ere’s today’s date in 850 languages and dialects, complete with a profile of each. I’m favoring languages, both living and dead, that are at least a bit off the beaten track, offer Gregorian calendar terms that depart substantially from your run-of-the-mill neo-Latin, or both. (Spanish? No. Asturian? Yes.)

Heading terms in parentheses ( ) are alternate names for a language, while those in brackets [ ] specify a particular subdivision or dialect shown. Click the language name for its ISO code and profile info. A video screen icon link ( ▭ ) lets you hear how some of these languages sound.

What’s almost unbelievable here is how many non-European languages have Gregorian date terminology like this to dust off, at least for the record, even as their underlying cultures stand foursquare behind Islamic (Hijri), Hindu, Buddhist, or other calendar systems.

For those that expired before the advent of modern place-value numerals I’m using Roman. For Etruscan I’m using Etruscan numerals while pretending those serene, elbow-lounging folks used the Gregorian calendar and reckoned dates sequentially as we do.¹ Traditional Chuvash numerals follow a similar scheme, but with the smaller units to the left of the larger ones, a slash for 5, and a star for 1000. Moksha resembled Chuvash but used a lambda for 10 and a kind of reflected sawhorse for 1000.

The only non-Gregorian date² I’m displaying is a prorated estimate for the Gaulish, whose calendar was offset by about half a month from that used by their Roman contemporaries and whose months alternated between 29 and 30 days as opposed to 30 and 31. I’ve also fudged Tocharian a bit by pulling its 12-month year about two weeks back to synchronize what that mysterious culture considered its first month, naimaññe meñe, with our February.³ You’ll see those two entries marked off with an asterisk.

Peter

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Abaza: Abaza ✧ ABQ ✧ Northwest Caucasian, endangered, 48,000 speakers in Russia and in Turkish diaspora communities. Natively it has 63 consonants but only two vowels. Related closely to Abkhazian below.

19 октябрь [oktyabr’] 2019  ▭

Abenaki [Western]: Abenaki [Western] ✧ ABE ✧ Algonquian family. As of 1991 spoken natively by fewer than 20 in Odanak, Quebec, and others in New York State and Connecticut; by 2006, only six. The English word “skunk” likely derives from Abenaki.

19 Penibagos “Leaf falling” 2019

Abkhazian (Abkhaz): Abkhazian (Abkhaz) ✧ ABK ✧ Northwest Caucasian, closely related to Abaza above. 100,000 speakers in Georgia’s heavily contested Abkhazia region, many more in diaspora communities elsewhere. Abkhazian has 58 consonants, six of which are various types of k/q sounds.

19 жьҭаара́ [ž’ţaara] 2019  ▭

Abui: Abui ✧ ABZ ✧ Trans-New Guinea family, spoken by 17,000 on Alor Island in eastern Indonesia, just north of East Timor. Abui has no active/passive distinction.

19 laak ía “Departing month” 2019  ▭

Acehnese: Acehnese ✧ ACE ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Chamic, 3. 5 million speakers in Aceh Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Previously used an Arabic script but through its Dutch colonizers’ influence switched to Roman, adding é, è, ë, ö, and ô.

19 Buleuën Siplôh 2019  ▭

Achang (Ngochang or Maingtha): Achang (Ngochang or Maingtha) ✧ ACN ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Lolo-Burmese, 70,000 speakers in Northern Myanmar and China’s Yunan Province. Five tones, two of which are checked — i.e., with the voice cutting off abruptly at the end.

19 shiq ywe khyvp 2019

Acholi: Acholi ✧ ACH ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, spoken in Uganda and South Sudan. Since Acholi is tonal and since there are several versions of each vowel, a given one-syllable word can have 14 different vocalizations.

19 Dwe me apar 2019  ▭

Achuar-Shiwiar [Achuar Chicham]: Achuar-Shiwiar [Achuar Chicham] ✧ ACU ✧ From the tiny Jivaroan family, spoken by around 7000 in Peru and Ecuador by the Achuar, Shiwiar and Maina tribes. For numerals greater than four, they switch to Spanish.

19 ishiap 2019

Achuar-Shiwiar [Shiwiar Chicham]: Achuar-Shiwiar [Shiwiar Chicham] ✧ ACU ✧ The other dialect of Achuar-Shiwiar

19 ayumpúm 2019

Adele (Gidire): Adele (Gidire) ✧ ADE ✧ Niger-Congo family, Kwa, geographically of the Ghana Togo Mountain languages, 37,000 speakers in Togo and Ghana. Most are bilingual in Ewe (q.v.).

19 dɩkpaaba 2019

Afar (Qafár af): Afar (Qafár af) ✧ AAR ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic. Spoken in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia by 1. 5 million. Ethiopic and Arabic scripts have been used to write Afar, though a Roman alphabet standard, shown here, was formalized in 1970.

19 Diteli 2019  ▭

Aghem (Wum): Aghem (Wum) ✧ AGQ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, Grasslands, 27,000 speakers (and increasing) in northwest Cameroon, informally taught in schools. Aghem speakers are traditionally associated with leopard-skin carpets.

19 ndzɔ̱ŋɔ̱ghǔuwelɔ̱m 2019

Aghul (Agul): Aghul (Agul) ✧ AGX ✧ Northeast Caucasian, 30,000 speakers mostly in Southern Dagestan. The strength with which certain consonants are articulated — tense versus weak — is contrastive.

19 куьлегь [küleg̓] 2019  ▭

Aguaruna: Aguaruna ✧ AGR ✧ Jivaroan family, 38,000 speakers in Peru along the Marañón, Potro, Mayo, and Cahuapanas rivers. Virtually all speak Spanish as a second language. Vowels can be short, long, or nazalized.

19 ipamtatin 2019

Ahom: Ahom ✧ AHO ✧ Kra-Dai family, Brahmaputra river valley, reportedly extinct since 1899 though widely studied. Unique script.

19 [din sip] 2019  ▭

Ahtna [Central]: Ahtna [Central] ✧ AHT ✧ Athabaskan, around 80 speakers (all dialects combined), Alaska’s Copper River. Incorporates about 100 Russian loanwords.

19 benghaan’ saeni “Middle time” 2019  ▭

Ahtna [Lower]: Ahtna [Lower] ✧ AHT ✧ Another dialect of Ahtna

19 benghaan’ saeni “Middle time” 2019

Ahtna [Upper, Mentasa]: Ahtna [Upper, Mentasa] ✧ AHT ✧ Another dialect of Ahtna

19 nicuunn saa 2019

Ainu: Ainu ✧ AIN ✧ Aboriginal language of Japanese archipelago, ancestry unknown, nearly extinct natively. Kayano Shigeru (1906-2006), author of Our Land Was a Forest, was a major force in promoting and popularizing his native language and culture.

19 ureipakchup 2019  ▭

Aja {Benin-Togo}: Aja {Benin-Togo} ✧ AJG ✧ Niger-Congo, Gbe, spoken by half a million Aja people in Benin and Togo. Closely related to Ewe and Fon (qq.v.); not to be confused with a Nilo-Saharan language also called Aja. The ɖ here and in many other languages represents a d sound with the tongue curled backwards.

19 bleamɛdezo 2019

Akan (Twi): Akan (Twi) ✧ AKA ✧ Niger-Congo Language native to Ghana and Ivory Coast, also brought to South America by slaves

19 Ɔbɛsɛ-Ahinime 2019  ▭

Akha [Puli/Standard]: Akha [Puli/Standard] ✧ AHK ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Loloish, 600,000 speakers in Burma’s Shan State, northern Laos, and northern Thailand. Four tones shown by hacheks and circumflexes above and below vowels (-̌ -̂ -̬ -̭  ) but also the letter m, which too can be tonal.

19 leǔ sǐ sawm̌ 2019

Alabama (Alibamu): Alabama (Alibamu) ✧ AKZ ✧ Muskogean language, akin to Chickasaw and Choctaw (qq.v.), spoken in Texas. Regular versus nasalized vowels, contrastive vowel length.

19 hasiholtina ispókkòoli 2019

Albanian [Gheg]: Albanian [Gheg] ✧ SQI ✧ Indo-European language with its very own branch. Unlike many languages it uses both the voiced and unvoiced th sounds (IPA symbols ð, θ).

19 tetor 2019  ▭

Albanian [Tosk] (Arberesh): Albanian [Tosk] (Arberesh) ✧ ALS ✧ Albanian dialect spoken in Italy, partial interintelligibility with its Gheg dialect above.

19 otobri 2019  ▭

Aleut [Atkan]: Aleut [Atkan] ✧ ALE ✧ Eskimo-Aleut family, Aleut branch, native to the Alaskan Peninsula and the Aleutian, Commander, and Pribilof Islands. Aleut in total has around 150 speakers. Two groups survive, Atkan being the smaller.

19 Chngulim tugidaa -or- Uxtaavrax̂ -or- Uktaabrix̂ 2019  ▭

Algonquin: Algonquin ✧ ALQ ✧ Algonquian family, closely related to (but divergent from) Ojibwe (q.v.). 1800 speakers in Quebec and Ontario.

19 namégos gizis “Trout month” 2019

Altai (Gorno-Altai): Altai (Gorno-Altai) ✧ ATV ✧ Turkic, Siberian Turkic branch, around 50,000 speakers in Russia’s Altai Republic where it is official. Previously written with the Roman alphabet, it has used the Cyrillic since 1938.

19 ÿлÿрген ай [ülügen ay] 2019  ▭

Aluku: Aluku ✧ ??? ✧ A creole combining English, Dutch, African languages, and French that arose among escaped African slaves in Suriname and French Guiana. Generations ago Aluku was a pretty big deal, but as of 1980 there were only 33 speakers left.

19 tin mun fu baka yali 2019

Alutiiq [Kodiak]: Alutiiq [Kodiak] ✧ EMS ✧ An Eskimo-Aleut language, indigenous to the Alaska and Kenai Peninsulas and Kodiak Island, with around 200 native speakers. Two chief dialects, Kodiak (shown here) and Chugach.

19 Kakegllum Iralua “Runny nose moon” 2019  ▭

Amharic: Amharic ✧ AMH ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, spoken in Ethiopia by 22 million. Not to be confused with Syriac Aramaic (q.v.).

19 ጥቅምት [taqamt] 2019  ▭

Amis: Amis ✧ AMI ✧ Austronesian, East Formosan, the most popular aboriginal Taiwanese language at 181,000 speakers along the island’s eastern coast. Five dialects.

19 miheca notep 2019

Anejom̃ (Aneityum): Anejom̃ (Aneityum) ✧ ATY ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic, spoken by several hundred people on Aneityum/Anatom, Vanuatu’s southernmost island. Vowel and consonant lengths are contrastive; noun genders are animate versus inanimate.

19 nesjig jig “Time to fertilize, plant garden” 2019

Angami (Tenyidie): Angami (Tenyidie) ✧ NJM ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, eight dialects, 130,000 speakers in India’s Nagaland. Angami has five tones plus “breathy.” Listed as vulnerable by UNESCO.

19 Thennyê o krö 2019  ▭

Anii: Anii ✧ BLO ✧ A Niger-Congo language spoken by 49,000 in Benin and Togo. Anii observes strict vowel harmony (like Turkic and Uralic languages such as Finnish) and is bitonal.

19 ɭ jicimka kaŋɔrɔ 2019

Apache [Jicarilla]: Apache [Jicarilla] ✧ APJ ✧ Athabaskan family, New Mexico, about 500 speakers, tonal. Unusually rich sound inventory (34 consonants, 16 vowels) including ejectives and an n sound which like a vowel can carry tones.

19 It'âânshchílíí 2019  ▭

Apache [Western]: Apache [Western] ✧ APW ✧ Athabaskan family, SE Arizona, 14,000 native speakers. Acute accents indicate a high tone on a vowel.

19 Ghąązhį’ “Lying side to side” -or- Itsáh Bizhaazh “Eaglet” 2019  ▭

Apatani (Tani): Apatani (Tani) ✧ APT ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, Western Tani, 45,000 native speakers in India’s Arunachal Pradesh. Tonal, both vowel and consonant lengths are contrastive. Most nouns have two syllables.

19 buntii piilo -or- entii piilo 2019  ▭

Arabic [Levantine]: Arabic [Levantine] ✧ APC ✧ Afro-Asiatic family, Semitic. Descended from Ancient North Arabian.

١٩ تشرين الأول [tishreenu alāwal] ٢٠١٩  ▭

Arabic [Libyan]: Arabic [Libyan] ✧ AYL ✧ An alternative terminology established under Muammar Gaddafi. Aside from that, this dialect has been influenced by Maltese and Sicilian.

١٩ الثمور [al θumūr] ٢٠١٩  ▭

Arabic [Moroccan] (Darija): Arabic [Moroccan] (Darija) ✧ ARY ✧ From the Maghrebi subgroup of Arabic, heavily influenced by Berber languages along with French and Spanish. Between 50% and 70% of Moroccans speak Darija.

١٩ شهر عشرة [sheher ʿashra] ٢٠١٩

Aragonese (“fabla”): Aragonese (“fabla”) ✧ ARG ✧ Indo-European, Romance. Spoken by 25,500 in Northern Aragon, endangered, mutually intelligible with Spanish.

19 otubre 2019

Arapaho: Arapaho ✧ ARP ✧ Algonquian, Arapahoan branch, natively spoken by 1000 mostly living on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Akin to Gros Ventre (q.v.). Uses a ȝ, (Roman letter yogh or numeral 3), for the unvoiced th sound (IPA θ).

19 ceenkooɂ -or- cenkooɂ -or- niiɂcenkooɂ 2019  ▭

Arikara: Arikara ✧ ARI ✧ A North American indigenous language from the Caddoan family, related to Pawnee (q.v.) but not mutually intelligible with it. A handful of speakers remain in White Shield, North Dakota.

19 hunaaneskúhtš “fall” 2019

Aromanian (Vlach): Aromanian (Vlach) ✧ RUP ✧ A Romance language often considered a Romanian dialect, spoken throughout the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey. Aromanian has more Greek influence; Romanian, more Slavic.

