My insane language list, featuring Omniglot
Ainu - Ainu is spoken on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido by maybe 15 families. It was once spoken in the Kurile Islands, the northern part of Honshu and the southern half of Sakhalin. The last Ainu speaker on Sakhalin died in 1994. Ainu is a language isolate, unrelated to any other language. The vast majority of the 150,000 people who claim to be ethnically Ainu speak only Japanese. The actual number of people of Ainu descent is thought to be higher, however many are unaware of their ethnicity or deny it through fear of discrimiation. Efforts are currently being made to revive and revitalise Ainu, particularly by Shigeru Kayano, a native speaker of the Tsishima dialect of Ainu (the only surviving dialect). He has set up a school to teach the language and has started collecting traditional Ainu stories. Ainu is officially written with a version of the Japanese katakana syllabary. A Latin-based alphabet is also used. The Ainu also have a rich oral tradition, including Yukar (sagas of heros), Kamui Yukar (stories of the gods) and Uwepeker (old stories).
Albanian - Albanian is an Indo-European language which forms its own branch in the Indo-European family and has no close relatives. It is spoken by about 7.6 million people mainly in Albania and Kosovo, and also in parts of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Greece and Italy. There are two main dialects of Albanian: Tosk (Toskësisht) Gheg (Gegërisht) and the dividing line between them is the Shkumbin river. Tosk, the official language of Albania, and one of the official languages of Kosovo and Macedonia, is spoken in southern Albania, Turkey, Greece and Italy, while Gheg is spoken in Serbia and Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, northern Albania and Bulgaria. The dialects are more or less mutually intelligible, and transitional varieties of Albanian are spoken in central Albania. (Read the Tower of Babel in Albanian.)
American Sign Language - Sign languages are forms of communication that use combinations of hand shapes, the orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to convey everything that spoken languages can convey. Manual alphabets or fingerspelling is also used to spell out words and names for which there are no signs. Sign languages are used mainly by people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and also by their families, friends and others who have regular contact with them. However not all deaf people use sign languages - some rely on lip reading and speech. There of hundreds of sign languages around the world, most of which are so different as to be mutually unintelligible. The most widely used sign language is probably American Sign Language (ASL), which is used is the USA, Canada, parts of Mexico and, with modifications, in quite a few other countries in Central America, Asia and Africa. ASL developed from Old French Sign Language and as a result, has little in common with British Sign Language (BSL) and the two languages are mutually unintelligible.
Arabic: Modern Standard - The Arabic script evolved from the Nabataean Aramaic script. It has been used since the 4th century AD, but the earliest document, an inscription in Arabic, Syriac and Greek, dates from 512 AD. The Aramaic language has fewer consonants than Arabic, so during the 7th century new Arabic letters were created by adding dots to existing letters in order to avoid ambiguities. Further diacritics indicating short vowels were introduced, but are only generally used to ensure the Qur'an was read aloud without mistakes. (Read the Tower of Babel in Arabic.)
Arabic: Egyptian - Arabic was brought to Egypt by the Muslim conquest of 7th century AD. It was influenced by the Coptic language, a descendant of Ancient Egyptian which was spoken alongside Arabic until about the 17th century in parts of Egypt, and also by Turkish. Cairene Arabic, the dialect of Egyptian capital, Cairo, is the most prestigious form of Egyptian Arabic, and is used in political cartoons, advertising, song lyrics and plays, and occasionally in informal correspondence and dialog in fiction. Modern Standard Arabic is used for other purposes.
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic - Assyrian Neo-Aramaic a diverse group of Eastern Aramaic/Syriac dialects spoken by about 200,000 people mainly in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Turkey. The Syriac, Latin and Hebrew scripts are all used to write Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. (Read the Tower of Babel in Syriac. Information about the Aramaic language.)
Basque - Basque is the unique pre-Roman language that survives in the Iberian Peninsula. It has suffered a dire retreat and loss regarding its speakers and territory. This process was especially notable in the High Navarre. At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the efforts of various intellectuals and politicians (e.g. Arturo Kanpion and Sabino Arana), the language experienced a certain blooming, widely related to the Basque nationalism. After suffering from strong persecution during the Franco era (1936 -1977), it has started to make a come back during the second half of the 20th century, especially regarding the standardization of the written language. (Read the Tower of Babel in Basque.)
