There are over 7,000 languages in use around the world today. And some of them are truly unique.
Click start to play today’s Word Search and discover world languages.
Here are a few that may surprise you:
1. Silbo Gomero
On the island of La Gomera, in Spain, is a language that consists entirely of whistling. It was originally developed so that people could communicate at distances of up to 5km through the mountainous island’s valleys. The language transposes regular Spanish into a complex system of short whistles. Its efficiency and practicality for outdoor workers helped it survive. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has termed it an example of intangible cultural heritage.
2. Pawnee
This Native American language from the Platte River region in Nebraska, US, has only 13 individual sounds or phonemes that make up the entire language. In comparison, the average number of phonemes in a language is between 25 to 30. English has around 42 phonemes. Despite having few sounds, Pawnee is a polysynthetic language, meaning it allows numerous qualifiers, like suffixes, to add meanings to words. As a result, some Pawnee words have over 30 syllables!
3. Sentinelese
It’s a language that exists, but that linguists have no clue about. The Sentinelese tribe, thought to be between 15 and 500 people, reside in North Sentinel Island, part of the Andaman archipelago in the Bay of Bengal. But the Sentinelese have lived in isolation for so long, they show extreme hostility and violence towards any attempt to make contact with the island. So, linguists have been unable to study or classify the language, although they suspect it is similar to Andamanese.
4. Taa
The Taa or !Xóõ language is spoken by tribes in Botswana and Namibia, in Africa, and has one of the most diverse phonemic ranges of any language. It has over 100 phonemes, with 58 consonants, 31 vowels and four tones. With a high number of clicking consonants, Taa has a unique sound – 82 per cent of its vocabulary starts with a click consonant. And there are between 80 to 160 different clicking variations.
Did you know about these languages? Play today’s Word Search and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.