19 mihošnjak -or- xumedru -or- sumedru 2019  ▭

Arosi: Arosi ✧ AIA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Solomonic, spoken by 6800 on Makira (San Cristobal) Island, east of Guadalcanal in the Solomons.

19 haue 2019

Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) [Lyonnais Bressan]: Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) [Lyonnais Bressan] ✧ FRP ✧ Arpitan is a group of Gallo-Romance languages heard in parts of France, western Switzerland, and northwestern Italy. This dialect is spoken in Bresse, Ain West; Revermont, French Jura Southwest; and Saône-et-Loire East.

19 octobre 2019

Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) [Savoyard]: Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) [Savoyard] ✧ FRP ✧ An Arpitan dialect spoken around Savoy in western France

19 ôctôbro 2019  ▭

Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) [Stéphenois]: Arpitan (Franco-Provençal) [Stéphenois] ✧ FRP ✧ An Arpitan dialect spoken around Saint-étienne in eastern central France

19 otobrou 2019

Assiniboine 1 (Nakota): Assiniboine 1 (Nakota) ✧ ASB ✧ A Siouan language spoken by 150 or so in the Northern US/Canadian Plains. Like Dalecarlian (q.v.) and Polish it has nasal vowels signaled with ogoneks, in this case Ą, Į, and Ų.

19 cuȟéwąg -or- cáȟcaǧa hą́wi 2019

Assiniboine 2 (Nakota): Assiniboine 2 (Nakota) ✧ ASB ✧ Alternative terminology

19 waȟpé gasná -or- waȟpéǧi hą́wi 2019

Asturian: Asturian ✧ AST ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Northern Spain (Oviedo/Gijón area), 350,000 native speakers. Three genders.

19 ochobre 2019  ▭

Atayal: Atayal ✧ TAY ✧ Austronesian family, Northern Formosan, Atayalic, an indigenous language of northern Taiwan with 84,000 speakers. Two major dialects.

19 tay mawpuw byacing 2019

Atikamekw: Atikamekw ✧ ATJ ✧ Algonquian family, Cree complex, 5500 speakers in southwestern Quebec

19 namekosi pisimw 2019

Atong {India/Bangladesh}: Atong {India/Bangladesh} ✧ AOT ✧ Unlike many Sino-Tibetan languages, this one is non-tonal. Spoken by 10,000 in northeast India and adjacent regions of Bangladesh, most of whom are bilingual in Garo (q.v.). Not to be confused with the Niger-Congo Atong language.

19 oktobyl 2019

Atsugewi: Atsugewi ✧ ATW ✧ This [possibly] Hokan, Shasta–Palaihnihan language of California went extinct with the death of Medie Webster in 1988. Atsugewis saw the Big Dipper as Coyote’s cane; the Milky Way, the Devil’s trail.

19 maqak cĭne^hwu “Deer moon” 2019

Austro-Bavarian: Austro-Bavarian ✧ BAR ✧ Akin to High German but highly divergent from it, using more Latin. Rural Austria, Bavaria, and South Tyrol. Three main dialects.

19 Oktoba 2019  ▭

Avar [Premodern/Folk]: Avar [Premodern/Folk] ✧ AVA ✧ Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Dagestan and Azerbaijan. Uses either Cyrillic or Arabic script.

19 лъилъарулъ / ڸێڸارۇڸ [l’il’arul″] 2019  ▭

Awa Pit (Cuaiquer): Awa Pit (Cuaiquer) ✧ KWI ✧ Barbacoan family, seriously endangered, spoken by 13,000 on the Pacific slopes of the Andes in Colombia and Ecuador by the Awa-Kwaiker people. Most Awa-Kwaiker men also speak Spanish; most women and children, only Awa Pit.

19 uttu 2019

Aymara: Aymara ✧ AYM ✧ South American indigenous language from the Aymaran family which has only two members, the other being Jaqaru (q.v.). Unusual time/space conceptualization, uses only a, i, and u for vowels.

19 taypi sata phaxsi -or- taypisata 2019  ▭

⌅

Bafia: Bafia ✧ KSF ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, spoken by 60,000 in southwestern Cameroon. Mostly oral, but efforts at establishing a written standard are underway.

19 ŋwíí akǝ ntɛk 2019

Bagirmi: Bagirmi ✧ BMI ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, approx. 45,000 speakers in Chad and Nigeria. This was the language of the Sultanate of Bagirmi which ruled southeast of Lake Chad between 1523 and 1897.

19 Nap dokkeme 2019

Bagvalal (Bagulal): Bagvalal (Bagulal) ✧ KVA ✧ Northeast Caucasian, seriously endangered, 1500 speakers in Dagestan’s Tsumadinsky District. Features ejectives and nazalized vowels. Outside the home, speakers rely on Avar (q.v.) or Russian.

19 акта́бирбос̄ӏ [aktábirboss̓] 2019

Bahasa Banjar: Bahasa Banjar ✧ BJN ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, spoken by the Banjarese of South Kalimantan in Indonesia

19 Uktubir 2019  ▭

Bakweri (Kpwe or Mokpwe): Bakweri (Kpwe or Mokpwe) ✧ BGM ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu Zone A, 25,000 speakers in Cameroon

19 Egbe 2019

Balochi (Baluchi): Balochi (Baluchi) ✧ BAL ✧ Indo-Iranian language related to Kurdish (q.v.), 7. 6 million speakers. Uses Pashto and Roman script.

19 sartán 2019  ▭

Bambara: Bambara ✧ BAM ✧ Niger-Congo, Mande, Manding, spoken by 15 million in Mali. Two tones, many French loans, mutually intelligible with Dyula (q.v.). Same word used for hand and arm.

19 oktòburu kalo 2019  ▭

Bariai: Bariai ✧ BCH ✧ Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Ngero group, 1400 speakers in Papua New Guinea

19 uria sat 2019

Basaa: Basaa ✧ BAS ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu. Four tones, 230,000 speakers in Camaroon. (Not to be confused with Bassa, below.)

19 bïìoèoêm 2019

Bashkir: Bashkir ✧ BAK ✧ Turkic language spoken in Bashkortostan between the Volga and Urals. Like all Turkics, agglutinative.

19 ҡарасай [qarasai] 2019

Basque [Biscayan]: Basque [Biscayan] ✧ EUS ✧ Basque is an agglutinative Pre-Indo-European language isolate spoken in the Pyrenees area. This is the dialect heard on the Bay of Biscay.

19 urril -or- urri 2019  ▭

Basque [Guipuzcoan]: Basque [Guipuzcoan] ✧ EUS ✧ Basque dialect spoken in Guipuzcoa, a tiny Northern Spanish province at the eastern extreme of the Cantabrian sea. Originally studied and analyzed by Louis Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s nephew.

19 urril -or- urri 2019

Basque [Souletin]: Basque [Souletin] ✧ EUS ✧ Basque dialect spoken in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France. Heavily influenced by Occitan (q.v.) and correspondingly features an additional vowel sound, ü.

19 ürrieta 2019

Bassa: Bassa ✧ BSQ ✧ Niger-Congo, Kru. Seven vowels with five tones each, spoken by 400,000 in Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Not to be confused with Basaa, above.)

19 Kpa-Dyua 2019

Batak: Batak ✧ BYA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian family. Unique script, spoken in north Sumatra. Each day from 1 through 30 has its own name, shown here in angle quotes.

19 《boraspati ni holom》 sipaha pitu 2019  ▭

Bats (Batsbi or Tsova-Tush): Bats (Batsbi or Tsova-Tush) ✧ BBL ✧ Northeast Caucasian, Nakh branch but unintelligible with Chechen or Ingush (qq.v.). Approx. 2500 speakers. Vowels can be nazalized, and both vowels and consonants can be either long or short.

ით ღვიობ [ɣviob] “wine month” ცით  ▭

Belarusian: Belarusian ✧ BEL ✧ East Slavic, closely related to Ukrainian [q.v.]. Though Belarusian is official in Belarus, only about 12% of the population uses it. Unlike Russian, it employs the characters І, Ї, and Ў.

19 кастрычніка [kastryčnika] 2019  ▭

Belep (Nyâlayu): Belep (Nyâlayu) ✧ YLY ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic, Northern New Caledonian, 1600 speakers in and around New Caledonia’s Belep Islands. Unlike its neighbors, Belep vowel length is not contrastive.

19 mwanok tûnik 2019

Bemba (Chibemba): Bemba (Chibemba) ✧ BEM ✧ Niger-Congo family, Southern Bantu. Tonal, spoken in Zambia. In proper names, the letter C is written as Ch.

19 ulusuba lukalamba 2019  ▭

Bena: Bena ✧ BEZ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Northeast Bantu, spoken in south central Tanzania

19 pa mwedzi gwa kumi 2019

Beothuk: Beothuk ✧ BUE ✧ Possibly Algonquian, spoken by a reclusive indigenous Newfoundland tribe, extinct since 1829 with the death of its last speaker, Shanawdithit. European encroachment had led to their eventual extinction.

19 godabonyegh/godabonyegb 2019  ▭

Berta [Mayu]: Berta [Mayu] ✧ WTI ✧ Nilo-Saharan (tentatively), native to the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Sudan and Ethiopia. Of all five Berta dialects there are 370,000 speakers.

19 zigí sqúllá októbar 2019

Bété [Eastern/Daloa]: Bété [Eastern/Daloa] ✧ BEV ✧ Niger-Congo, Kru. Bete is spoken by 400,000 in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire; this is one of its five dialects. The language is tonal and its speakers count in base 20.

19 'napɛ 'kugbïa -leyi 2019  ▭

Beti [Ewondo] (Kolo): Beti [Ewondo] (Kolo) ✧ EWO ✧ Niger-Congo family, Southern Bantu, tonal, with half a million speakers of this dialect in Cameroon. It serves as a lingua franca, though French is gradually displacing it.

19 ngɔn awóm 2019

Bezhta (Kapucha): Bezhta (Kapucha) ✧ KAP ✧ Preliterate Northeast Caucasian language spoken by around 6800 in Southern Dagestan.

19 актийабер [aktiyaber] 2019

Biete (Biate): Biete (Biate) ✧ BIU ✧ A Sino-Tibetan, Kuki-Chin language spoken by 30,000 in northeast India (Meghalaya, Assam, Mizoram, Manipur, and Tripura). Related to Mizo (q.v.).

19 Ritang 2019

Bishnupriya Manipuri: Bishnupriya Manipuri ✧ BPY ✧ Indo-Aryan, 120,000 native speakers, not to be confused with Sino-Tibetan Meitei, also known as Manipuri (q.v.). Uses the rather uncommon Eastern Nagari script.

১৯ ২০১৯  ▭

Bislama: Bislama ✧ BIS ✧ English-Austronesian creole with 10,000 native speakers and 200,000 non-native, official in Vanuatu. Vocabulary is mostly English; grammar and sound inventory, Austronesian languages.

19 Oktoba 2019  ▭

Blackfoot (Siksika): Blackfoot (Siksika) ✧ BLA ✧ Algonquian family, unusual pitch system. About 5000 speakers in Montana and Southern Alberta.

19 niipístsi otsítainnisi’yihpi 2019  ▭

Blin (Bilen): Blin (Bilen) ✧ BYN ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic. 70,000 speakers around Keren, Eritrea. Akin to Tigrinya (q.v.) and Tigre (Tigrayit).

19 [metelu] 2019

Bonggi (Kamus Bonggi): Bonggi (Kamus Bonggi) ✧ BDG ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, North Bornean, 1400 speakers on the Banggi and Balambangan islands in Malaysia’s Kudat District.

19 buaidn supuluh 2019

Breton (Armoric): Breton (Armoric) ✧ BRE ✧ Indo-European, Celtic, Brythonic. Spoken in Brittany, related to Welsh and Cornish (qq.v.).

19 mis here 2019  ▭

Bukhori (Judaeo-Tajik): Bukhori (Judaeo-Tajik) ✧ BHH ✧ A Persian dialect with Hebrew, Turkic, and Slavic loans spoken by Bukharan Jews living in central Asia and diaspora communities in Israel and the US. Uses Hebrew script, but under Soviet influence it also appears in Roman and Cyrillic. .

19 אָכּטיאַבּר [oktyabr] 2019

Bulgar: Bulgar ✧ XBO ✧ Presumably Turkic, extinct since medieval times, unrelated to modern Bulgarian (which is South Slavic). Bulgar’s modern descendant is Chuvash (q.v.).

XVIIII keleu ae MMXVIIII

Bulgarian [Eastern Rup, 19th century]: Bulgarian [Eastern Rup, 19th century] ✧ BUL ✧ South Slavic. From the south-central Bulgarian town of Asenovgrad.

19 димитруския [dimitruskiya] 2019

Bulgarian [Rhodope, pre-1945]: Bulgarian [Rhodope, pre-1945] ✧ BUL ✧ Another Bulgarian, here from the Rhodope Mountains around Smolyan

19 малката čôрква [malkata čôrkva] 2019  ▭

Burgundian (Bourguignon-morvandiau): Burgundian (Bourguignon-morvandiau) ✧ ??? ✧ Endangered Langue d’oïl spoken in Burgundy. Not to be confused with East Germanic Burgundian, extinct since the 6th century, though there are historic overlaps.

19 octobe 2019

Burmese: Burmese ✧ MYA ✧ Sino-Tibetan. Spoken in Myanmar/Burma, tonal. Unusual sounds such as an unvoiced m and n. Script favors arcs and circles because the ancient Burmese wrote on palm leaves and straight lines would risk splitting them.

[auʿtobʰa]   ▭

Burum (Somba-Siawari): Burum (Somba-Siawari) ✧ BMU ✧ Trans-New Guinea family, Finisterre–Huon, Western Huon, spoken by 9000 in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe Province on the Huon Peninsula. Its alternate name cites its two dialects, Somba and Siawari.

19 tupbonep 2019

Burushaski: Burushaski ✧ BSK ✧ A language isolate spoken by 90,000 in Northern Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir in India. Three dialects: Hunza, Nagar, and Wershikwar. Burushaski has four genders, and its actions often specify how loud something was.

