Curated playlist
Lingua francas
- Portuguese languageVietnamese is written with help from Portuguese spelling. A 1651 dictionary built its modern writing on Portuguese.
- Russian languageRussian is one of only two languages spoken aboard the International Space Station.
- French languageFrench is growing fastest in sub-Saharan Africa, not in Paris. Population growth and new schools drive it.
- Chinese languageIs Chinese one language or many? A Cantonese speaker and a Shanghainese speaker often cannot understand each other.
- HindiIn 2010, the Gujarat High Court said Hindi is not India's national language. The constitution never names one.
- Spanish languageThe country with the most native Spanish speakers is not Spain. It is Mexico.
- ArabicArabic builds whole families of words from three bare consonants. The root k-t-b gives book, writer, desk and library.
- Malay languageAfter Portugal captured Malacca in 1511, Malay scholars fled and spread the language outward.
- English languageThe words they, them and their in English came from Norse. They pushed out the Anglo-Saxon forms hie, him and hera.
- Hindustani languagePeople in Lucknow and Varanasi speak the same words but write them in different scripts.