Bulgarian - Bulgarian is a Southern Slavic language with about 12 million speakers mainly in Bulgaria, but also in Ukraine, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Canada, USA, Australia, Germany and Spain. Bulgarian is mutually intelligible with Macedonian, and fairly closely related to Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian. (Read the Tower of Babel in Bulgarian.)
Chinese: Cantonese - Cantonese is spoken by at least 70 million people mainly in the south east of China, particularly in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. It is also spoken in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and among Overseas Chinese communities in many other countries. In many schools in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong, Cantonese is the medium of instruction, though the students are taught to read and write standard Chinese, which they read with Cantonese pronunciation. Cantonese is also the main language of business, the media and government in both Hong Kong and Macau. In Hong Kong, colloquial Cantonese is written with a mixture of standard Chinese characters and over a thousand extra characters invented specifically for Cantonese. The extra characters are included in the Hong Kong Supplementary Characters Set (HKSCS). (Read the Tower of Babel in Cantonese.)
Chinese: Mandarin - Mandarin is a variety of Chinese spoken mainly in China, Taiwan, and Singapore by about 1.3 billion people. It is the main language of government, the media and education in China and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages in Singapore. Mandarin is also spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Brunei, Thailand, the Philippines, Russia, the USA, Vietnam, Laos, the UK and Mauritius. Mandarin is known as 普通话 (pŭtōnghuà - common language), 北京话 (bĕijīnghuà - Beijing language) or 汉语 (hànyŭ - Han language) in China, 國語 (guóyŭ - national language) in Taiwan, and 华语 [華語] (huáyŭ - Chinese language) in Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese is based on spoken Mandarin and is known as 漢語 [汉语] (hànyŭ) or 中文 (zhōngwén). Speakers of other varieties of Chinese have to learn the grammar and vocabulary of Mandarin in order to read and write in Chinese. (Read the Tower of Babel in Mandarin.)
Catalan - Catalan is a Romance language spoken by about 12 million people. It is the official language of Andorra and an official language, along with Spanish, in Catalonia (Catalunya), Valencia (Comunitat Valenciana) and the Balearic Islands. It is also spoken in parts of Aragon and Murcia, Rousillon (Rosselló) in southern France, and in the Sardinian city of Alghero (l'Alguer). (Read the Tower of Babel in Catalan.)
Danish - Danish is a North Germanic language with around 5.5 million speakers mainly in Denmark, but also in Greenland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Canada, the UAE and the USA. Danish was the official language of Norway until about 1830 and of Iceland until 1944. Danish is now the first foreign language learnt in Iceland. Danish began to be used a literary languge during the 16th century. In 1514 Christian Pedersen published a Danish version of Gesta Danorum, which was highly influential on subsequent Danish literature. Pedersen also published the first Danish translation of the New Testament in 1531. (Read the Tower of Babel in Danish.)
Dothraki - Dothraki was fully developed by David J. Peterson, a member of the Language Creation Society, for HBO's television series Game of Thrones. over 1700 words, Peterson drew inspiration from George R.R. Martin’s description of the language, as well as from such languages as Russian, Turkish, Estonian, Inuktitut and Swahili.The Dothraki language was developed under two significant constraints. First, the language had to match the uses already put down in the books. Secondly, it had to be easily pronounceable or learnable by the actors. These two constraints influenced the grammar and phonology of the language: for instance, voiceless stops can be aspirated or unaspirated, as in English.
Dutch - Dutch is a West Germanic language with about 20 million speakers mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. There are small Dutch-speaking communities in northern France around Dunkerque and Dutch is also spoken in Aruba, the Netherlands Antilles, Suriname and in Indonesia. The official or standard form of Dutch is known as Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN), 'general civilized Dutch'. It is taught in schools and used by authorities in the Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. An association known as the Taalunie (Language Union) set up by governments of the Netherlands and Flanders regulates the orthography and spelling of ABN. Alternative names for ABN are Algemeen Nederlands (AN), general Dutch, and Standaardnederlands, standard Dutch. The Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium are collectively know as Flemish (Vlaams). They differ to some extent from the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands in terms of intonation and pronunciation, and there are minor differences in vocabulary, including loanwords from French and English not found in Standard Dutch. (Read the Tower of Babel in Dutch.)