19 aqrap 2019  ▭

Burushaski [Wershikwar]: Burushaski [Wershikwar] ✧ BSK ✧ Native to the Yasin Valley, spoken by some 20,000 of the 90,000 total for Burushaski in general. More divergent than Hunza and Nagar, Wershikwar is seen by some as a separate language.

19 makuccum datukus 2019

Buryat [Premodern]: Buryat [Premodern] ✧ BUA ✧ Mongolic language related to Mongolian and Oirat (qq.v.). China, Mongolia, and eastern Russia.

19 арбадугаар һара [arbadugaar ḥara] 2019  ▭

⌅

Caddo: Caddo ✧ CAD ✧ Critically endangered member of the Caddoan family, related to Arikara and Pawnee (qq.v.), tonal, spoken by about two dozen individuals in Caddo County, Oklahoma.

19 Nip’-baa-ti’-ti’ 2019

Carrier (Dakelh): Carrier (Dakelh) ✧ CRX ✧ Na-Dené family, Athabaskan. A few hundred speakers in The Yekooche First Nation in British Columbia.

19 ɬoh uzʔ 2019

Catalan: Catalan ✧ CAT ✧ Indo-European, Romance. Spoken in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and the country of Andorra where it’s official. Its name comes from the word “castle.”

19 d’octubre 2019  ▭

Cayuga: Cayuga ✧ CAY ✧ Iroquoian family, heard on the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve in Ontario and the Cattaraugus Reservation in New York State. Only 79 fluent speakers. Vowels are lengthened by a colon; some can be nasalzed, others whispered.

19 Saʔgę̲h·neh·gó:wah “Coughs” 2019

Cerma: Cerma ✧ CME ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, 63,000 speakers in Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire. Three dialects: Banfora, Niangoloko, and Soubakanié Dougou.

19 yɛrnyuŋo 2019

Cham [Eastern]: Cham [Eastern] ✧ CJM ✧ Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, 245,000 speakers in Cambodia and Vietnam. Akin to Rade (q.v.). Cham itself is the oldest-attested Austronesian language with inscriptions dating back to the fourth century CE.

balan thapluh   ▭

Cham [Western]: Cham [Western] ✧ CJA ✧ The other main Cham dialect, 73,000 speakers in Vietnam. Eastern and Western Cham have diverged so much that they are no longer mutually intelligible.

blaan ha pluh

Chamorro [Premodern]: Chamorro [Premodern] ✧ CHA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, 58,000 speakers in the Marianas, about half of those in the US territory of Guam. This is their pre-Spanish terminology as cited by Louis Claude de Freycinet in 1819.

19 Fanggualo’ “Planting season” 2019

Chamí Emberá: Chamí Emberá ✧ CMI ✧ From the Chacoan family, Emberá branch, 7800 speakers. The Chamí Emberá represent about 2% of Colombia’s indigenous population.

19 ‘ixawil ‘oktubre 2019

Chang (Mochungrr): Chang (Mochungrr) ✧ NBC ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Brahmaputran branch, 62,000 Scheduled Chang Naga tribe speakers in Nagaland, northeast India. Uses the Roman alphabet, introduced in 1928.

19 Yaokhothetlit 2019

Chatino [Zona Alta]: Chatino [Zona Alta] ✧ CLY ✧ Zapotecan language spoken by 23,000 in Southern Oaxaca, Mexico. It has ten tones and uses nasal vowels.

19 ko' rsayu 2019

Chayahuita: Chayahuita ✧ CBT ✧ One of only two languages belonging to the Cahuapanan family, spoken by 14,000 in the department of Loreto in the Peruvian province of Alto Amazonas. Some area education is bilingual Chayahuita/Spanish.

19 nahuanan tahuëri 2019

Chechen 1: Chechen 1 ✧ CHE ✧ Northeast Caucasian family, Nakh branch, related to Ingush (q.v.). It features an unusually large vowel inventory for a Caucasian language. Traditionally written with the Georgian alphabet, later the Arabic, finally the Cyrillic.

19 баскӀум [bask̓um] 2019  ▭

Chechen 2: Chechen 2 ✧ CHE ✧ A second alternative terminology for Chechen, inspired by the native Vainakh religion

19 ардар бутт [ardar butt] “Threshing month” 2019  ▭

Chechen 3: Chechen 3 ✧ CHE ✧ A third alternative terminology for Chechen, entirely secular and based on the seasons

19 гӏадужу бутт [g̓adužu butt] “Falling leaves month” 2019  ▭

Cherokee [Overhill]: Cherokee [Overhill] ✧ CHR ✧ Iroquoian family, Oklahoma. This is the Cherokee standard upon which Sequoyah based his unique script; further along he pursuaded the Eastern Cherokee speakers of North Carolina to adopt it.

19 [Duninodi] “Harvest” 2019  ▭

Chewa (Chichewa or Nyanja): Chewa (Chichewa or Nyanja) ✧ NYA ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantoid. Spoken in Malawi and Zambia. Unusually complex gender system.

19 mwezi wa Okutobala 2019

Cheyenne: Cheyenne ✧ CHY ✧ Algonquian family. Four principal tones, three principal vowels (a, e, o) which in some cases can can be voiceless. About 2000 native speakers in Montana and Oklahoma.

19 Se’enehe 2019  ▭

Chickasaw: Chickasaw ✧ CIC ✧ Muskogean family, related to Alabama and Choctaw (qqv.), approx. some 75 speakers total in Oklahoma, USA. Same word used for hand and arm.

19 Uktopa 2019

Chilcotin: Chilcotin ✧ CLC ✧ Athabaskan, approx. 860 native speakers in Chilcotin Country, central British Columbia. Chilcotin is bitonal and exhibits consonant harmony.

19 Benen Nats'ih 2019

Chimané [Mosetén]: Chimané [Mosetén] ✧ CAS ✧ Language isolate (?) spoken by around 2000 north of La Paz, Bolivia. Same word used for hand and arm.

19 tyakyatyi’ ïwaj 2019  ▭

Chinese [Hakka]: Chinese [Hakka] ✧ HAK ✧ Sino-Tibetan. Taiwan, SE China, diaspora communities worldwide. Unintelligible with Mandarin Chinese and, also unlike Mandarin, employs a final m.

19 十月 sip⁶ ŋiet⁶ 2019  ▭

Chinook Jargon (Wawa): Chinook Jargon (Wawa) ✧ CHN ✧ A trading language that thrived in the Pacific Northwest during the 19th century. Combined Native American and European vocabulary, though evidence suggests a form of it predated Old World contact. Its Chinuk pipa script arose in the 1880s.

19 / Oktobir 2019

Chiwere (Iowa-Otoe-Missouria): Chiwere (Iowa-Otoe-Missouria) ✧ IOW ✧ Western Siouan, akin to Winnebago (q.v.), natively extinct since 1996 though there are some 40 mostly older semi-fluent speakers. Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Males and females speak with two different styles or registers.

19 Ta Kiruxe 2019

Choctaw: Choctaw ✧ CHO ✧ Muskogean, related to Alabama and Chickasaw (qq.v.). South-central USA, 18,000 speakers.

19 Aktoba 2019  ▭

Choyo (Queyu): Choyo (Queyu) ✧ QVY ✧ A Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic language of Yajiang and Xinlong Counties in Sichuan with approx. 7000 speakers. Choyo is closely akin to another Qiangic language, Zhaba, spoken by a similar number in Yajiang and Daofu Counties.

19 da³⁵wa⁵⁵tɕi⁵⁵pa⁵³ 2019

Chukchansi: Chukchansi ✧ YOK ✧ Of uncertain family, classified as Yokutsan, Nim. Endemic to California’s San Joaquin Valley. Only eight native speakers listed as of 2011, but currently taught in area elementary schools.

19 Gewwishtaw 2019

Chukchi: Chukchi ✧ CKT ✧ Chukotko-Kamchatkan family, about 10,000 speakers in extreme eastern Siberia. Uses vowel harmony. Also, words cannot begin or end with consonant blends.

19 н’эрйъилгын [n’erj”ilgyn] 2019  ▭

Chuukese (Trukese): Chuukese (Trukese) ✧ CHK ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Micronesian, spoken by around 50,000 ethnic Chuukese on the Chuuk Islands of the Carolines plus Pohnpei and Guam. Remarkably, begins some words with doubled consonants.

19 Óktooper 2019

Chuvash: Chuvash ✧ CHV ✧ Turkic, spoken in the Urals. Features “hard” versus “soft” words. Genderless, agglutinative.

IIII/X юпа [yupa] IIII/X✳✳  ▭

Cimbrian: Cimbrian ✧ CIM ✧ A Germanic language akin to Mocheno (q.v.) spoken by approx. 400 in Italy’s Tyrol whose grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation render it unintelligible to Standard High German speakers. Italian has largely displaced it.

19 otobre -or- bimmat 2019  ▭

Circassian (Cherkess) [Adyghe]: Circassian (Cherkess) [Adyghe] ✧ ADY ✧ Northwest Caucasian. Has 50-60 consonant sounds, mutually intelligible with the Kabardian dialect group below. Circassian has many Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Russian loans.

19 чъэпогъу [tʂǎpoġ°] 2019  ▭

Circassian (Cherkess) [Kabardian]: Circassian (Cherkess) [Kabardian] ✧ KBD ✧ The other major Circassian grouping, also called East Circassian. Mutually intelligible with Adyghe above.

19 жэпуэгъуэ [žapwaʁʷa] 2019  ▭

Coeur d’Alene: Coeur d’Alene ✧ CRD ✧ Salishan family, Interior, Southern. Natively spoken by two elders as of 2014, though knowledge is spreading and KWIS FM 88.3 in Plummer, Idaho offers Coeur d’Alene programming.

19 Sch’edp “Darkness approaches” 2019

Cofán: Cofán ✧ CON ✧ A seriously endangered language isolate spoken by 2400 Cofán people in Sucumbíos Province in northeast Ecuador and neighboring Colombia. Natively it counts in base 5.

19 chuñûmbi seyuite 2019

Comanche [Eastern]: Comanche [Eastern] ✧ SWB ✧ Uto-Aztecan family, Numic; native to Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma; some two dozen speakers currently. Comanche was one of the languages used by the Code Talkers during World War II.

19 Yuba mua “Autumn moon” 2019

Comorian [Maore] (Shimaore): Comorian [Maore] (Shimaore) ✧ SWB ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu. 80,000 speakers on French islands of Mayotte. Originally written in Arabic script.

19 oktobru 2019

Coptic: Coptic ✧ COP ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Ptolemaic Egyptian. Extinct as vernacular, used for Coptic Orthodox liturgy. Greek-derived alphabet plus characters pulled from Egyptian hieroglyphics. (The Church observes its own calendar, but these are Coptic’s Gregorian terms.)

19 Ⲟⲕⲧⲱⲃⲣⲓⲟⲥ [oktuvrios] 2019  ▭

Cornish: Cornish ✧ COR ✧ Celtic, Brythonic. Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, natively extinct but nowadays actively studied and taught. Like all Celtic languages, a Cornish noun changes its initial consonant sound depending on its role in a sentence.

19 mys Hedra 2019  ▭

Corsican: Corsican ✧ COS ✧ Indo-European, Romance, and unlike Sardinian (q.v.) this language is mutually intelligible with Italian. Spoken on Corsica, endangered.

19 ottobre -or- uttobre -or- uttrovi 2019  ▭

Cotabato Manobo [Dulangan Manobo]: Cotabato Manobo [Dulangan Manobo] ✧ MTA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, spoken by 30,000 in the Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato Provinces of Mindinao, Philippines. The Tasaday, once decried as a hoax tribe but now confirmed, speak a dialect of Cotabato Manobo.

19 oktobeli 2019

Cree: Cree ✧ CRE ✧ Algonquian family. Formerly creolized with French and Scottish Gaelic. Official in Canada’s Northwest Territories, almost 100,000 speakers. Related to Montagnais Innu (q.v.).

19 opinahamowipizun “Birds fly south” 2019  ▭

Creek (Muscogee or Seminole): Creek (Muscogee or Seminole) ✧ MUS ✧ Muskogean family, tonal with nazalizations, 5000 speakers in Oklahoma and Florida

19 otowoskv-rakko “Big chestnut” 2019

Crimean Tatar: Crimean Tatar ✧ CRH ✧ Half a million speakers. Although Turkic like Tatar, CT is not considered a Tatar dialect and they are not mutually intelligible.

19 orta küz ayı -or- ekim ayı 2019  ▭

Croatian [Traditional]: Croatian [Traditional] ✧ HRV ✧ South Slavic, spoken in Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and parts of Serbia. Uses the Roman alphabet as opposed to Serbian which uses Cyrillic.

19 listopad “Falling leaves month” 2019

Crow (Apsáalooke): Crow (Apsáalooke) ✧ CRO ✧ Siouan family, Western, as of 2007 spoken by 3500 in the Crow Nation in southwest Montana. Considered endangered, though schoolchildren are actively learning it and adolescents attend the Apsaalooke language camp for Crow language immersion.

19 hutbilíako 2019  ▭

Cuicatec: Cuicatec ✧ CUX ✧ A language of the Oto-Manguean family spoken natively by 13,000 in western Oaxaca, Mexico. Its tones are indicated with superscript numerals, and it forms verb tenses by attaching one of four different prefixes.

19 oc³tu²bre⁴ -or- iyuu nichi 2019

Cuman (Polovetsian): Cuman (Polovetsian) ✧ QWM ✧ Turkic language spoken by Cuman-Kipchaks in eastern Europe, extinct by 1800. It was the Golden Horde Khanate’s lingua franca and it left a rich body of literature.

19 orta qis ay 2019  ▭

Curonian: Curonian ✧ XCU ✧ Extinct Balto-Slavic language spoken until the 16th century in parts of modern Latvia, Lithuania, and Germany.

