This is the most widely spoken Semitic language in the world, and an official language of the UN. Some people claim that it is the original language of humanity.
What is Arabic?
100
In terms of native speakers, this is the most spoken language on Earth.
What is Mandarin Chinese?
100
This Afro-Asiatic language, arguably the oldest written language on Earth, is a distant relative to the Arabic that replaced it in its home along the Nile.
What is Egyptian?
100
This is the largest language in Europe, by number of native speakers.
What is Russian?
100
This is the most spoken native North American language today
What is Navajo?
200
This classical and religious language of India was key to the development of historical linguistics, and by extension, linguistics in general. Some people claim that it is the original language of humanity.
What is Sanskrit?
200
This language alone in East Asia uses a phonetically-based true alphabet, and is believed by some to be a distant relative of Japanese.
What is Korean?
200
This widespread sub-group of the Niger-Congo language family is spoken throughout most of southern and eastern Africa, and includes Swahili and Zulu.
What is Bantu?
200
In isolation from its relatives, this is the only Romance language to preserve any noun cases from Latin. It has also been heavily influenced by close contact with Slavic languages.
What is Romanian?
200
This language is spoken along the Klamath River.
What is Karuk, Yurok, or Hupa.
300
This Middle Eastern language is the greatest (and so far arguably the only) successful example of a revived language. Some people claim that it is the original language of humanity.
What is Hebrew?
300
The name of this sub-family of Austronesia, known for simple consonant inventories and popular on introductory historical linguistics assignments, hints at its distribution over a wide area of the Pacific.
What is Polynesian?
300
This group of languages is notorious for having the largest consonant inventory in the world, including clicks.
What is Khoi-San?
300
This language isolate is the only survivor of the pre-Indo-European languages that were once spoken in Western Europe.
What is Basque?
300
This was the language of the Aztec empire.
What is Nahuatl?
400
This language family is native to southern India, and includes Tamil, which some people claim to be the original language of humanity.
What is Dravidian?
400
Japanese question.
What is Japanese?
400
This East African country is home to Semitic languages with a native writing tradition stretching back over a 1000 years.
What is Ethiopia or Eritrea?
400
In isolation from its relatives, this is the only Romance language to preserve any noun cases from Latin. It has also been heavily influenced by close contact with Slavic languages.
What is Romanian?
400
He was the last speaker of Yana.
Who is Ishi?
500
This ancient language of Mesopotamia is arguably the oldest written language in the world. Some people claim that it is the original language of humanity.
What is Sumerian?
500
The languages of this country share many rare linguistic features, such as lack of fricatives and ergative-absolutive case systems.
What is Australia?
500
This supra-segmental feature is found in the vast majority of African languages south of the Sahara.
What is lexical tone?
500
This is the only Semitic language that is an official language of the European Union.
What is Maltese?
500
This language family includes languages such as Yurok, Wiyot, Blackfoot, and Menominee.