English - English is a West Germanic language related to Dutch, Frisian and German with a significant amount of vocabulary from French, Latin, Greek and many other languages. (Read the Tower of Babel in English.)
Farsi - The Persian language has been written with a number of different scripts, including the Old Persian Cuneiform, Pahlavi, Aramaic, and Avestan, Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. After the Islamic conquest of the Persian Sassanian Empire in 642 AD, Arabic became the language of government, culture and especially religion. Modern Persian appeared during the 9th century. It is written in a version of the Arabic script and is full of words of Arabic origin. There are also two methods of writing Persian with the Latin alphabet. Under Mongolian and Turkish rulers, Persian was adopted as the language of government in Turkey, central Asia and India, where it was used for centuries, and until after 1900 in Kashmir. Persian is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages spoken by about 130 million people, mainly in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. There are also significiant numbers of speakers in many other countries, including Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Israel, Turkmenistan, Oman, Yemen, the UAE and the USA. In Afghanistan Persian is known as Dari (درى) or Dari-Persian, while in Tajikistan it's known as Tajiki (Тоҷики / تاجيكى). (Read the Tower of Babel in Farsi.)
Finnish - Finnish (suomi) is a Finno-Ugric language spoken by about 5 million people in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Canada and Russia. Finnish starting to appear in writing during the 16th century. The first piece of Finnish literature was a translation of the New Testament by Michael Agricola which was published in 1548. Until 1809 Finland was a part of Sweden and Swedish was the official language. From 1863 the Finnish language could be used along with Swedish when dealing with authorities. Civil servants were obliged to use the Finnish language and issue documents in Finnish from 1883. In 1892 Finnish became an official language and gained a status comparable to that of Swedish. Today Finland is officially bilingual in Finnish and Swedish. (Read the Tower of Babel in Finnish.)
French - French is a Romance language spoken by about 265 million people in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, the USA, Lebanon, French Guiana, north, west and central Africa, Madagascar, a number of islands in the Indian Ocean, Haiti and other Caribbean islands, Indochina, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and the French Pacific Territories. The French language is descended from Latin and first appeared in writing in 842 AD when it was used in the Strasbourg Oaths. Before then Latin was the language used for literature throughout Europe. During the 10th and 11th centuries, French appeared in a number of documents and religious writings, but French literature didn't start to take off until the late 12th / early 13th century. The first great work of French literature was the 'Chanson de Roland' (Song of Roland), which was published in about 1200. (Read the Tower of Babel in French.)
German - German is a Germanic language with about 121 million speakers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Belgium, Italy, France, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Australia, South Africa and Namibia. High German began to emerge as the standard literary language during the 16th century. Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, which he completed in 1534, marks the beginning of this process. The language he used, based partly on spoken German, became the model for written German. Swiss German is a variety of German spoken by about 4 million people in Switzerland, occasionally appears in writing in novels, newspapers, personal letters and diaries. (Read the Tower of Babel in German.)
Greek - Greek (Ελληνικά) is an Indo-European language spoken by about 14 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus, where it is an official language. Greek is also recognised as a minority language in parts of Turkey, Italy and Albania. Today the Greek alphabet is used only to write Greek, however at various times in the past it has been used to write such languages as Lydian, Phrygian, Thracian, Gaulish, Hebrew, Arabic, Old Ossetic, Albanian, Turkish, Aromanian, Gagauz, Surguch and Urum. (Read the Tower of Babel in Greek.)
Hebrew - Hebrew is a member of the Canaanite group of Semitic languages. It was the language of the early Jews, but from 586 BC it started to be replaced by Aramaic. By 70 AD use of Hebrew as an everyday language had largely ceased, but it continued to be used for literary and religious functions, as well as a lingua franca among Jews from different countries. Today Hebrew is spoken by some 5 million people in Israel, where it is an official language along with Arabic. and a further 2 to 3 million people speak the language in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, Panama, the UK and USA. (Read the Tower of Babel in Hebrew.)