19 oktōbirs 2019

Czech (Bohemian): Czech (Bohemian) ✧ CZE ✧ West Slavic, distinct from but mutually intelligible with Slovak: Czech borrows more German; Slovak, Ukrainian and Hungarian. In both Czech and Slovak the same word, ruka, can refer to hand or arm.

19 říjen “Rutting” 2019  ▭

⌅

Dagaare: Dagaare ✧ DGA ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur branch. Unusual consonant blends such as gb, kp, and mgm.

19 KyuurpiesobO 2019

Dagur (Daur): Dagur (Daur) ✧ DTA ✧ Mongolic family, spoken by 96,000 Daur in Inner Mongolia’s Hailar District and China’s Qiqihar and Tacheng Prefectures. Exhibits vestiges of vowel harmony.

19 jwambie 2019

Dakota (Dakhota): Dakota (Dakhota) ✧ DAK ✧ Siouan family, mutually intelligible with Lakota. Around 20,000 speakers in an area centered on eastern South Dakota and taking in parts of North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.

19 Wiiwikcemna 2019

Dalecarlian (Elfdalian): Dalecarlian (Elfdalian) ✧ OVD ✧ North Germanic, endangered, originally expressed with runes. Unlike Swedish, with which it isn’t mutually intelligible, it uses nasalized vowels (Ą, Ę, Į, Ų, Y̨, Ą̊) and like Icelandic uses eth (Ð). The video game Minecraft features Dalecarlian.

19 oktober/oktover 2019  ▭

Dalmatian: Dalmatian ✧ DLM ✧ Extinct Romance language once spoken on the Adriatic east coast. Marine mail carrier Tuone Udaina, its last native speaker, died in a roadwork accident in 1898 but Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli had had time to study with him extensively.

19 uaptobar 2019  ▭

Dangaléat: Dangaléat ✧ DAA ✧ Afro-Asiatic, East Chadic, 60,000 speakers in Central Chad. Vowel length is contrastive, uses implosive consonants.

19 burbiraŋ 2019

Danish [Premodern/Folk]: Danish [Premodern/Folk] ✧ DAN ✧ North Germanic. Unlike sister languages Swedish and Norwegian, it uses a uvular R. This is traditional Danish before it adopted neo-Latin month conventions

19 Sædemåned 2019

Dan: Dan ✧ DNJ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Mande, 1. 6 million speakers in Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia plus another 800 in Guinea. Tonal. Three dialects, Gweetaawu, Blowo, and Kla; though the latter is often considered a separate language.

19 Ɔtɔblö -or- zan ˈˈyisü 2019  ▭

Deg Xinag: Deg Xinag ✧ ING ✧ Athabaskan language, virtually extinct. Area around the lower Yukon River, Alaska.

19 Vinginh xuq’idh “The cold month” 2019

Denaakk’e (Koyukon Athabascan): Denaakk’e (Koyukon Athabascan) ✧ KOY ✧ Athabascan, spoken by approx. 300 in east central Alaska, three dialects

19 Benenhdedeteeyee 2019  ▭

Dena’ina (Tanaina) [Outer Inlet]: Dena’ina (Tanaina) [Outer Inlet] ✧ TFN ✧ Athabaskan, seriously endangered, Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. Same word can refer to hand or arm.

19 k’eghun shani 2019

Denya: Denya ✧ ANV ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantoid, Mamfe. Spoken in Cameroon by around 11,000

19 òkutòburu 2019

Dhivehi (Maldivian): Dhivehi (Maldivian) ✧ DIV ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, uses its exclusive right-to-left Thāna script which unlike Arabic explicitly indicates vowels. Spoken in the Indian Ocean Republic of Maldives.

19 [okṫōbaru] 2019  ▭

Digaro Mishmi (Darang/Taraon): Digaro Mishmi (Darang/Taraon) ✧ MHU ✧ “Possibly” Sino-Tibetan, 35,000 speakers in India’s Arunachal Pradesh and China’s Zayü County.

19 xa⁵⁵ lo⁵³ xɑ⁵⁵ lɯŋ⁵⁵ 2019

Dinka [Northwestern]: Dinka [Northwestern] ✧ DIW ✧ Nilo-Saharan, spoken in Sudan and by a refugee population in Jacksonville, Florida. Tonal, breathy vowels, five principal dialects.

19 nyeth 2019

Ditidaht (Nitinaht or Southern Nootkan): Ditidaht (Nitinaht or Southern Nootkan) ✧ DTD ✧ Wakashan family, Vancouver Island, virtually extinct. An unusual feature is that it uses no nasal consonants (sounds such as m, n, and ng/ŋ).

19 čičk’awʔaspaał 2019

Djimini (Jinmini): Djimini (Jinmini) ✧ DYI ✧ Niger-Congo, Senufo, 96,000 speakers in Ivory Coast’s Debakala Department

19 yesupyɛ 2019

Dogrib (Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì): Dogrib (Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì) ✧ DGR ✧ Na-Dené, Athabaskan. Canada Northwest Territories, 2600 speakers. Not to be confused with Dogri, an Indo-European language spoken in India.

19 Ehts’o K’e Yats’ehtii Zaà 2019  ▭

Duala: Duala ✧ DUA ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, spoken natively by 90,000 (and as an acquired language by 2 million) in Cameroon. The language is tri-tonal and first appeared in print in 1862.

19 mayésɛ́ 2019

Dukhan: Dukhan ✧ DKH ✧ A Turkic amalgam related to Tuvan, Buryat, and Tofalar (qq.v.) spoken, often mixed with Mongolian, by approx. 500 Dukha reindeer herders in Northernmost Mongolia. (Language code DKH is unofficial.)

19 hülbüs аy 2019

Dupaningan Agta: Dupaningan Agta ✧ DUE ✧ A Malayo-Polynesian language of uncertain classification, spoken in the Philippines’ Cagayan and Isabela provinces in northeastern Luzon by approximately 1,400 semi-nomadic Negrito hunter-gatherers

19 make-mapulu a bulan 2019

Duru [Dii]: Duru [Dii] ✧ DUR ✧ Niger-Congo, Leko-Nimbari, Duru, between 50,000 and 60,000 speakers in Cameroon. Dii Duru divides further into eight recognized dialects.

19 nàà 2019

Dusun (Bunduliwan): Dusun (Bunduliwan) ✧ DTP ✧ A Malayo-Polynesian language, standardized by the Kadazandusun Cultural Association Sabah, and spoken by 140,000 in Malaysia and Brunei.

19 Tulan Gumas “Pluck month” 2019

Dutch [Old]: Dutch [Old] ✧ ODT ✧ Indo-European, Germanic, 9th to 12th centuries CE. Literary examples include The Leiden Willeram, a commentary on the Song of Solomon, and Hebban olla vogala (“Have all birds begun nests”), both from ca. 1100.

XVIIII (wijnmaand) “Wine Month” MMXVIIII  ▭

Dutch [West Flemish] (Vlaams): Dutch [West Flemish] (Vlaams) ✧ ODT ✧ The Dutch dialect majority language of Northern Belgium, spoken also in Hauts-de-France and Zeeland, by some 6. 5 million. This is its premodern terminology. Unlike standard Dutch, weekdays and months are usually capitalized.

XVIIII Zaaimaand “Seed Month” MMXVIIII

Dyula (Jula): Dyula (Jula) ✧ DYU ✧ Niger-Congo, Western Mande, East Manding, spoken by 6. 9 million in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Mali. Used as a trade language, akin to Bambara (q.v.) and mutually intelligible with it.

19 samiɲalabankalo “End of rainy season” 2019

Dzongkha (Bhutanese): Dzongkha (Bhutanese) ✧ DZO ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, approx. 170,000 native speakers (and an additional 470,000 non-native) in Bhutan where it is the only official language.

19 [spyi.zlaw.bču.pa] 2019

⌅

Edo (Bini): Edo (Bini) ✧ BIN ✧ Niger-Congo family. Spoken by Benin Empire descendants.

19 uki emorho 2019  ▭

Embu (Kîembu): Embu (Kîembu) ✧ EBU ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu. Spoken by 320,000 in two dialects, northeast of Nairobi, Kenya.

19 Mweri wa ikũmi 2019

Emilian-Romagnol (Sammarinese): Emilian-Romagnol (Sammarinese) ✧ EGL/RGN ✧ Romance language spoken in Italy (Emilia-Romagna region, Urbino, and Pesaro) and in San Marino. Recognized by UNESCO as “worthy of protection,” E-R is said to be entirely unintelligible to an Italian speaker.

19 otòber 2019  ▭

Emilian-Romagnol [Ferrarese]: Emilian-Romagnol [Ferrarese] ✧ EGL/RGN ✧ E-R dialect heard in the Province of Ferrara which includes the city of Comacchio.

19 utóbar 2019

Enets (Entsy) [Forest]: Enets (Entsy) [Forest] ✧ ENF and ENH ✧ Moribund Samoyedic language spoken by 70 out of 260 ethnic Enets of Krasnoyarsk Krai in central Siberia. Sixty of those speak the Forest shown here; ten, Tundra. Unusual “destinative” noun case.

19 кезер кора дири (kezyer kora diri) “Month of wild deer in rut” 2019  ▭

English [Old] (Anglo-Saxon): English [Old] (Anglo-Saxon) ✧ ANG ✧ Indo-European, Germanic, spoken 5th to 12th centuries CE. Four noun cases; three genders; definite articles se, sēo, þæt, and þā. Literary examples Beowulf (975-1025) and the Charter of Cnut (c. 1017).

XVIIII Winterfylleð “Winter full moon” MMXVIIII  ▭

Erromangan (Sie) [Folk/Traditional]: Erromangan (Sie) [Folk/Traditional] ✧ ERG ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic, spoken by 1900 on Vanuatu’s Erromango Island. This was traditional before Erromangan borrowed quasi-English month names from Bislama (q.v.).

19 Movcarcas 2019

Erromintxela: Erromintxela ✧ EMX ✧ A Basque/Romani hybrid language spoken by around a thousand Pyranees-dwelling Roma

19 uria 2019

Ersu [Ganluo]: Ersu [Ganluo] ✧ ERS ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic, around 13,000 speakers in western Sichuan. Like Nakhi (q.v.) this language employs a pictographic script for folkloric purposes, additionally using different colors for further lexographic meaning.

19 ʂı⁵⁵i⁵⁵ɬɑ³³ 2019

Erzya: Erzya ✧ MYV ✧ Uralic, Mordvinic, 37,000 speakers, akin to [but quite distinct from] Moksha (q.v.). It uses the exact same Cyrillic alphabet as Russian though the letters Х, Щ, Ъ (hard sign), and Ь only occur in loans.

19 ожоков [ožokov] 2019  ▭

Estonian: Estonian ✧ EST ✧ Uralic, Finnic. Features three vowel lengths, 15 noun cases. Estonian and Finnish (q.v.) are mutually intelligible with practice though there are many “false friends,” i.e., words that seem identical but carry different meanings in each language.

19 viinakuu 2019  ▭

Estonian [Southern] (Seto): Estonian [Southern] (Seto) ✧ VRO ✧ In many respects closer to Võro (q.v.) than standard Estonian, spoken by 12,500 in the Setomaa region (Estonia/Russia). Germanic influences.

19 rehekuu “Kiln month” 2019

Etruscan: Etruscan ✧ ETT ✧ Assigned to the hypothetical Tyrrhenian family, spoken on the Italian peninsula in classical times. Written right-to-left, the Etruscan language lacked the sounds of o, d, b, and g.

XIX xuru/xurvar ⊕⊕XIX  ▭

Even (Lamut): Even (Lamut) ✧ EVE ✧ Altaic, Tungusic, akin to Evenki below, 7000 speakers in Siberia. Used Church Slavonic script until the 1920s, then switched to Cyrillic, to Roman, then back to Cyrillic in 1953. It adds Ӈ, Ө, and Ӫ to it but reserves Ё, Щ, Ъ and Ь for Russian loans.

19 ойчири билэн [ojčiri bilėn] 2019  ▭

Evenki (Solon): Evenki (Solon) ✧ EVN ✧ Tungusic, related to Even above, but four times as many speakers. In descending order of frequency, Evenki appears in Roman, Cyrillic, and Mongolian script.

19 lugun “Thin snow and ice at water’s edge” 2019  ▭

Ewe: Ewe ✧ EWO ✧ Niger-Congo family, tonal, spoken by 5 million in western Africa. A tilde nazalizes a vowel: ã, ẽ, ɛ̃, ɔ̃, ĩ, õ, and ũ. Related to Aja and Fon (qqv.).

19 Kele 2019

Extremaduran: Extremaduran ✧ EXT ✧ Romance language spoken in west central Spain. Some differences from Spanish/Castilian: Infinitive verbs end in L, questions are reinforced by prepending the particles “lo,” “lu,” “pu,” or “pui.”

19 otouvri -or- otubri 2019  ▭

⌅

Falam (Falam Chin): Falam (Falam Chin) ✧ CFM ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Kuki-Chin, 107,000 speakers of four main dialects in Myanmar (Chin State) and India. Roman alphabet.

19 kum khat sungih thla hranak 2019

Fang: Fang ✧ FAN ✧ Niger-Congo, Southern Bantoid, one million speakers predominantly in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, beyond that in Cameroon, São Tomé and Príncipe, and The Republic of the Congo. Tonal, eight major dialects, spelling not currently standardized.

19 ngon-awôme 2019

Fe’fe’ (Nufi or Bafang): Fe’fe’ (Nufi or Bafang) ✧ FMP ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantoid, Grassfields. Nine dialects, 120,000 speakers in the area of Bafang, Cameroon.

19 ndù’nzà 2019

Finnish: Finnish ✧ FIN ✧ Uralic, Finnic, 5. 4 million speakers in Scandinavia and Russia. Preliterate until the 16th century, highly inflected (15 noun cases), genderless, consonants and vowels can be long or short.

19 lokakuu “Mud month” 2019

Flemish (West Flemish or West-Vlaams): Flemish (West Flemish or West-Vlaams) ✧ VLS ✧ A highly divergent Dutch dialect (or separate language, to some) with 1. 2 million speakers in Belgium and southwestern Netherlands.

