In the world of Languages Travelling and communicating with foreigners didn’t use to be a common thing. It’s all in the past. Nowadays thousands of airlines, kilometers of telephone wires, radio waves, Internet are changing the world into a big “village” and the ability to speak foreign languages is not just a part of a good education but also an essential part of modern life. It has already become a usual thing to travel abroad, to look for jobs, friends or partners there. However, people, whenever they live, are less different than the languages they speak.

What is Language?

Language belongs to each of us. Everyone uses words Language belongs to each of us. Everyone uses words. What is in about language that makes people so curious? The answer is that there is almost nothing in our lives that is not touched by language. We live in and by language. We all speak and we all listen.

Many animal and even plant species communicate with each other.

However, human language is unique in being a symbolic communication system that is learned instead of biologically inherited. Symbols are sounds or things which have meaning given to them by the users.

Language and speech are not the same thing. А language is a set of rules for generating speech. A dialect is a variant of a language. Speech is a broad term simply referring to patterned verbal behavior.

But how many languages are there in the world? There are196 countries But how many languages are there in the world? According to Ethnologue(he most extensive catalogue of the languages of the world) , there are currently 7,102 languages spoken around the world. Sadly, this number declines every month.

Most widely spoken language by number of native speakers Mandarin (1197 million) Spanish (406 million) English (335 million) Hindi-Urdu (260 million) Arabic (223 million) Portuguese (202 million) Bengali (193 million) Russian (162 million) Japanese (122 million) Javanese (84.3 million)

At the very beginning people probably spoke one (parent) language. Eventually that parent language spread and changed.

When there were many changes in words, sounds and grammar, the language could be considered as a new one.

The ancestor language, together with all the languages which developed from it, is called “a family” of languages.

English is spoken in the United Kingdom and in 104 other countries It is the most widely used "second" and "learning" language in the world used for international communication in various fields like aviation, business, internet, science and technology to name only some.

Which family does your language belong to Which family does your language belong to? Have you found your native language in this tree? Explore the information and share it with your friends. Good luck!