Hindi - Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language with about 487 million speakers. It is one of the official languages of India and is the main language used in the northern states of Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar, and is spoken in much of north and central India alongside other languages such as Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi or Bengali. In other parts of India, as well as in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, Hindi is understood. In Fiji people of Indian origin speak Hindi, and in some areas the Fijian people also speak it. Hindi is closely related to Urdu, the main language of Pakistan, which is written with the Arabic script, and linguists consider Standard Hindi and Standard Urdu to be different formal registers both derived from the Khari Boli dialect, which is also known as Hindustani. Apart from the difference in writing systems, the other main difference between Hindi and Urdu is that Hindi contains more vocabulary from Sanskrit, while Urdu contains more vocabulary from Persian. At an informal spoken level there are few significant differences between Urdu and Hindi and they could be considered varieties a single language. (Read the Tower of Babel in Hindi.)
Icelandic - Icelandic is a Northern Germanic language with about 300,000 speakers in Iceland (Ísland), Canada (Kanada) and the USA (Bandaríki Norður-Ameríku). Icelandic is the closest of the Northern Germanic languages to Old Norse and it is possible for Icelandic speakers to read the Old Norse sagas in the original without too much difficulty. In 1944 Iceland gained its independence and Icelandic was revived as an official and literary language. Today there is a flourishing publishing industry in Iceland and Icelanders are probably the keenest readers and writers in the world. (Read the Tower of Babel in Icelandic.)
Italian - Italian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, the Vatican City, Malta and Eritrea. There are also Italian speakers in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Canada, the USA and the UK. Italian first started to appear in written documents during the 10th century in the form of notes and short texts inserted into Latin documents such as lawsuits and poetry. For a long time there was no standard written or spoken language in Italy and writers tended to write in their own regional dialects. In northern Italy, which was often ruled by the French, French and Occitan were used as literary languages. Today the Tuscan dialect is known as Italian (Italiano) and is the offical language of Italy. It is the main language of literature and the media. Each region of Italy also has its own dialect, some of which are so distinct from standard Italian that they are mutually unintelligible. The Sicilian dialect for example, is sometimes regarded as a separate language and has a literary tradition older than Italian itself. (Read the Tower of Babel in Italian.)
Japanese - Before the 4th century AD, the Japanese had no writing system of their own. During the 5th century they began to import and adapt the Chinese script, along with many other aspects of Chinese culture, probably via Korea. However the Japanese were aware of Chinese writing from about the 1st century AD from the characters that appeared on imported Chinese goods. At first the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese or in a Japanese-Chinese hybrid style. An example of the hybrid style is the kojiki (Records of Antiquity) written in 712 AD. They then started to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as man'yōgana, literarly "Ten Thousand leaf syllabic script", which used the characters for their phonetic values. Over time a writing system emerged in which Chinese characters were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used for their phonetic values to write grammatical elements and these characters were simplified and eventually became two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. Japanese literature reached a high point during the 11th century with the Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) by Lady Murasaki Shikibu. Many other Japanese literary works were also written by women. Modern Japanese is written with a mixture of hiragana and katakana, plus kanji. Modern Japanese texts may also include rōmaji, (Roman letters), the standard way of writing Japanese with the Latin alphabet, eimoji (English script), non-Japanese words written in their own script and various symbols known as kigō. (Read the Tower of Babel in Japanese.)
Kalaallisut - Greenlandic is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken by about 57,000 people in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) and Denmark. There are three main dialects: West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), East Greenlandic (Tunumiisut) and North Greenlandic (Inuktun). West Greenlandic is spoken by 54,500 people in Nuuk, Sisimiut and Kangerussuaq, is has been the official language of the Greenlandic autonomous territory since 2009 - before then it shared official status with Danish. West Greenlandic used in Greenland's schools, and is the sole medium of instruction in primary schools. It is also spoken by 7,000 people in Denmark. East Greenlandic is spoken by 3,000 people mainly in the Tasiilaq in southeast Greenland, and North Greenlandic is spoken by 1,000 people in Qaanaaq and Nord in the north of Greenland. North Greenlandic has more similarities with Inuktitut, an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in Canada, than other Greenlandic dialects. (Read the Tower of Babel in Kalaallisut.)