19 oktober 2019  ▭

Fon: Fon ✧ FON ✧ Niger-Congo, Gbe, related to Aja and Ewe (qq.v.). Spoken by 2. 2 million in Togo and Benin in over 50 dialects. Efforts are underway to consolidate them into a single spoken and literary standard.

19 kɔnya sùn 2019

Fox (Meskwaki or Sauk) 1: Fox (Meskwaki or Sauk) 1 ✧ SAC ✧ Algonquian, endangered, approx. 2000 speakers distributed through Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, and Coahuila (Mexico). It has two indigenous writing systems known as Fox I and Fox II, shown below.

19 âkihtôpêha 2019  ▭

Fox (Meskwaki or Sauk) 2: Fox (Meskwaki or Sauk) 2 ✧ SAC ✧ Fox as above, written with the Fox I script. This is an abugida — halfway between an alphabet and a syllabary, like most of the scripts used in India.

19 k·t..l. 2019

Fox (Meskwaki or Sauk) 3: Fox (Meskwaki or Sauk) 3 ✧ SAC ✧ Fox as above, written with the Fox II script, a true alphabet showing consonants and vowels explicitly.

19 2019

Frafra (Gurenɛ): Frafra (Gurenɛ) ✧ GUR ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, Mooré, related to Mossi (q.v.), spoken by 720,000 in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Its alphabet doesn’t use C, J, Q, OR X, but adds Ɛ, Ɔ, Ŋ, and Ɣ..

19 fɔɔ wõrga 2019

Frankish (Old Franconian): Frankish (Old Franconian) ✧ FRK ✧ Germanic language spoken in France between the 4th and 9th centuries, evolved into Old Dutch (q.v.). Charlemagne spoke a dialect of Frankish.

XVIIII Windumemanoþ MMXVIIII

Frisian [West]: Frisian [West] ✧ FRY ✧ Indo-European, West Germanic, considered to be the closest foreign language to English. 470,000 speakers in the Friesland province of the Netherlands.

19 wynmoanne “Wine month” 2019  ▭

Frisian [West Schiermonnikoog]: Frisian [West Schiermonnikoog] ✧ FRY ✧ Heard on the Island of Schiermonnikoog off Northern Netherlands, seriously endangered with fewer than 100 speakers

19 wynmond 2019

Frisian [North] (Mooring): Frisian [North] (Mooring) ✧ FRR ✧ About 10,000 speakers in the Schleswig-Holstein region of Germany

19 oktuuber -or- stormmoune “Storm month” 2019  ▭

Friulian: Friulian ✧ FUR ✧ Indo-European, Romance. Spoken by half a million in northeast Italy near the Slovenian border. When c is followed by anything other than an e or an i in Friulian, but must still remain soft (“IPA Lite” č, IPA tɕ, as in English cherry), it takes a cedilla: ç.

19 otubar 2019  ▭

Fula: Fula ✧ FUL ✧ Niger-Congo family, western Africa, official in Senegal. Most commonly written with the Roman alphabet, less so with the Arabic, but a unique alphabet for Fula called Adlam arose in the 1980s and has been widely adopted.

19 yarkomaa 2019  ▭

Fur: Fur ✧ FVR ✧ Tentatively attributed to the Nilo-Saharan family, spoken in south central Darfur in western Sudan.

19 Ederáŋ 2019

Futunan: Futunan ✧ FUT ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language spoken on Futuna Island and New Caledonia. Its words for hand and arm are identical.

19 okotopeli 2019

Fuyu Kyrgyz (Manchurian Kirghiz): Fuyu Kyrgyz (Manchurian Kirghiz) ✧ ??? ✧ Turkic. Not a dialect of Kyrgyz, but instead closer to Khakas (q.v). Spoken by fewer than a dozen in Heilongjiang, China, 300 km northwest of Harbin.

19 on ay 2019  ▭

⌅

Gaelic [Irish] (Irish): Gaelic [Irish] (Irish) ✧ GLE ✧ Indo-European, Celtic, Goidelic. Spoken as a first language along the western coast of Ireland, also widely spoken in Newfoundland until the early 1900s.

19 Mí Deireadh Fómhair “End of harvest” 2019  ▭

Gaelic [Scottish]: Gaelic [Scottish] ✧ GLA ✧ Like Irish Gaelic (q.v.), also Celtic, Goidelic. This is Highland Gaelic; Lowland Gaelic is extinct, one of its last known speakers having been Margaret McMurray who died ca. 1760.

19 An Dàmhair “Rutting time for deer” 2019  ▭

Gaelic [Scottish Archaic]: Gaelic [Scottish Archaic] ✧ GLA ✧ As Scottish Gaelic above, but older

19 Mìos Deireannach an Fhoghair 2019

Gagauz: Gagauz ✧ GAG ✧ Turkic, Western Oghuz, 140,000 speakers in Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey, and Russia. Gagayuz’s oldest texts used the Greek alphabet. It switched to the Cyrillic in 1957, then to the Roman in 1996 using the Turkish range but adding Ä, Ê, and Ț.

19 ӂанавар айы [ǧanavar ayı] 2019

Galician: Galician ✧ GLG ✧ Ibero-Romance, sharply divergent from Portuguese, spoken in Galicia in Northern Spain. It’s co-official there, regulated by the Royal Galician Academy. Fidel Castroʼs father was Galician and emigrated to make his sugar cane fortune.

19 outubro 2019  ▭

Gallong (Galo) [Lare]: Gallong (Galo) [Lare] ✧ ADL ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Tani branch, at least four dialects though likely more, 30,000 speakers. Arunachal Pradesh, northeast India.

19 pwraa -or- pɨraa 2019

Gallo: Gallo ✧ ROA-GAL ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Langue d’oïl. Approx. 28,000 speakers in the upper Brittany region. Gallo bears some mutual intelligibility with Norman (q.v.) dialects, though it displays Celtic influences as opposed to Old Norse.

19 otobr 2019  ▭

Garifuna: Garifuna ✧ CAB ✧ Arawakan language with French and Carib loans, Central America, 170,000 speakers. Men’s and women’s speech differ. Men’s Garifuna tends to borrow more heavily from Carib while women’s leans more toward Arawak.

19 dîsi hati 2019  ▭

Garo: Garo ✧ GRT ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, Brahmaputran, spoken in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya and in parts of Assam and Tripura, India, and also in Bangladesh. In its Roman writing system the letters F, Q, V, X, Y, and Z are non-native and occur only in loans.

19 bilsini chikkunggipa ja 2019

Gaulish *: Gaulish * ✧ XTG ✧ Indo-European, Celtic. Pre-Roman France, extinct by 7th century CE. Modern French uses several hundred Gaulish loans, among them the words alouette (lark) and petit (small).

XVIIII ogronnios MMXVIIII  ▭

Ga: Ga ✧ GAA ✧ Niger-Congo family, Kwa division, first written in 1764. Tonal, three vowel lengths.

19 Anton 2019

Gciriku (Rumanyo): Gciriku (Rumanyo) ✧ DIU ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, 36,000 speakers along the Okavango River in Angola, Botswana, and Namibia. Most Bantu languages don’t have clicks, but Gciriku uses half a dozen, typically in place names and in words that refer to natural features.

19 Shikûkutu 2019

Georgian: Georgian ✧ KAT ✧ Kartvelian family, lacks an f sound natively. Akin to, but unintelligible with, Svan (q.v.). Each vowel is always a separate syllable, so an aa (აა) would sound out as a-a. The native term for Georgia is საქართველო [sakartvelo] “Land of Kartvelians.”

ით ოქტომბერი [okt̓omberi] ცით  ▭

Georgian [Old]: Georgian [Old] ✧ KAT ✧ Georgian from approximately 800-1000 CE

ით ღვინობისთვე [ɣvinobistve] “Month of wine” ცით

German [Alsatian]: German [Alsatian] ✧ GSW ✧ Alsace in eastern France. 100,000 speakers, all bilingual with French. Unlike German, the Alsatian alphabet also includes the letters À and É.

19 Oktower 2019  ▭

German [Alsatian Folk]: German [Alsatian Folk] ✧ GSW ✧ Alsatian terms previous to, or aside from, the modern neo-Latin.

19 Weinmonat -or- Dachsmond 2019

German [Brazilian Pomeranian]: German [Brazilian Pomeranian] ✧ NDS ✧ Not to be confused with West Slavic Pomeranian, this is a Low German dialect spoken in the Brazilian State of Santa Catarina, chiefly in Pomerode by 90% of its residents.

19 im Oktober 2019

German [Old High]: German [Old High] ✧ GOH ✧ Earliest attested German language, ca. 500-1050 CE. Old High German appears in the Oaths of Strasbourg, 12 February 842, between Louis the German and Charles the Bald.

XVIIII Windumemānōd MMXVIIII  ▭

German [Plautdietsch]: German [Plautdietsch] ✧ PDT ✧ North Sea Germanic, Low German, akin to Dutch. Spoken in Northern Germany, eastern areas of the Netherlands, and by Mennonites worldwide.

19 Oktoba -or- Oktober 2019  ▭

German [Ripuarian] (Kölsch): German [Ripuarian] (Kölsch) ✧ KSH ✧ Indo-European, West Germanic, Central Franconian. Cologne area, around a million speakers. Its various subdialects can identify a speaker’s region.

19 Oktoober -or- Oktohber 2019

German [Walser]: German [Walser] ✧ WAE ✧ Germanic, uppermost Swiss alps, 23,000 native speakers. Poor interintelligibility with Standard German. Approximately nine highly divergent dialects.

19 Wímánet 2019  ▭

German [mid 17th century]: German [mid 17th century] ✧ GER ✧ The High German shown on a 1665 calendar

19 Weinmond 2019

Gitxsan (Gitksan or Gitsenimx): Gitxsan (Gitksan or Gitsenimx) ✧ GIT ✧ Tsimshianic family, British Columbia, < 1000 speakers, closely related to Nisga’a (q.v.). Underscores (k/k, x/x) indicate back as opposed to ordinary front articulation.

19 hlox̱sa x̱laaxw -or- hlox̱sa sinlaaxw 2019

Gothic: Gothic ✧ GOT ✧ Indo-European, extinct by the 10th century. IE’s Germanic branch splits into West, North, and East; Gothic belonged to the latter, along with Vandalic and Burgundian which are both only poorly attested.

XVIIII [blotamenoþs] MMXVIIII  ▭

Gourmantché (Migourmantchema): Gourmantché (Migourmantchema) ✧ GUX ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, spoken by 900,000 in Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo. Its nouns use circumfixes — prefix-suffix pairs that enclose them. Language names, for example, begin with mi- and end with -ma; thus Gourmantché becomes migourmantchema.

19 cipiiga 2019

Greenlandic [Kalaallisut] (West Greenlandic): Greenlandic [Kalaallisut] (West Greenlandic) ✧ KAL ✧ Eskimo-Aleut, official in Greenland. Three more dialects are East (Tunumiisut), North or Thule (Avanersuarmiutut), and South (Eskimo). A fourth, Qavak, is extinct.

19 oktobarip 2019  ▭

Griko (Grecanic or Italiot Greek): Griko (Grecanic or Italiot Greek) ✧ GRE ✧ Variety of modern Greek, with which interintelligibility is described as poor. About 28,000 speakers in the heel and toe of Italy. Griko uses a Greek alphabet with the addition of Б, G, Ǵ, Ḱ, Λ̌, Ν̌, and Σ̌ while reserving Ξ and Ψ for Greek loans.

19 Ottòbri 2019  ▭

Gros Ventre (Atsina): Gros Ventre (Atsina) ✧ ATS ✧ Algonquian, Arapahoan language of the Gros Ventre people of Montana, natively extinct since 1981 but currently spoken in revival by 45 individuals. Closely related to Arapaho (q.v.) but with a wider consonant inventory.

19 ɂóhuukyénikɔɔɂ “When leaves fall” 2019

Guahibo: Guahibo ✧ GUH ✧ From the Guahiban family, 34,000 speakers in Colombia and in the Orinoco River area in Venezuela. Unusually complex stress patterns for syllables.

19 ope juameto “Mata mata (freshwater turtles)” 2019  ▭

Guan [Dungan]: Guan [Dungan] ✧ DNG ✧ A Sino-Tibetan language that, unusually, uses the Cyrillic alphabet. Three tones. Spoken by 90,000 in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it evolved from Mandarin Chinese but drew heavy influences from Turkic languages and Russian.

19 шыйүә [šəjyә] 2019

Guaraní [Paraguayan]: Guaraní [Paraguayan] ✧ GUG ✧ Tupian family. This is the standard Guaraní spoken in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay. Genderless. Oldest writings date from 1639.

19 jasypa 2019  ▭

Guhu-Samane: Guhu-Samane ✧ GHS ✧ An isolate related to the Binanderean family, Papua New Guinea, five dialects recognized, 13,000 speakers.

19 Otoba 2019

Guiqiong: Guiqiong ✧ GQI ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic. A preliterate, poorly documented language spoken in Sichuan and Tibet. Four tones (33, 35, 53, 55). There are approx. 6000 native speakers, who switch to Chinese when they travel outside their villages.

19 tʃı⁵⁵pu⁵³ 2019

Gullah (Sea Islands Creole): Gullah (Sea Islands Creole) ✧ GUL ✧ English-based, Niger-Congo influences. The word “kumbaya” comes from Gullah, and some characters in Daughters of the Dust (1991) speak Gullah over English captions.

19 Octobuh 2019  ▭

Gungu (Lugungu): Gungu (Lugungu) ✧ RUB ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantoid, Great Lakes Bantu, 49,000 speakers in Buliisa, Hoima, and Masindi districts in northwestern Uganda. No dictionary existed until 2012.

19 Mweri̱ Gwei̱ku̱mi̱ 2019

Gusii (Ekegusii or Kisii): Gusii (Ekegusii or Kisii) ✧ GUZ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Northeast Bantu, spoken by 2. 2 million in western Kenya’s Gusii district. Contrastive vowel lengths.

