Language Mystery Sort Trivia Quiz

Answer: Languages Written Right to Left

The most spoken of the Semitic languages, Arabic has over 300 million native speakers as well as over 400m total speaker, and its written variant, Modern Standard Arabic, has evolved virtually untouched due to the spread of Islam. The language has many local dialects across the Levant, the Gulf, and North Africa.

Answer: Languages Written Right to Left

The language was de-facto extinct until its revitalization from Biblical Hebrew (with a few words borrowed from its German counterpart, Yiddish, and its Semitic counterpart, Arabic). It is the official language of Israel and is spoken by over 10 million people, mostly of Jewish origin.

Answer: Languages Written Right to Left

The official language of Iran is sometimes referred to as "Persian" in English, and uses Arabic script despite not being a Semitic language. It is spoken by 70-80 million people in both Iran and Afghanistan, being referred to as Dari in the latter country.

Answer: Languages Written Right to Left

The Indo-Aryan language Urdu is spoken mostly in Pakistan, where it is the lingua franca of the country, despite not being an official language. It is spoken natively, by around 70 million people, though it is spoken to some extent by 250 million others.

It is mutually intelligible with Hindi, despite using different alphabets. Unlike how an English speaker can theoretically read French without understanding it, an Urdu speaker can understand Hindi without reading it :)

Answer: Romance Language

A Romance language is one that is derived in whole or in part from Latin. French is the official language of 26 countries (and 10 territories) due to the French influence in Africa and to some extent, Asia and the Americas. It is spoken natively by over 70 million people, while over 300 million retain some form of understanding of the language.

Answer: Romance Language

The most commonly spoken Romance language in the world due to the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish is spoken natively by over half a billion people and understood to some extent by over 600 million people. It is the second most spoken native language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.

It is the official language in 20 countries. Spanish speakers in South America are often referred to as Latin Americans.

Answer: Romance Language

Despite sounding Slavic to the untrained ear, the official language of Romania is indeed a Romance language that is derived from Vulgar Latin. It is also an official language in Moldova. The total number of native Romanian speakers in the world is 22 million.

Answer: Romance Language

Naturally, Italian is also derived from Latin and is a "Romance" language. The tern "Romance" is derived from the Vulgar Latin adverb "romanice" which means "Roman". Italian (as well as Sardinian) are the two least differentiated languages from the original Latin, and it is the official language of Italy and the Holy See (Vatican City) among others.

It is spoken natively by over 65 million people.

Answer: Germanic Languages

Afrikaans evolved from Dutch after the colonization of Southern Africa by Dutch settlers in the late 17th centuries. While predominately Dutch and West Germanic in nature, it has borrowed elements of Malay and Khoisan local languages. It boasts seven million native speakers, mostly in South Africa and Namibia.

Answer: Germanic Languages

This official language of Germany and five other countries is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, spoken natively by over 70 million people and spoken to some degree by 80 million more. It is the fourth most learned second language globally, and the third most learned second language in the United States (after French and Spanish)

Answer: Germanic Languages

While "only" 400 million people speak English natively, it is by far the most spoken language in the world, particularly as a second language, where over 1.5 billion people can speak English fluently. This is due to both the influence of the United Kingdom in colonizing large parts of the globe over several centuries, as well as more recent American globalization and the internet leading the way in the modern era.

Answer: Germanic Languages

Only six million Danes speak this North Germanic language that evolved from Old Norse. It is the official language of Denmark. It is partially intelligible with Swedish and Norwegian, particularly when read, but more difficult to understand when spoken due to pronunciation differences. Icelandic, another Scandinavian language, is much more difficult to understand due to its retaining Old Norse features.

Answer: Constructed Languages

Created by linguist David J. Peterson for the television adaptation ("Game of Thrones") of George R.R Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire", Dothraki is spoke, fittingly, by the Dothraki, a fictional nomadic warrior people that frequently conduct war on horseback. The name for queen "Khaleesi" in Dothraki, became a popular girls' name in the United States following the success of the series.

Answer: Constructed Languages

It was created by L.L Zamenhoff in the late 19th century and intended to be a universal second language. In its own vocabulary, the meaning of "Esperanto" is hope. Its creator's vision was only partially achieved, because although it is perhaps the most widely spoken constructed language, it only boasts 1000 native speakers, and an upper estimate of merely two million people that can understand or use the language at all.

Answer: Constructed Languages

Linguist Paul Frommer created the language for the 2009 James Cameron film "Avatar" as the spoken tongue of the humanoid alien Na'vi peoples who live on the planet Pandora. Its pronunciation does not resemble any existing human language, but was designed to be somewhat easy to pronounce for the (obviously) human cast.

Answer: Constructed Languages

J.R.R Tolkien called his invention of languages "glossopoeia", a hobby that he started in his teens. He constructed several languages for his book series, including Sindarin, one of many languages spoken by Elves, a non-aging species of humanoid characters appearing in both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", the author's two most famous works.