Khmer - Khmer/Cambodian (ភាសាខ្មែរ) is a member of the Mon-Khmer group of Austro-Asiatic languages, spoken by about 8 million people in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, China, France and the USA. Khmer shares many features and much vocabulary with Thai as a result of centuries of two-way borrowing. There are also borrowings from Sanskrit, Pali, French and Chinese in Khmer. (Read the Tower of Babel in Khmer.)
Korean - Korean (한국어 / 조선말) is a language spoken by about 63 million people in South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The relationship between Korean and other languages is not known for sure, though some linguists believe it to be a member of the Altaic family of languages. Grammatically Korean is very similar to Japanese and about 70% of its vocabulary comes from Chinese. (Read the Tower of Babel in Korean.)
Malagasy - Malagasy is a member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language spoken by about 17 million in Madagascar, where it is the national and official language, Comoros, Réunion and Mayotte. It is related to the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and more closely to the South-east Barito group of languages spoken in Borneo, particularly to Maanyan. Malagasy contains words borrowed from Bantu languages, and Arabic, and also from French, the former colonial language which still enjoys official status, and English, thanks mainly to the 18th century pirates who made the island their base. From the 15th century to 1823, Malagasy was written with the Arabic Ajami script or Sorabe. Since then, it has been written with the Latin alphabet. (Read the Tower of Babel in Malagasy.)
Maltese - Maltese is a Central Semitic language spoken by about 350,000 people on the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Gozo. The Maltese language developed from the Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic, a form of Arabic that developed in Sicily and Malta between the 9th and 14th centuries. Siculo-Arabic was extinct in Sicily by about 1300, but continued to be spoken in Malta and evolved into Maltese. The first reference to Malta having a distinct language dates from 1364, and the language is first referred to as lingua maltensi in the will of a certain Pawlu Peregrino from 1436. (Read the Tower of Babel in Maltese.)
Manx - Manx is a Celtic language spoken on the Isle of Man (Ellan Vannin). It is closely related to the Irish of Ulster and Scottish Gaelic of Galloway and was brought to the Isle of Man by settlers from those areas during the 5th century AD. Manx began to emerge as a distinct language in the 13th-14th century after the collapse of the Norse kingdom of Mann and the Isles and prior to the long period of English control through the Stanleys. (Read the Tower of Babel in Manx.)
Mongolian - Mongolian is an Altaic language spoken by approximately 5 million people in Mongolia, China, Afghanistan and Russia. There are a number of closely related varieties of Mongolian: Khalkha or Halha, the national language of Mongolia, and Oirat, Chahar and Ordos, which are spoken mainly in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China. Other languages considered part of the Mongolian language family, but separate from Mongolian, include Buryat and Kalmyk, spoken in Russia and Moghul or Mogul, spoken in Afghanistan. In 1208 Chinggis Khan defeated the Naiman, and captured their Uyghur scribe Tatar-Tonga, who apparently adapted the Old Uyghur alphabet to write Mongolian. The alphabet created by Tatar-Tonga is now known as the Uighur/Uyghur Script, the Classical Mongol Script, the Old Script, or Mongol Bichig in Mongolian. (Read the Tower of Babel in Mongolian.)
Nepali - Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language with around 17 million speakers in Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and India. Nepali was originally known as Khas Kurā and was the language of the Khasa kingdom, which ruled over the foothills of what is now Nepal during the 13th and 14th centuries. Nepali first started to be used in writing during the 12th century AD. It is written with the Devanāgarī alphabet, which developed from the Brahmi script in the 11th century AD.
Norwegian - Norwegian is a North Germanic language with around 5 million speakers in mainly in Norway. There are also some speakers of Norwegian in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the UK, Spain, Canada and the USA. There was considerable debate about how to go about creating a national language and two languages emerged - Landsmål (national language), based on colloquial Norwegian and regional dialects, particularly the dialects of western Norway, and Riksmål (national language), which was primarily a written language and very similar to Danish. Landsmål was renamed Nynorsk (New Norwegian) in 1929 and Riksmål is now officially known as Bokmål (book language). A few people over 60 still use Riksmål, which is considered a conservative form of Bokmål and differs only slightly from it. Today schools can choose to teach either Nynorsk or Bokmål and civil servants are expected to be able to use both forms. For a while there was a movement to create a single standard language to be called Samnorsk (Union Norwegian). Politicians liked the idea of unifying the Norwegian language, while everybody else thought it a bad idea and a bit of a waste of time. The Samnorsk project was officially abandoned on 1st January 2002. (Read the Tower of Babel in Norwegian.)