19 Engatiato -or- Eng’atiato 2019  ▭

Gusilay: Gusilay ✧ GSL ✧ Niger-Congo family, Jola branch, spoken by 15,000 in southwest Senegal. Its speakers also use other languages such as Mandinka and Wolof (qq.v.), and also Pulaar, but their literacy in Gusilay itself is less than 1%.

19 Gafaak-Enaaf 2019

Gutnish (Gotlandic): Gutnish (Gotlandic) ✧ - ✧ Endangered North Germanic language some assign to its own sub-branch, spoken by between 2000 and 5000 on the islands of Fårö (not to be confused with the Faroe Islands) and Gotland. Vowels and vocabulary differ significantly from Swedish.

19 åktobar -or- upptobar 2019

Gwere (Lugwere): Gwere (Lugwere) ✧ GWR ✧ Niger-Congo, Great Lakes Bantu, 410,000 speakers in Uganda. Contrastive (long versus short) vowel length.

19 Gweikumi -or- Naaya 2019  ▭

Gwich’in [Western]: Gwich’in [Western] ✧ GWI ✧ Na-Dené family, Athabaskan. 700 speakers in Alaska and northwest Canada.

19 Vadzaih Zhrii 2019  ▭

⌅

Haida: Haida ✧ HAI ✧ Language isolate native to the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of British Columbia, with 14 reported speakers. It has no adjectives, getting around that by using verbs to assign qualities.

19 Cha’áaw Kungáay “Bears hibernate” 2019

Haitian Creole: Haitian Creole ✧ HAT ✧ Based on 18th century French with influences from other Romance languages, English, Taíno, and African languages such as Asante, Edo, Fongbe, Fulani, and Kikongo. Spoken by 8. 9 million, partially interintelligible with French.

19 oktòb 2019  ▭

Hakha Chin (Lai): Hakha Chin (Lai) ✧ CNH ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Kuki-Chin, Central, spoken by 130,000 in Burma, Bangladesh, and India. Tonal.

19 Octobar thla 2019

Hani (Ho): Hani (Ho) ✧ HNI ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, Lolo-Burmese branch, spoken by the 760,000 Ho people in Burma, Southern China, Laos, and Vietnam. Tones shown with superscripts: 24 (rising), 31 (low-falling), 33 (mid-level), and 55 (high-level).

19 naŋ³¹ jɛ̱³³ 2019

Harari: Harari ✧ HAR ✧ Afro-Asiatic family, Semitic, approx. 25,000 speakers in Ethiopia. Once written with Arabic script, but nowadays with the Ethiopic abugida and the Roman alphabet.

19 assir-khá warhay 2019  ▭

Havasupai-Hualapai: Havasupai-Hualapai ✧ YUF ✧ Yuman family, around 550 speakers in northwest Arizona. About 200 Havasupai (“people of the blue-green waters”) live in the Grand Canyon village of Supai, Arizona, accessible only by foot, mule, or helicopter.

19 Salj’alg “When the constellation of the hands leaves” 2019

Hawaiian [Premodern]: Hawaiian [Premodern] ✧ HAW ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Marquesic, 24,000 native speakers on the Hawaiian Islands, terminology cited in 1895 for Hawaii as a whole: The first word shown was used by fishermen; the second, by farmers.

19 Ikua -or- Makalii 2019  ▭

Hawaiian [Premodern Kauai]: Hawaiian [Premodern Kauai] ✧ HAW ✧ Premodern Hawaiian terminology native to the Island of Kauai.

19 Makalii 2019

Hawaiian [Premodern Maui]: Hawaiian [Premodern Maui] ✧ HAW ✧ Premodern Hawaiian terminology native to the Island of Maui.

19 Hilinama 2019

Hawaiian [Premodern Oahu]: Hawaiian [Premodern Oahu] ✧ HAW ✧ Premodern Hawaiian terminology native to the Island of Oahu.

19 Kaulua 2019

Heiltsuk-Oowekyala [Heiltsuk]: Heiltsuk-Oowekyala [Heiltsuk] ✧ HEI ✧ Wakashan family, spoken natively by 60 people around Bella Bella and Klemtu on British Columbia’s northern coast. Two discourse styles. The Yílístis Society devised this Gregorian terminology for Heiltsuk in 1978.

19 ǧválís “Finished (refers to seed and roe planting)” 2019

Herero (Otjiherero): Herero (Otjiherero) ✧ HER ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, spoken by around 200,000 of at least six different ethnicities in Angola, Botswana, and Namibia. Roman script was introduced by missionaries in the 19th century.

19 Oseninaṋi 2019  ▭

Hidatsa: Hidatsa ✧ HID ✧ Western Siouan, spoken by 200 (6 are monoglots) in North and South Dakota and Montana. A relatively modest sound inventory of five vowels, two dipthongs, and ten consonants.

19 Miráaba Xíiri Mirísh 2019

Hiligaynon (Ilongo): Hiligaynon (Ilongo) ✧ HIL ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Visaya group, spoken in Philippines. The indigenous abugida script shown here, Baybayin, dates from the 13th century.

19 [bagyo-bagyo] 2019

Hmong Daw [White Miao]: Hmong Daw [White Miao] ✧ MWW ✧ Hmong-Mien family, native to mountainous areas in SE Asia. Seven tones, including creaky and breathy. Hmong languages have an unvoiced m sound (IPA m̥), signified in English by the digraph HM — hence the spelling of the name. See Mong Njua.

19 Kaum hlis ntuj 2019  ▭

Holikachuk: Holikachuk ✧ HOI ✧ Athabaskan language, central Alaska. Its last fluent speaker, Wilson “Tiny” Deacon, died in March 2012.

19 Mininh Xiq’udh 2019

Homshetsi (Hamshen): Homshetsi (Hamshen) ✧ HYW ✧ Archaic Armenian dialect spoken by 14,000 in Turkey, preliterate until 1995. Homshetsi and modern Armenian are not mutually intelligible. I had the Romanizations reverse-transliterated into Homshetsi’s more authentic Armenian script.

19 [ortagüz] 2019  ▭

Hopi: Hopi ✧ HOP ✧ Uto-Aztecan family, approx. 7000 native speakers in northeast Arizona. Bitonal with four distinct dialects, identified by linguist Benjamin Whorf, that differ in their consonant inventory.

19 Angaqmuyaw “Long hair moon” 2019  ▭

Hrê: Hrê ✧ HRE ✧ Austroasiatic family, Bahnaric, Sedang-Todrah, 94,000 speakers among the Hrê/H’re people of Vietnam’s Binh Dinh, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, and Quang Ngai provinces. Its closest living relative is Sedang (q.v.).

19 khê mòiq jàt 2019

Huichol [Wixarika]: Huichol [Wixarika] ✧ HCH ✧ Uto-Aztecan language with 45,000 speakers, native to west-central Mexico. Creates long “sentence words” with prefixes and suffixes.

19 ’isanaxa -or- tamaamata metseeri 2019  ▭

Hungarian [Premodern secular]: Hungarian [Premodern secular] ✧ OHU ✧ Uralic family, closely akin to only two other surviving languages — Khanty and Mansi (qq.v.). This was secular Hungarian, before it adopted neo-Latin month conventions

19 magvető hava “Sowing month” 2019  ▭

Hungarian [Premodern religious]: Hungarian [Premodern religious] ✧ OHU ✧ Church-based Hungarian, before it adopted neo-Latin month conventions

19 mindszent hava “All Saints month” 2019

Hungarian [Reform Era]: Hungarian [Reform Era] ✧ HUN ✧ Hungarian during the nationalistic fervor of 1825-1848

19 őszhó 2019

Huron (Wendat) [17th-18th centuries]: Huron (Wendat) [17th-18th centuries] ✧ WYA ✧ Iroquoian family, Five Nations, Huronian, native to Quebec. As recorded by French Jesuits from the 1650s to 1740s. No native speakers but currently under revival.

19 atsihiendo a_ıanna_ıoha “Taking of large fish” 2019

⌅

Iaai: Iaai ✧ IAI ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic, spoken by around 4000 on Ouvéa Island, New Caledonia. Sports a highly unusual set of sounds for a Polynesian (or any) language, including a voiceless, tongue-curled-backwards n sound, expressed in IPA as ɳ.

19 oktromba 2019

Iatmül: Iatmül ✧ IAN ✧ Sepik family, spoken in four dialects by 8400 in the Sepik River Basin of Papua New Guinea. Iatmüls count in base 5, 10, and 20; their word for 5 translates as “one hand,” for 10, “two hands,” for 20, “one whole man.”

19 kawibo 2019

Iban: Iban ✧ IBA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, spoken natively by 790,000 ethnic Dyak in Malaysia’s state of Sarawak, Indonesia’s province of West Kalimantan, and Brunei. Uses the Roman alphabet, though a syllabary devised during the 1950s is undergoing revival.

19 gantung senduk 2019

Idu Mishmi (Chulikata): Idu Mishmi (Chulikata) ✧ CLK ✧ Sino-Tibetan, endangered. India’s Dibang Valley District of Arunachal Pradesh, three dialects. Features retracted (jaw pulled inward during articulation) and creaky vowels.

19 [thina] -or- màcìàlà 2019  ▭

Igbo: Igbo ✧ IBO ✧ Niger-Congo, tonal, proverb-heavy, Nigeria. Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (Amistad, Twelve Years a Slave, etc.) is Igbo.

19 ónwa írin’áfò 2019

Ik: Ik ✧ IKX ✧ Nilo-Saharan, Kuliak branch, 7500 speakers in Uganda along the northwest border of Kenya. Severely endangered. Features implosives, an example of which is the way English speakers imitate those cartoonish “glug-glug” sounds.

19 Terés -or- Lɔlɔɓáy^a 2019

Ingrian (Izhorian): Ingrian (Izhorian) ✧ IZH ✧ Uralic, Finnic language with only 120 speakers around Gulf of Finland

19 oktiaabri 2019  ▭

Ingush 1: Ingush 1 ✧ INH ✧ Northeast Caucasian family, Nakh branch, tonal. Related to Chechen (q.v.) and like that language it went through a Georgian, Arabic, and finally Cyrillic alphabet writing phase.

19 топ [top] 2019  ▭

Ingush 2: Ingush 2 ✧ INH ✧ Alternative terminology

19 ардарий бутт [ardariy butt] 2019

Inuktitut: Inuktitut ✧ IKU ✧ Eskimo-Aleut family, north of Canada’s tree line. There are some 35,000 speakers and, unlike the case with most “minority” languages, that number is growing. Syllabary first conceived by Moravian missionaries.

19 [uktupuri] 2019  ▭

Inuktitut [Nunavik]: Inuktitut [Nunavik] ✧ IKU ✧ A dialect of Inuktitut spoken in fourteen coastal villages of Nunavik — a semi-automous region occupying the northern third of Quebec.

19 Arnalinnguutivik 2019

Inuktitut [Nunavut Paallirmiutut]: Inuktitut [Nunavut Paallirmiutut] ✧ IKU ✧ A dialect of Inuktitut spoken Canada’s Nunavut province, primarily in Arviat, Wale Cove, and Rankin Inlet

19 [uktuupiri hikuvvik] 2019

Inuktitut [Qikiqtaaluk]: Inuktitut [Qikiqtaaluk] ✧ IKU ✧ Inuktitut terminology used in the Baffin Region

19 Ukiuliruut 2019

Inupiaq [North Slope]: Inupiaq [North Slope] ✧ IPK ✧ Eskimo-Aleut family, extreme northwest Alaska. Including all Inupiaq dialects, there are about 2000 native speakers. Agglutinative.

19 nuliabvik 2019  ▭

Inupiaq [Malemiut]: Inupiaq [Malemiut] ✧ IPK ✧ Inupiaq dialect native to northwest Alaska’s Kotzebue Sound, around the towns of Deering, Kivalina, Kotzebue, and Kobuk

19 nuliaġvik “Caribou breeding” -or- sikkuvik/silivik/sullivik “Ice time” 2019  ▭

Iraqw: Iraqw ✧ IRK ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, spoken by 600,000 in the Tanzania’s Arusha Region. Three genders, sentences end with a verb. An apostrophe indicates a glottal stop; a slash, a throaty hiss with a creaky voice.

19 qadóo kaháar 2019

Istriot (Rovignese): Istriot (Rovignese) ✧ IST ✧ Romance language spoken by around 400 on Croatia’s Istrian Peninsula, closely related to extinct Dalmatian (q.v.). Not to be confused with Istro-Romanian (1100 speakers) or the Istrian dialect of Venetian.

19 utuobre 2019

Itelmen: Itelmen ✧ ITL ✧ The sole surviving Kamchatkan language, spoken by fewer than 100 in and around the villages Kovran and Verkhnee Khayryuzovo on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

19 пикискоач [pikiskoač] 2019

Iu Mien (Yao): Iu Mien (Yao) ✧ IUM ✧ Hmong-mien family, spoken by 840,000 of a Yao subgroup called the Iu Mien in China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and diaspora communities in the US. Tonal, several voiceless nasals as well as a voiceless l.

19 ziepc hlaax 2019

Izere [Ibor]: Izere [Ibor] ✧ IZR ✧ Niger-Congo family, Plateau, between 50,000 and 100,000 speakers total. Of its five dialects, Ibor Izere is the most heavily influenced by modern world exposure.

19 Kufén ìshààm 2019

⌅

Japanese [Premodern]: Japanese [Premodern] ✧ OJP ✧ This would represent Middle Japanese dating from the Heian Period (794-1185)

19 神無月 [kannazuki] “Month of no gods” 2019

Japhug [Kamnyu Village]: Japhug [Kamnyu Village] ✧ OJP ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic, Rgyalgrongic, as spoken in Mbarkham County in Sichuan, China. Borrows heavily from Chinese, but non-tonal.

19 ftɕɯpa jamar 2019

Jaqaru: Jaqaru ✧ JQR ✧ With Aymara (q.v.), the other member of the Aymaran family, natively spoken by 740 in the Yauyos Province of the Lima Region in Peru. Like Aymara (q.v.) its only vowels are a, i, and u.

