Language geography: what is spoken where
National borders and language borders almost never coincide, because the borders were drawn by people who were not asking. The result is countries running eleven official languages at once and languages with more speakers outside their home country than in it.
Which country has the most living languages?
Papua New Guinea, with over 800
Papua New Guinea has more than 800 living languages for about 10 million people, roughly a tenth of all the world's languages. Extremely rugged terrain keeps them distinct.
Source: Ethnologue language counts
Which country has the most official languages?
Zimbabwe, with 16
Zimbabwe's 2013 constitution recognises 16, including Shona, Ndebele, Tonga and sign language. South Africa recognises 12 and Bolivia 37 at the national level by some readings.
Source: Constitution of Zimbabwe, 2013
What is unusual about the Basque language?
It has no known relatives
Basque is a language isolate, with no demonstrated relationship to Indo-European or anything else. It likely predates the arrival of Indo-European languages in Europe.
Source: Standard comparative linguistics
Which country has the most Portuguese speakers?
Brazil
Brazil has roughly 210 million speakers to Portugal's 10 million. More people speak Portuguese in South America than in Europe by a factor of twenty.
Source: Community of Portuguese Language Countries data
How many national languages does Switzerland have?
Four
German, French, Italian and Romansh. Romansh is spoken by well under one percent of the population but retains national status.
Source: Swiss Federal Constitution, article 4
Does the United States have an official language at federal level?
No
The constitution names no official language, and for most of US history none was designated federally, though many states have declared English theirs.
Source: US Constitution; state statutes
Greenlandic and other Inuit languages are polysynthetic, meaning what?
One word can be a sentence
Long strings of suffixes build words that translate as English clauses. This is the origin of the much-repeated and much-overstated claim about words for snow.
Source: Standard descriptions of Eskimo-Aleut morphology
Which language has the most native speakers?
Mandarin
Mandarin has roughly 940 million native speakers. English has more total speakers once second-language use is counted, but far fewer native ones.
Source: Ethnologue; UNESCO language statistics
How are most Icelanders' surnames formed?
From a parent's first name
Patronymics: a son of Jon is Jonsson, a daughter Jonsdottir. Phone directories are ordered by first name, and the practice makes inherited family surnames rare.
Source: Icelandic Naming Committee; Statistics Iceland
Some languages are reported to have no exact number words. Which is the best-known example?
Piraha
Piraha is documented as having only relative quantity terms rather than exact numerals. The claim is debated but has been the subject of decades of fieldwork and argument.
Source: Daniel Everett's fieldwork; subsequent linguistic debate
Which South American country has English as its official language?
Guyana
Guyana was British; neighbouring Suriname is Dutch-speaking and French Guiana is French. South America is far less uniformly Iberian than it is usually drawn.
Source: Constitution of Guyana