Okinawan - Okinawan is a member of the Ryukuan language family spoken on Okinawa and a number of other Ryūkyū islands, which are known as 南西諸島 (Nansei-shoto) or 'southwest islands' in Japanese. Uchina (うちなー) is the local name for Okinawa (沖縄). Although it shares a common ancestor and some vocabulary and grammar with Japanese, Okinawan is largely incomprehensible to speakers of Japanese. Okinawan also has a much more complex honorific system than Japanese. (Read the Tower of Babel in Okinawan.)
Pashto - Pashto is a member of the southeastern Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. There are three main varieties of Pashto: Northern Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan; Southern Pashto, spoken mainly in Afghanistan; and Central Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan. The exact number of Pashto speakers is not known for sure, but most estimates range from 45 million to 55 million. Pashto is the first language of between 40% and 55% (11 to 15.4 million) of the people of Afghanistan, and 10% to 28% (2.8 to 7.8 million) speak it as a second language, and the total is around 18 or 19 million.
Portuguese - Portuguese is a Romance language spoken by about 240 million people mainly in Brazil (Brasil) and Portugal, and also in Angola, Mozambique (Moçambique), Cape Verde (Cabo Verde), Guinea-Bissau (Guiné-Bissau), São Tomé e Principe, East Timor (Timor-Leste) and Macau. There are also communities of Portuguese speakers in the USA, Canada and a number of other countries. Portuguese is a descendent of Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Roman soldiers, settlers and merchants from 218 BC. The earliest records of a distinctly Portuguese language appear in administrative documents dating from the 9th century AD. In 1290 King Denis decreed that Portuguese, then simply called the "Vulgar language" should be known as the Portuguese language and should be officially used. (Read the Tower of Babel in Portuguese.)
Romanian - Romanian is a Romance language spoken by about 24 million people in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. Romanian retains a number of features of Latin, such as noun cases, which other Romance languages dispensed with a long time ago. Romanian contains many words taken from the surrounding Slavic languages, and also from French, Old Church Slavonic, German, Greek and Turkish. Romanian first appeared in writing during the 16th century mainly in religious texts and other documents. The earliest known text in Romanian dates from 1521 and is a letter from Neacşu of Câmpulung to the mayor of Braşov. Neacşu wrote in a version of the old Cyrillic alphabet similar to the one for Old Church Slavonic, and which was used in Walachia and Moldova until 1859. From the late 16th century a version of the Latin alphabet using Hungarian spelling conventions was used to write Romanian in Translyvania. Then in the late 18th century a spelling system based on Italian was adopted. A version of the Cyrillic alphabet was used in the Soviet Republic of Moldova until 1989, when they switched to the Romanian version of the Latin alphabet. (Read the Tower of Babel in Romanian.)
Russian - Russian is an Eastern Slavonic language closely related to Ukrainian and Belarusian with about 277 million speakers mainly in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. It is also spoken in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonian, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Finland, Mongolia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Israel, Afghanistan, the USA, Canada and a number of countries. The earliest known writing in Russia dates from the 10th century and was found at Novgorod. The main languages written on them in an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet were Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic. There are also some texts in Finnish, Latin and Greek. Russian started appearing in writing regularly during the reign of Peter the Great (a.k.a. Peter I) (1672-1725) who introduced a revised alphabet and encouraged authors to use a literary style closer to their spoken language. The dialect of Moscow was used as the basis for written Russian. Russian literature started to flower during the 19th century when Tolstoi, Dostoyevskii, Gogol and Pushkin were active. During the Soviet era knowledge of the Russian language was wide spread though the subjects authors could write about were restricted. (Read the Tower of Babel in Russian.)
