---
title: "50 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Languages"
description: "Learning another language is important. And even in the United States (where learning non-native la..."
author: "aigul9696"
published: "2015-01-24T11:17:16+00:00"
modified: "2015-01-24T11:17:16+00:00"
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---

# 50 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Languages

> Learning another language is important. And even in the United States (where learning non-native la...

[Learning another language is important](http://www.edudemic.com/learning-a-second-language/). And even in the United States (where learning non-native language has typically been lagging a bit behind many other countries), [nearly all students are studying another language](http://www.edudemic.com/language-learning-in-the-united-states/).

Languages are a part of everyday life – whether you speak one or more, they are one of the main keys of communication. Other than being able to speak a language (or not being able to speak it) there are a lot of fun facts about languages more generally

## 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 us an ATM in Latin in Vatican City.

By [Katie Lepi](http://www.edudemic.com/author/katie/) on November 5, 2013

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Source: [https://yvision.kz/post/50-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-languages-463193](https://yvision.kz/post/50-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-languages-463193)