Australia, I connected my phone to the Internet, thinking I would only find messages wishing me a safe trip. To my surprise, there were several emails asking me where my next newsletter was…
I found it funny and thought that maybe I had passed on my passion for interesting facts to my readers.
Do you remember the unanswered question that closed my article last month? Today we’ll find out what’s the fastest spoken language in the world and much more!
Enjoy!
1. The basics
Before getting into the hard stuff, let’s see if we can answer these ‘basic’ questions: what are the most spoken and the most learnt languages in the world?
According to this article, Chinese is the most spoken language in the world, with 1.3 billion native speakers, followed by Spanish (471 million native speakers) and English (370 million native speakers).
This may not come as a surprise, but do you know what other languages are in the top ten? Let’s have a look:
4. Hindi: 342 million native speakers
5. Arabic: 315 million native speakers
6. Portuguese: 232 million native speakers
7. Bengali: 229 million native speakers
8. Russian: 154 million native speakers
9. Japanese:126 million native speakers
10. Lahnda (Western Punjabi): 118 million native speakers
To be honest, I didn’t expect Japanese to be on this list, but its population of 124 million, 98% of which is Japanese, makes this country number 11 in the world by population size. That’s huge, considering Japan is much smaller than the countries at the top of the list!
Before moving on to the next question, look at the list of languages above. Have you noticed that 7 out of 10 languages are Asian? Technically, six and a half because despite having 77% of its territory in Asia and 23% in Europe, Russia is part of both continents, making it a transcontinental country!
Now that we’ve had a look at the most spoken languages, let’s see if they match the most learnt languages in the world.
This question was hard to answer. The most reliable source I’ve found, The Washington Post, dates back to 2015, while the most recent, Duolingo, only focuses on Duolingo users.
I think the best way to go about this is to combine the data we have.
The Washington Post, 2015:
· English. Number of learners: 1.5 billion
· French. Number of learners: 82 million
· Chinese. Number of learners: 30 million
· Spanish. Number of learners: 14.5 million
· German. Number of learners: 14.5 million
· Italian. Number of learners: 8 million
· Japanese. Number of learners: 3 million
Duolingo, 2021. Top 10 languages, in order:
· English
· Spanish
· French
· German
· Japanese
· Italian
· Korean
· Chinese
· Russian
· Portuguese.
At first glance, not much seems to have changed: English remains the undisputed champion. Spanish, French and German are still going strong in the top positions, and Italian has kept its place at number six. However, if we take a better look, we will notice that Japanese and Korean are becoming increasingly popular, and Chinese seems to have lost ground.
This is likely due to the overwhelming success of Japanese and Korean entertainment, where movies, TV shows, video games, and K-Pop are attracting more and more people to Japanese and Korean culture and language.
If we compare Duolingo’s list with the most spoken languages in the world, we will see that 6 of the 10 most learnt languages are also the most spoken! This makes sense, but it’s worth mentioning that Duolingo has noticed a growing interest in under-studied languages. Perhaps, in 10 years, the ranking will be completely different!
2. There are about 70 whistled languages in the world.
I first heard of whistled languages when I came across Silbo Gomero (also known as el silbo, 'the whistle'), an ancient language made up entirely of whistles and spoken on the small Canary Island of La Gomera. This intrigued me, so I started doing research to find out if there were more whistled languages. It turns out there are about 70 whistled languages in the world! You can learn more in this article by the BBC, “The beautiful languages of the people who talk like birds”.
3. Africa is the land of click languages.
As the name suggests, click languages consist primarily of click sounds. They are exclusively found in Africa, and the only report of a click language outside of this continent is in Australia, where the indigenous people once spoke the Damin language. If you want to get a taste of these languages, check out this video, it’s fascinating!
4. There are about 300 sign languages in the world.
I naively thought there was only one universal sign language, but if you think about it, it makes sense that there are several. Sign languages have developed similarly to spoken languages in different parts of the world and with different features. For example, ‘hello’ in American sign language is different from ‘hello’ in Chinese sign language.
To make things easier, the IS or international sign language is used at international meetings and events and when travelling and socialising with people from other countries.
It would be great if IS was taught in school along with Esperanto so that everyone could communicate more easily.
5. Shakespeare created 1,700 new English words
We all know Shakespeare was a genius, so I wasn’t surprised when I found out that he created about 1,700 English words. Not all of them have survivedthe passing of time, but we still use some of them today. The website https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/ provides some interesting examples such as bedroom, fashionable, gossip, hurry and kissing. You can find more examples here.
6. What is the record number of languages spoken by one person?
When I read this question, I thought 10 would be the highest number of languages anyone could possibly speak. Obviously, I was wrong! Wikipedia has put together a detailed list of present and past polyglots, and many of them speak well over 10 languages. Sir John Bowring, a British political economist who lived between the 18th and 19th centuries, claimed to be able to speak about 100 languages. I wish I had a time machine just to travel back to his time and see him in action!
7. What’s the longest word in the world?
According to this article, methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanyl…isoleucine, the largest known protein chemical name, is the longest word in the world. The ellipsis is not a typo; it’s just a way to shorten this 189,819-characters word.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, from the movie Mary Poppins, only comes fourth.
8. There’s a language that only two people can speak.
Cryptophasia, from the Greek words crypto (‘secret’) and phasia (‘speech’), is a phenomenon that refers to a language developed by twins and understood only by them.
For example, the twins Grace and Virginia Kennedy grew up in California in the 70s but could not speak English for part of their childhood. At the age of 6, they spoke a language that no one else could understand, and it took a while for their parents and the specialists who assisted them to realise what was happening.
While the environment in which the Kennedy sisters grew up is believed to have impacted their speech development, it is now clear that twins can create a secret language, regardless of their circumstances.
Considering how hard it is to learn a language, I’m amazed that twins can create their own!
9. Onomatopoeia varies from country to country.
Onomatopoeia are words that derive from a sound associated with a thing or action, e.g., the meow of a cat.
I thought they were the same all over the world. Instead, they vary from country to country. I found out the hard way when I moved to Australia, and every time I used an onomatopoeia, most people didn’t understand me.
Here are some examples:
· English ‘choo choo’ vs Korean chik chik pok pok for the sound of a train.
· English ‘clap clap’ vs Arabic stah stah for clapping hands.
· English ‘chomp’ vs Japanese paku paku for the sound of eating.
They are quite different, right?
10. What’s the fastest spoken language in the world?
And finally… It’s time to reveal what’s the fastest spoken language in the world! I would have bet everything on Italian… but no, the undisputed winner is Japanese with 7.84 syllables per second. Spanish comes second, and Italian is only fifth after Basque and Finnish!
Admit you weren’t expecting it!
Luckily, English is number 11, so it should be a little easier to learn the world's number one international language!
And with this question, we’ve wrapped up the most interesting facts about foreign languages. I hope you had fun!
See you next month… with a new topic!
If you enjoyed my article, you can discover my tried and tested language learning strategies in my books:
and here are this month's book offers:
· Kyara e l’anello degli antenati by Saveria Parisi, Italian book.
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