Serbian - Serbian is a South Slavic language spoken mainly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and Macedonia by about 9 million people. It is official in Serbia, and is the principal language of the Serbs. The Glagolitic alphabet was originally use to write Serbian from the 11th century. It was later replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet, and the modern Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by the Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. Serbian is now written mainly with the Cyrillic alphabet, though the Latin alphabet is sometimes used. Serbian contains many loan words from Greek and Turkish and continues to borrow new words from various languages. Up to the mid 19th century there was no standard written form of Serbian, but there was extensive literature. In 1850 a group of Serbian and Croatian writers and linguists decided to create a standard written form based on the widely-used Štokavian dialect. The modern Serbian literary standard developed from this written form, which was the official language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, between 1918 and 1991. After Yugoslavia broke up in the 1991 separate written and spoken languages began to emerge in the different countries that made up the former Yugoslavia. Serbian is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. (Read the Tower of Babel in Serbian.)
Seychellois Creole - Seychelles Creole is a creole language spoken in the Seychelles by about 70,000 people. It is one of the official languages of the Seychelles, along with French and English. It is a French-based Creole and has much in common with Mauritian Creole. Other names include Seselwa Creole French, Seselwa and Seselwa Kreol. Since the Seychelles became independent in 1976 the Seychelles government has sought to develop Creole as a language. They set up the Lenstiti Kreol (Creole Institute / l'Institut créole) to standardise the spelling and grammar. Today Seychelles Creole is used in everyday conversation, in schools and in shops, and is the mother tongue of the majority of Seychellois.
Sicilian - Sicilian is a Romance language with about 5 million speakers in Sicily and in parts of Calabria and Puglia in southern Italy. There are also many Sicilians and people of Sicilian origin in the USA, Canada, Australia, Argentina and Germany. In Sicily the majority of Sicilians are bilingual in Sicilian and Italian. Sicilian is a descendant of Latin brought to Sicily by the Romans after they annexed the island in about 261 BC. Over the years Sicilian has absorbed vocabulary from many different languages, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, French, Lombard, Provençal, German, Catalan, Spanish, Italian, and also from the languages of the pre-Roman inhabitants of the island: the Sicani, Elymi, Siculi and Phoenicians. Sicilian was first used in writing during the reign of Frederick II (a.k.a. Frederick I of Sicily) between 1198 and 1250. Since then it has only been used in writing from time to time, and no standard spelling system has developed. Some poetry is written in Sicilian, but not many Sicilian speakers are able to read it as very few are literate in their mother tongue. Today Sicilian, which has no official status, is used mainly in informal situations between family and friends. Moves have been made to introduce the teaching of Sicilian in schools, though with limited success. (Read the Tower of Babel in Sicilian.)
Spanish - Spanish is a Romance language with approximately 417 million speakers, 322 to 358 of whom speak it as a first language while the remainder speak it as a second language. A significant number of people also speak Spanish as a foreign language. Spanish is spoken in Spain and 22 other countries including: Andorra, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, the USA and Venezuela. In Spain this language is generally called español (Spanish) when contrasting it with languages of other countries, such as French and English, but it is called castellano (Castilian, the language of the Castile region) when contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain, such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan. Some philologists use Castilian only when speaking of the language spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages, stating that it is preferable to use Spanish for its modern form. The subdialect of Spanish spoken in northern parts of modern day Castile is also called Castilian sometimes, and differs from those of other regions of Spain, however the Castilian dialect is conventionally considered in Spain to be the same as standard Spanish. The name castellano is widely used for the language in Latin America. Some Spanish speakers consider castellano a generic term with no political or ideological links, much as "Spanish" in English. (Read the Tower of Babel in Spanish.)
Swahili - Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by about 35 million people in Tanzania, Burundi, Congo (Kinshasa) Kenya, Mayotte, Mozambique, Oman, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda, UAE and the USA. Swahili is an official language of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya and is used as a lingua franca throughout East Africa. The name Swahili comes from the Arabic word sawāhil (coasts) and the language contains a lot of vocabulary from Arabic, Persian, Malagasy, English, German and Portuguese. (Read the Tower of Babel in Swahili.)
Swedish - Swedish is a North Germanic language with around 9 million speakers mainly in Sweden and Finland, and also in Estonia, Norway, Canada and the USA. It is closely related to Norwegian and Danish and is mutually intelligible with them to a large extent, particularly in its written form. (Read the Tower of Babel in Swedish.)
Tamil - Tamil (தமிழ்) is a Dravidian language spoken by around 52 million people in Indian, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, the USA, UK and Australia. It is the first language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and is spoken by a significant minority of people (2 million) in north-eastern Sri Lanka. (Read the Tower of Babel in Tamil.)