19 uktubri 2019

Jarai: Jarai ✧ JRA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language akin to Cham (q.v.), spoken in Vietnam and Cambodia and by Vietnam War refugees in the United States.

19 blan pluh 2019

Jebero (Shiwilu): Jebero (Shiwilu) ✧ JEB ✧ Cahuapanan family, moribund, spoken by a few dozen elders. The Jeberos number around 2500 and live along the Río Platanayacu and the Río Marañon in the district of Jeberos, in Peru.

19 Señor de los Milagros-duker 2019

Jemez (Towa): Jemez (Towa) ✧ TOW ✧ From the tiny Tanoan family, spoken by 3000 exclusively in Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico. Tonal. Jemez has no written standard and its speakers strongly discourage transliteration. In observance of that, I’m offering only the English translations for its months.

19 “Husking month” 2019

Jerba Berber: Jerba Berber ✧ JBN ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Berber, Zenati branch, spoken on the Tunisian island of Jerba — the supposed home of the Lotus Eaters of Greek folklore.

19 ktúber 2019

Jingpho (Kachin): Jingpho (Kachin) ✧ KAC ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Bramaputran. Kachin State, Burma, and Yunan Province, China. Five tones, commonly written with the Roman alphabet.

19 kăla 2019  ▭

Jju: Jju ✧ KAJ ✧ Niger-Congo, West Plateau. 300,000 speakers in Nigeria’s Southern Kaduna state.

19 Hywan Swak 2019

Jola-Fonyi: Jola-Fonyi ✧ DYO ✧ Niger-Congo family, Central Jola group, spoken by 410,000 in Senegal and The Gambia. The 2004 Oscar-nominated short film Binta and the Great Idea, made in collaboration with UNICEF, is in French and Jola.

19 oktobar 2019

Jurchen: Jurchen ✧ DTA ✧ Extinct language from the Tungusic family which evolved into Manchu (q.v.) around the 17th century. It used its own unique Chinese-style script.

19 j̆aun bie 2019

⌅

Kabiye: Kabiye ✧ KBP ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, Grũsi. Tonal, ten noun classes, spoken by 1. 2 million in Togo, Benin, and Ghana.

19 hιw fenaɣ 2019

Kabuverdianu (Cape Verdean Creole): Kabuverdianu (Cape Verdean Creole) ✧ KEA ✧ The oldest surviving creole, based on 15th century Portuguese, native to the Island nation of Cabo Verde, 870,000 speakers

19 otubru 2019  ▭

Kabwa (Ekikabwa): Kabwa (Ekikabwa) ✧ CWA ✧ Niger-Congo family, Northeast Bantu, 14,000 speakers in Tanzania’s Mara Region adjacent to Lake Victoria.

19 Makuunyu 2019

Kabyle (Taqbaylit): Kabyle (Taqbaylit) ✧ KAB ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Berber, spoken by 5. 6 million in Algeria. Like other Berber languages, uses Neo-Tifinagh script which unlike Arabic reads left-to-right. Masculine nouns begin with A (N-T character ); feminine nouns begin and end with T (character ).

19 [tubeṛ] 2019  ▭

Kaili [Ledo] (Ledo Kaili): Kaili [Ledo] (Ledo Kaili) ✧ LEW ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Celebic, native to Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Of the 13 Kaili dialects, Ledo, with 350,000 speakers, carries the highest prestige. Uses the Roman alphabet, though F, Q, and X are non-native and reserved for loans.

19 bula sapulu 2019

Kako (Mkako): Kako (Mkako) ✧ KKJ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu. Spoken by around 120,000 who are mostly Batouri and Ndélélé in Cameroon, including smaller numbers in the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo. Three main mutually intelligible dialects.

19 nyukul 2019

Kalapuya: Kalapuya ✧ KYL ✧ Tiny language family with three members, once spoken in western Oregon, extinct. Central Kalapuya’s last speaker, John B. Hudson, died ca. 1954.

19 atchalankuaik “Gather sagittair roots (a potato-like tuber)” 2019

Kalinga [Lubuagan]: Kalinga [Lubuagan] ✧ KNB ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Philippine, Central Cordilleran. Kalinga is spoken by 110,000 Igorot people, 12,000 of whom speak this particular dialect in Kalinga Province. The special letter y with a horizontal bar is pronounced with the tongue extending further forward.

19 ey̶achug 2019  ▭

Kamba {Kenya}: Kamba {Kenya} ✧ KAM ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, spoken in Kenya and Tanzania. First recorded in audio in 1911. Not to be confused with Kaamba {Congo}, Kamba {New Guinea}, and yet another Kamba {Bolivia}.

19 Mwai wa ĩkumi 2019

Kanji [Piti-Atsam]: Kanji [Piti-Atsam] ✧ PCN ✧ Niger-Congo family, Platoid, native to Nigeria’s Kainji Lake region. The 60-odd Kanji languages have around a million speakers in total; this dialect, 8000.

19 pen shakur 2019

Kankanaey [Northern]: Kankanaey [Northern] ✧ XNN ✧ A Malayo-Polynesian language spoken on Luzon in the Philippines. Kankanaey has 240,000 speakers, Northern Kankanaey, 94,000. This dialect is spoken in the Philippines' western Mountain Province, Ilocos Sur Province, and Abra Province in the Tubo municipality.

19 pegpegew (Refers to a small, blue bird) 2019

Kannada (Kanarese): Kannada (Kanarese) ✧ KAN ✧ Dravidian, Southern, Tamil-Kannada, 45 million speakers India’s Karnataka State and surrounding areas. It has no f or z sounds. Kannada and Tamil/Malayalam grew out of Dravidian stock between 1500 and 300 BCE.

19 [akṭōbar] 2019

Kanza (Kaw): Kanza (Kaw) ✧ KSK ✧ A language from the Siouan family spoken by the Kaw people of Kansas, natively extinct. Its last first-language speakers were Maud McCauley Rowe (d. 1978), Ralph Pepper (d. 1982), and Walter Kekahbah (d. 1983).

19 ta kúyughabe 2019

Kapingamarangi (Kirinit): Kapingamarangi (Kirinit) ✧ KPG ✧ Polynesian language with around 3000 speakers on the Kapingamarangi and Pohnpei Islands of Micronesia

19 madangaholu malama 2019

Kaqchikel: Kaqchikel ✧ CAK ✧ Mayan family, 450,000 speakers in Guatemala’s Central Highlands. Kaqchikel intensifies adjectives by reduplication — in other words, repeating them twice.

19 rulaj ik’ 2019  ▭

Karachay-Balkar: Karachay-Balkar ✧ KRC ✧ Turkic language spoken in the Kabardino-Balkaria region of the North Caucasus. Closely related to Kumyk (q.v.).

19 кюзню арт айы [kyuznyu art ayi] 2019  ▭

Karakalpak: Karakalpak ✧ KAA ✧ Turkic, closely related to Kazakh (q.v.), approx. 400,000 speakers in Uzbekistan

19 ақрап [aqirap] 2019  ▭

Karang: Karang ✧ KZR ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu. Four dialects, 18,000 speakers in Camaroon. Adds letters Ɓ (B with hook), Ɗ (D with hook), Ŋ (eng), Ɔ (open O), and several multigraphs treated as single characters. Has two tones, signals nazalized vowels either with an ogonek (Ą) or a cedilla (A̧).

19 few mundul 2019

Karbi (Mikir): Karbi (Mikir) ✧ MJW ✧ Sino-Tibetan, though its position within that family remains speculative. Two main dialects, half a million speakers in the northeastern parts of both India and Bangladesh. Rated “vulnerable” by UNESCO.

19 phre 2019  ▭

Karelian [Standard]: Karelian [Standard] ✧ KRL ✧ Uralic, Finnic. Only non-Karelian spoilsports call it a Finnish (q.v.) dialect. 36,000 speakers.

19 ligakuu “Dirt/slush month” 2019  ▭

Karelian [Livvi/Olonets]: Karelian [Livvi/Olonets] ✧ OLO ✧ About 30,000 speakers, mostly clustered northeast of Saint Petersburg, adjacent to the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga.

19 ligakuudu 2019

Karen [S'gaw]: Karen [S'gaw] ✧ KAR ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, spoken by four million in Myanmar and Thailand. Five tones, uses a true alphabet derived from the Burmese script.

[hsee hsa]   ▭

Karuk: Karuk ✧ KYH ✧ Language isolate native to northwest California’s Siskiyou, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties. As of 2007 a dozen native speakers remained along with 30 or so who had acquired it, largely through the efforts of the Karuk Language Restoration Committee.

19 náaseep 2019

Kasena (Kasem): Kasena (Kasem) ✧ XSM ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, 250,000 speakers in Ghana (where it’s official) and Burkina Faso. The alphabets the two countries use for it are slightly different. Shown below, the Burkina Faso style.

19 wɔɔn-da-a-bu 2019

Kaska: Kaska ✧ KKZ ✧ Na-Dené, Athabaskan. Fewer than 300 native speakers in towns in the Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory, and Northern British Columbia. Tonal with contrastive vowel length and nazalization.

19 Gūstel Sā “Marmots month” -or- Etʼāne Nédetlʼī́dī Sā “Falling leaves month” 2019

Katso (Kazhuo): Katso (Kazhuo) ✧ KAF ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Loloish, 4000 ethnic Mongol speakers, Tonghai County in Yunnan, China. Eight tones.

19 ts^hi³³jɛ³³ -or- sɿ³²³jɛ³³ 2019

Kayan {Malayo-Polynesian} [Baram]: Kayan {Malayo-Polynesian} [Baram] ✧ KCT ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in central Borneo, in two dialects of weak interintelligibity. Not to be confused with Sino-Tibetan Kayan, also known as Padaung.

19 bulan pulu 2019

Kazakh: Kazakh ✧ KAZ ✧ Altaic, Turkic, akin to Karakalpak (q.v.). Cyrillic alphabet. In 2017 Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev decreed that the language will switch completely to the Roman alphabet by 2025.

19 қазан [qazan] 2019  ▭

Kemedzung (Dumbo): Kemedzung (Dumbo) ✧ DMO ✧ Niger-Congo family, Southern Bantoid, 3500 speakers in western Cameroon

19 nse yi bi 2019

Kenyah [Lepo’ Tau]: Kenyah [Lepo’ Tau] ✧ XKL ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, North Bornean, Kenyah, Highland B group. There are about a dozen Kenya dialects spoken on Borneo. Lepo’ Tau is preliterate and hasn’t been studied to any great extent.

19 bulan pulu’ 2019

Keres (Keresan): Keres (Keresan) ✧ KEE/KJQ ✧ Language isolate group spoken in New Mexico, tonal, with an extremely large consonant and vowel inventory — about 95 in total. Vowel length is contrastive, and some are whispered. 10,000 speakers.

19 kinat’aat’a 2019  ▭

Ket: Ket ✧ KET ✧ The only surviving language from the Yeniseian family and seriously endangered, with 150 speakers in Siberia’s Yenisei River valley

19 баӈтъъль ӄип [baŋtˤˤl’ qip] 2019  ▭

Khakas [Koybal]: Khakas [Koybal] ✧ KJH ✧ Turkic language spoken by 43,000 (most of whom are bilingual in Russian) in the Khakassia Republic, north of the Altai Mountains

19 kit’ik-sôk 2019

Khakas [Sagay]: Khakas [Sagay] ✧ KJH ✧ Another dialect of Khakas

19 çarïs ayï 2019

Khanty: Khanty ✧ KCA ✧ Uralic language related to Mansi (q.v.) and Hungarian. 12,000 speakers in Russia’s Khanty–Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs and in the Tomsk Oblast. Khanty’s major dialects differ significantly and are not mutually intelligible.

19 нюр юҳәп тыӆәс [nyur yux̌ĕp tyl̦ĕs] 2019  ▭

Khanty [Eastern]: Khanty [Eastern] ✧ KCA ✧ Eastern Khanty terms collected 1956-1957

19 vätygjugəiki “Devil wood month” 2019

Kharia: Kharia ✧ KHR ✧ Austroasiatic family, Munda branch, about 300,000 speakers in mainland India, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Nepal. Not closely related to any other Munda language.

19 ban.doy 2019

Khasi: Khasi ✧ KHA ✧ Austroasiatic family, spoken by about one million in the Meghalaya state in India. Uses the Roman alphabet, deleting C, F, Q, V, X, and G (by itself) but adding Ng, Ï, and Ñ.

19 'nái-risáw 2019  ▭

Khmer (Cambodian): Khmer (Cambodian) ✧ KHM ✧ Austroasiatic family, Mon-Khmer branch, heavy Sanskrit influences. Oldest inscription dates from 611 CE.

[tola]   ▭

Khowar (Chitrali): Khowar (Chitrali) ✧ KHW ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, 450,000 speakers mostly in Pakistan. Five dialects, month names can vary from one Chitrali village to another.

19 kišman -or- χokremi -or- piyanasomas 2019

K’iche’ (Quiché): K’iche’ (Quiché) ✧ QUC ✧ Mayan family, spoken by 2. 3 million in Guatemala, 13 percent of whom are monolingual. The famous Popol Vuh (Book of the people) was written in Classical K’iche’.

19 ulaj ik’ 2019  ▭

Kiga 1 (Rukiga): Kiga 1 (Rukiga) ✧ CGG ✧ Niger-Congo, Central Bantu. Uganda and Rwanda. Prefixes indicate the class of a noun, e.g.: nu- indicates person; ki-, customs; ru-, languages (hence Kiga => Rukiga). Closely related to Nkore (q.v.).

19 Okwaikumi 2019

Kiga 2 (Rukiga): Kiga 2 (Rukiga) ✧ CGG ✧ Alternate Kiga terminology, considered “Classical”

19 Kashwa “Winged termites” 2019

Kikuyu (Gikuyu): Kikuyu (Gikuyu) ✧ KIK ✧ Niger-Congo, Northeast Bantu, 6. 6 million speakers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Three tones: high, low, low-rising. Spoken by a character in the 1983 Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi.

