Probably most people have heard of the Tower of Babel and its legend. It was she who said that before all people understood each other, and the language was the same for everyone. However, this continued exactly until the moment when humanity angered God, who demarcated the understanding of the language speech of former comrades, forcing them to settle around the world, founding their peoples with unique traditions and culture.
Whether it was or not, there are over 7,000 languages in the world today. Of course, this figure is rather abstract, because specific dialects and many different conventions of difference between languages cannot be ruled out. The most widespread language in the world always differs in time periods: at different times Latin, French, Spanish, Arabic, Greek and other languages occupied "linguistic" dominance. As time goes by, established traditions change. English is now firmly rooted in the world, but can it live long? Let's not talk about it now. The most spoken languages in the world in 2013 are English and Chinese, due to the economic and political dominance of the United States and China, as well as due to historical events.
World languages
Humanity has always striven for new discoveries and exploration of unknown lands, which prompted brave men like Christopher Columbus or Francis Drake to make long-distance travels. The Age of Discovery paved the way for the English, Portuguese and Spanish languages to the remote corners of our planet, raising their overall rating and recognition. At the moment, there are 8 languages that are "world" - these are English, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, French, Portuguese and German. It is they who have the largest number of carriers, whose number is equal to 4.3 billion people, which is about 60% of the total population of the Earth.
The most widely spoken language in the world is English, which has 1.4 billion native speakers and is also universal for international communication. Along with these "giants" in the language environment, there is another side of the coin, which contains "endangered" languages, doomed to complete extinction. For example, these are the languages of Udege, Itonama, Kaguila, Goundo and others, each of which is native to less than 100 people around the world. As a rule, these are the languages of tribes in remote areas of Africa or South America.
The hardest languages in the world
Now we will try to compile the TOP-5, that is, the rating of languages that are not only the hardest to learn, but even learn to communicate at least a little with its native speakers. Of course, it is impossible to say exactlythe most difficult language to learn, because for most people the relationship of languages \u200b\u200bwill play a huge role. For example, it will be easier for a Russian to learn Ukrainian or Belarusian than French, and for a Japanese it will not be particularly difficult to learn Chinese, but it will be difficult to understand Spanish and the like. However, it is possible to single out an objective point of view on the most complex languages, which will be based on a set of rules and generally accepted traditions. So let's get started.
Chinese
For several reasons, this particular language took first place in our TOP. First, significant difficulties arise with the hieroglyphs used in writing. It is often difficult even for the Chinese to understand this or that symbol, not to mention foreigners. Each of the words is indicated by its own hieroglyph, and even not phonetic, which makes it impossible to know in advance the pronunciation of a particular word. Adds fuel to the fire and the tonal system, which has 4 tones in the language. Finally, Chinese has an extremely large number of homophones, which makes mastering the language much more difficult. Finally, let's say that Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world in terms of the number of speakers who consider it their mother tongue.
Arabic
And another language where there are significant spelling difficulties. The fact is that some letters have 4 different spelling forms, which depends on their position in a particular word. Plus, vowels are not used in the letter. Sounds are not easy to learn, and words are even more difficult. Verbs in Arabic usually come before predicates and objects. The verb also has 3 numbers, so nouns and verbs must be studied in singular, dual and plural. There are 13 different forms in the present tense. The noun has 3 cases and 2 genders. Adding to the list of Arabic problems are dialects, which are just as different in Arabic-speaking countries as, for example, French and Spanish.
Tuyuka
This language belongs to one of the many spoken in the Eastern Amazon. The sound system should not cause any particular difficulties, but agglutination may shock some. For example, the word hóabãsiriga means "I don't know how to write." There are about 50-140 classes of nouns (genders) in the language, but the most surprising thing about it is that the speaker needs to use specific verb endings that can make it clear how he knows what he is talking about. Let's take a small example. Diga ape-wi translates as "the boy played football", but the speaker can only say this if he saw it himself. But Diga ape-hiyi - even if it is translated into Russian in the same way, however, in the Tuyuka language, the speaker will say so if he assumes or is definitely not sure about the reliability of the information. Such endings are obligatory in this language. Well, if you suddenly want to learn the Tuyuk language, then always first think about where you learned this or that information from.
Hungarian
The most difficult languages are replenished with the first European language - Hungarian. There isa few reasons. Firstly, it has 35 cases, which automatically puts the language on the list of the most difficult. In addition, Hungarian is quite difficult to pronounce, and learning the words will make even the most erudite ones strain.
Japanese
Last in our TOP. Firstly, difficulties arise in writing, because it differs from pronunciation. Plus, there are 3 forms of writing. The kanji system uses Chinese characters, while two native Japanese syllabaries are used for loanwords (katakana) and for writing suffixes and various grammatical particles (hiragana).
"Leading languages": carrier countries and statuses in other states
What is the most spoken language? If we talk about the territorial superiority of the carrier countries, then the impeccable leadership is occupied by English (Great Britain + dependent territories, Australia, USA, New Zealand, Canada, India, Pakistan, Iceland, Ireland, most of the states of Oceania and Africa) and Spanish (Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Cuba and all South American countries except Brazil).
Judging by the number of speakers (who consider the language native), the most common languages are Chinese (848 million people), Spanish (406 million people) and English (335 million people). Perhaps it will not be a secret to anyone that English is compulsory for learning in many countries of the world, includingRussian speakers. However, such a globalization of English could not but affect the language itself, which is why the world (except for states where it is considered official) is more common "incorrect" English with distorted words, erroneous use of tenses, and the like. The most spoken language on earth (English) also ranks first in terms of websites (approx. 56%) and the percentage of native speakers contributing to GDP (approx. 29%). With regard to individual language learning, people often strive to master a "beautiful" and sweet-sounding language, as can be seen by looking at the results of many online surveys. These include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese. As you can see, most of the leaders belong to the Romanesque group. The most widely spoken language in the world, English, has been in the TOP 10 most beautiful more than once due to its harmonious literary and mass popularization in music and cinema.