Tibetan - Tibetan (བོད་སྐད) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 6 million people in China (Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan), India, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh and Nepal. In Mongolia Tibetan is considered the Classical language of Buddhism and was widely taught until quite recently. Before 1949-50, Tibet comprised of three provinces: Amdo, now split between the Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan provinces; Kham, now largely incorporated into the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai, and U-Tsang, which, together with western Kham, is now known as the Tibet Autonomous Region, which was created in 1965. Dzongkha (Bhutanese) (རྫོང་ཁ), which is spoken by about 130,000 people in Bhutan, where it is the national language, and also in Nepal and India. It is a Sino-Tibetan language which is quite closely related to Tibetan and distantly related to Chinese. (Read the Tower of Babel in Tibetan.)
Tigrinya - Tigrinya is a member of the Ethiopic branch of Semitic languages with about 6 million speakers mainly in the Tigre region of Ethiopia and in Central Eritrea. There are also large immigrant communities of Tigrinya speakers in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Germany, Italy the UK, Canada and Sweden, as well as in other countries. Tigrinya is written with a version of the Ge'ez script and first appeared in writing during the 13th century in a text on the local laws for the district of Logosarda in southern Eritrea. (Read the Tower of Babel in Tigrinya.)
Turkish - Turkish is a Turkic language with about 70 million speakers in Turkey and in 35 other countries, including Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Iraq and Israel. Until 1928, Turkish was written with a version of the Perso-Arabic script known as the Ottoman Turkish script. In 1928, as part of his efforts to modernise Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk issued a decree replacing the Arabic script with a version of the Latin alphabet, which has been used ever since. Nowadays, only scholars and those who learnt to read before 1928 can read Turkish written in the Arabic script. (Read the Tower of Babel in Turkish.)
Ukrainian - Ukrainian is an Eastern Slavonic language closely related to Russian and Belarusian. It is spoken by about 51 million people in Ukraine (Україна) and in many other countries, including Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Paraguay, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia. (Read the Tower of Babel in Ukrainian.)
Urdu - Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language with about 104 million speakers, including those who speak it as a second language. It is the national language of Pakistan and is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Hindi, though a lot of Urdu vocabulary comes from Persian and Arabic, while Hindi contains more vocabulary from Sanskrit. Linguists consider Standard Urdu and Standard Hindi to be different formal registers both derived from the Khari Boli dialect, which is also known as Hindustani. At an informal spoken level there are few significant differences between Urdu and Hindi and they could be considered varieties a single language. Urdu is also spoken in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Botswana, Fiji, Germany, Guyana, India, Malawi, Mauritius, Nepal, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, the UAE, the UK and Zambia. Urdu has been written with a version of the Perso-Arabic script since the 12th century and is normally written in Nastaliq style. The word Urdu is Turkish for 'foreign' or 'horde'. (Read the Tower of Babel in Urdu.)
Vietnamese - Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language spoken by about 82 million people mainly in Vietnam. There are also Vietnamese speakers in the USA, China, Cambodia, France, Australia, Laos, Canada and a number of other countries. Vietnamese has been the official language of Vietnam since the country gained independence from France in 1954. Vietnamese was originally written with a Siniform (Chinese-like) script known as Chữ-nôm (𡨸喃) or Nôm (喃). At first most Vietnamese literature was essentially Chinese in structure and vocabulary. Later literature developed a more Vietnamese style, but was still full of Chinese loan words. The greatest literary work in Vietnamese is Kim Van Kieu, the 'Tale of Kieu', a romance written by Nguyen-Du (1765-1820). Chữ-nôm was used until the 20th century. Courses in the Chữ-nôm script were available at Ho Chi Minh University until 1993, and the script is still studied and taught at the Han-Nôm Institute in Hanoi, which has recently published a dictionary of all the nôm characters. During the 17th century, Roman Catholic missionaries introduced a Latin-based orthography for Vietnamese, Quốc Ngữ (national language),which has been used ever since. Until the early 20th century, Quốc Ngữ was used in parallel with Chữ-nôm. Today only Quốc Ngữ is used. (Read the Tower of Babel in Vietnamese.)
