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People don't speak one universal language, or even a handful. Instead, today our species collectively speaks over 7,000 distinct languages.
And these languages are not spread randomly across the planet. For example, far more languages are found in tropical regions than in the temperate zones. The tropical island of New Guinea is home to over 900 languages. Russia, 20 times larger, has 105 indigenous languages. Even within the tropics, language diversity varies widely. For example, the 250,000 people who live on Vanuatu's 80 islands speak 110 different languages, but in Bangladesh, a population 600 times greater speaks only 41 languages.
Why is it that humans speak so many languages? And why are they so unevenly spread across the planet? As it turns out, we have few clear answers to these fundamental questions about how humanity communicates.
[...] Language diversity has played a key role in shaping the interactions of human groups and the history of our species, and yet we know surprisingly little about the factors shaping this diversity. We hope other scientists will become as fascinated by the geography of language diversity as our research group is and join us in the search for understanding why humans speak so many languages.
https://theconversation.com/why-do-human-beings-speak-so-many-languages-75434
Would you people care to speculate as to why there are so many languages ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:16AM
It's been my position for many years that English is a great language for poetry and literature and a terrible language for communication for that very reason. There's estimates up to over a million words in the language and a ton of irregularities to be had. There's also a ton of times when the language isn't very specific about what is meant no matter how you phrase it. In some cases, I've spent years trying to find a clear way of communicating a concept that isn't overly long.
I've found Chinese to be a much easier language to learn to a basic level, but the writing system is one that typically takes many years to master even to a basic degree for most learners. And to a proper degree expected of adults can require several thousand characters.