19 Mwere wa ikũmi 2019

Kiliwa: Kiliwa ✧ KLB ✧ Yuman language, 50 speakers, northern Baja California. Word for Pacific Ocean is Kuñím.

19 ja’la’ kuchibí 2019

Kiowa: Kiowa ✧ KIO ✧ One of seven languages belonging to the Tanoan family, seriously endangered, 100 speakers in western Oklahoma. Uses aspirated and ejective consonants; vowels can be oral or nasal, long or short.

19 Gyah-thoe-ahn p’aw “Cold warning time” 2019

Kiribati (Gilbertese): Kiribati (Gilbertese) ✧ GIL ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, 120,000 speakers. Its alphabet has 13 letters. “Kiribati” is pronounced KEER-i-bass, as natively this language has no S and so uses the digraph TI to indicate that sound from foreign loans. This includes the language’s very name.

19 Okitob’a 2019  ▭

Koasati (Coushatta): Koasati (Coushatta) ✧ CKU ✧ Muskogean language, tonal, spoken by 200 Coushatta people who live just north of Elton, LA and near Livingston, TX. Akin to Alabama (q.v.) though the two aren’t mutually intelligible.

19 októ:ba -or- hasí pokkó:lin 2019

Kơho: Kơho ✧ KPM ✧ Austroasiatic, Bahnaric, spoken in twelve dialects by 200,000 in Vietnam’s Lâm Đồng Province. Vowel length is contrastive; prefix tön- makes a passive verb active.

19 kəənhaj ɟəət 2019

Kokborok (Tripuri): Kokborok (Tripuri) ✧ TRP ✧ Sino-Tibetan language of India and Bangladesh, spoken by 900,000. Uses high and low tones. Its speakers, predominately Twipra Kingdom descendants, are sharply divided between the use of Bengali versus Roman script for it.

19 remchi talni mung 2019

Komi (Ziryan): Komi (Ziryan) ✧ KOM ✧ Uralic, Permic, akin to Udmurt (q.v.). Spoken by 220,000 in Russia’s Komi Republic. Many would follow, but this was the first non-Slavic language to derive its own alphabet from the Cyrillic.

19 йирым [yrim] 2019  ▭

Komo: Komo ✧ XOM ✧ Nilo-Saharan (possibly), Koman; 10,000 speakers in Sudan, 8500 in Ethiopia. Three tones, uses ejective and implosive consonants.

19 pay a sʉ 2019

Kom: Kom ✧ BKM ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu. Tri-tonal, 127,000 speakers in northwest Camaroon

19 njoñ chfíswayn 2019

Kongo: Kongo ✧ KON ✧ Bantu language spoken in Angola and both Congos. The words zombie and goober, and possibly funky, are Kongo loans.

19 sánza ya zómi 2019

Konso: Konso ✧ KXC ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, spoken by 240,000 South of Lake Chamo in Ethiopia. Serves as a lingua franca in the area.

19 kiʃa 2019  ▭

Korku: Korku ✧ KFQ ✧ Austroasiatic, Munda. 727,133 speakers in rural central and eastern India. UNESCO considers Korku “vulnerable to extinction” as it’s being rapidly displaced by Hindi.

19 desera 2019

Kosraean (Kusaiean): Kosraean (Kusaiean) ✧ KOS ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Micronesian, spoken by 8000 on Kosrae of the Caroline Islands (where it’s the official language) and Nauru. Possessive pronouns (my, your, etc.) vary according to the subject being referenced.

19 ohktopa 2019

Koyra Chiini (Western Songhay): Koyra Chiini (Western Songhay) ✧ KHQ ✧ Nilo-Saharan, Songhay, 200,000 speakers in a narrow southwest-to-northeast band taking in Timbuktu, Mali. Differing from most other Songhay languages in its syntax and also in being non-tonal.

19 oktoobur 2019

Kpelle: Kpelle ✧ KPE ✧ Niger-Congo, Western Mande, 1. 3 million speakers total in Guinea and Liberia. Three dialects, three tones.

19 Nweei 2019

Kposo (Ikposo): Kposo (Ikposo) ✧ KPO ✧ Niger-Congo, Kwa, 160,000 speakers in Togo and Ghana. Consonant blends kp and gb frequently occur, along with ɣl.

19 iwle 2019

Ksingmul: Ksingmul ✧ PUO ✧ Austroasiatic, Mon-Khmer, spoken by 27,000 ethnic Ksingmul (Xinh Mul in Vietnamese) in Vietnam and Laos.

19 bluən sip 2019

Kumyk: Kumyk ✧ KUM ✧ Turkic language, related to Karachay-Balkar (q.v.), spoken by approx. 400,000 in Dagestan. Influenced by Northeast Caucasian languages (Avar, Dargwa, Chechen) as well as by Ossetian (q.v.) and Russian.

19 байсан [baisan] 2019  ▭

Kumzari: Kumzari ✧ ZUM ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, preliterate, spoken by 4000-5000 on northern Oman’s Musandam Peninsula on the Strait of Hormuz. Combines Persian and Arabic vocabulary, though grammar leans Persian. Unique, threatened.

19 mā da 2019

Kuna (Cuna or Guna): Kuna (Cuna or Guna) ✧ CUK ✧ Chibchan family, spoken by 60,000 Kuna people of Panama’s San Blas Islands and the northern coast of Colombia, who launched a successful rebellion in 1925 and won partial autonomy.

19 gwiblonii “Guiblo birds month” 2019

Kurdish [Kurmanji/North]: Kurdish [Kurmanji/North] ✧ KMR ✧ Indo-European family, Indo-Iranian. The dialect of 75% of Kurdish speakers. Unlike Sorani below, Kurmamji usually appears in Roman characters.

19 çiriya pêşîn 2019  ▭

Kurdish [Kurmanji/North/Ezdîkî]: Kurdish [Kurmanji/North/Ezdîkî] ✧ KMR ✧ The Yazidi people speak Kurmanji Kurdish. To distinguish themselves from the Kurds, they call their own language Ezdîkî. These are the Yazidis’ preferred Gregorian month names.

19 cotmeh 2019

Kurdish [Sorani/South]: Kurdish [Sorani/South] ✧ CKB ✧ The Kurdish dialect second in number of speakers to Kurmanji. Sorani uses a modified Arabic script that, unlike Arabic, expresses vowels with separate characters.

19 tishrîn i yekam 2019  ▭

Kusasi (Kusaal) [Western or Mowed]: Kusasi (Kusaal) [Western or Mowed] ✧ KUS ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, 17,000 speakers in Burkina Faso. Tonal. There is also an Eastern dialect spoken in Ghana.

19 bʋmbɩ'ʋŋ wãrɩk 2019

Kutenai (Ktunaxa): Kutenai (Ktunaxa) ✧ KUT ✧ Language isolate spoken by 100 in British Columbia, Montana, and Idaho. No distinction between voiced versus unvoiced consonants; word order is flexible.

19 k’upaquǂaqpiʔk 2019

Kuu-Kizhi: Kuu-Kizhi ✧ ??? ✧ Turkic, Central Turkic, Northern Altay Proper. Around 2000 speakers in Russia’s Altay Republic along the Lebed’ River. Scant information on this.

19 куртынак ай [kurtïnak ay] 2019

Kven: Kven ✧ FKV ✧ A seriously endangered Finnic language spoken by a few thousand mostly in the communities of Storfjord and Porsanger in Northern Norway. Kven and Finnish (q.v.) are mutually intelligible.

19 oktooperikuu 2019  ▭

Kwangali: Kwangali ✧ KWN ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, spoken by 84,000 in the Okavango River area of Namibia and Angola. Unusually for a Bantu language it uses clicks, likely borrowed from its Khoisan neighbors.

19 Sikukutu 2019

Kwasio: Kwasio ✧ NMG ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu Zone A, Mvumboic, spoken by 26,000 in the coastal area north and south of the Cameroon/Equatorial Guinea border. Tonal.

19 ngwɛn wum 2019

Kyrgyz: Kyrgyz ✧ KIR ✧ Turkic, Kipchak, spoken by 4 million in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China. Originally written with Turkish runes, then an extended Arabic script, then Roman, then Cyrillic.

19 тогуздун айы [toguzdun ayı] 2019  ▭

⌅

Lach: Lach ✧ ??? ✧ Either a dialect of Czech, Polish, or Silesian — depending on whom you believe. Óndra Łysohorsky (1905-1989), arguably the most celebrated Lach poet who resolutely refused to compose in either Polish or Czech, almost singlehandedly set its literary standard.

19 paźdźernik 2019

Ladakhi (Bhoti or Balti): Ladakhi (Bhoti or Balti) ✧ LBJ ✧ Sino-Tibetan language spoken by around 130,000 in India, Nepal, China, and Pakistan. Ladakhi and Tibetan are closely related but not mutually intelligible.

19 dawa chu pa 2019  ▭

Ladin [Badiotto]: Ladin [Badiotto] ✧ LLD ✧ Ladin is a Romance language related to Romansh (q.v.). This particular dialect is spoken by a few in the South Tyrol.

19 otober 2019

Ladin [Cadorean]: Ladin [Cadorean] ✧ LLD ✧ Ladin dialect of a handful of speakers in Cadore in the Italian province of Belluno bordering on Austria

19 otobre 2019

Ladin [Fassa Valley]: Ladin [Fassa Valley] ✧ LLD ✧ Another Ladin dialect, 600 speakers in Trentino in the Italian Alpines

19 otọber 2019

Ladin [Gardenese]: Ladin [Gardenese] ✧ LLD ✧ A fourth Ladin dialect, 8000 speakers in the Dolomites of South Tyrol in Northern Italy

19 utober 2019  ▭

Ladin [Nones]: Ladin [Nones] ✧ LLD ✧ A fifth Ladin dialect spoken by 30,000 in the Non Valley of Northern Italy. Whether Nones should be considered a dialect of Ladin or simply another Gallo-Italic/Romance language on its own is still open to debate.

19 otóber 2019

Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish or Judezmo): Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish or Judezmo) ✧ LAD ✧ Medieval Spanish substrate with Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish loans. Spoken by Sephardic Jews worldwide. Traditionally written with the 15th century Hebrew script called Rashi, shown here.

19  [oktobre] 2019  ▭

Lahu: Lahu ✧ LHU ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, Tibeto-Burman branch, 600,000 speakers in China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos

19 ɔtôbà 2019

Lakota: Lakota ✧ LKT ✧ Siouan-Catawban family, spoken by approx. 6000 in the US Dakotas. Heard in the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves.

19 Canwape Kasna Wi “Moon of falling leaves” 2019  ▭

Lak: Lak ✧ LBE ✧ Northeast Caucasian, approx. 160,000 speakers in Southern Dagestan. Heavy influences from Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and Persian.

19 ацIилчинмур барз [аtşilčinmur barz] 2019

Lama: Lama ✧ LAS ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, Gurunsi, 260,000 speakers in Benin and Togo in three dialects. Three tones: high, low, falling.

19 sena tɛɛsʋ honɖɔ 2019

Lao [Standard]: Lao [Standard] ✧ LAO ✧ Kra-Dai family, Laos, six tones. As in Thai, many Indo-European loans via Pali/Sanskrit. When the US 1960s sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies” was broadcast in Thailand, the city folk spoke Thai; the backwoods Clampetts, Lao.

[deuan dtula]   ▭

Lao [Isan]: Lao [Isan] ✧ TTS ✧ A group of Lao dialects spoken in northeast Thailand by ethnic Isans.

19 tulakom 2019

Latgalian: Latgalian ✧ LTG ✧ Indo-European, Baltic, 150,000 speakers. Akin to Latvian, Samogitian, and Lithuanian (q.v.). Its popularity has increased markedly since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

19 leita mieness 2019  ▭

Laz (Lazuri): Laz (Lazuri) ✧ LZZ ✧ A Kartvelian language spoken in five major dialects by approx. 22,000 on the southeast shore of the Black Sea. Many Greek and Turkic loans; all Laz nouns end with a vowel.

19 გიმუა [gimua] 2019  ▭

Lenape (Delaware): Lenape (Delaware) ✧ DEL ✧ Algonquian, native to the lower Delaware and Hudson Rivers and northern New Jersey in the US. Many Dutch loans from early contact. As of this writing only two speakers remain.

19 Pooxit “Falling leaves” 2019

Leonese: Leonese ✧ ??? ✧ Endangered Romance language undergoing a revival in northwest Spain. Oldest writings date from ca. 959-974 CE.

19 outubre 2019  ▭

Lepcha: Lepcha ✧ LEP ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, non-tonal, unique script. West Bengal, Nepal, Bhutan; 65,000 speakers.

[it lavo]   ▭

Lezgian: Lezgian ✧ LEZ ✧ Northeast Caucasian, uses 54 consonant sounds, numerals 20 to 99 are expressed vigesimally (by 20s). Official in Dagestan, 665,000 speakers.

19 баскӀум [basḳum] 2019  ▭

Lezgian [Premodern]: Lezgian [Premodern] ✧ LEZ ✧ Conjectured Lezgian terminology of yore

19 цIехуь [ts’eχu‘] 2019

Lhao Vo (Langsu or Maru): Lhao Vo (Langsu or Maru) ✧ MHX ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Lolo-Burmese, 100,000 speakers. Heard in Luxi City, Lianghe and Longchuan Counties in China, and eastern Kachin State in Myanmar.

19 lɔ̱⁵⁵ tshɛ³¹  khjɛʔ⁵⁵ 2019

Ligurian [Genoese]: Ligurian [Genoese] ✧ LIJ ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Northern Italy. Endangered. Not to be confused with ancient Ligurian, an extinct Celtic language.

19 ottubre 2019  ▭

Ligurian [Monégasque]: Ligurian [Monégasque] ✧ LIJ ✧ Ligurian dialect spoken by 5600 in Monaco including Princess Stephanie. Employs the non-Italian ü, œ, and ç.

19 utubre 2019  ▭

Limburgish: Limburgish ✧ LIM ✧ Germanic, East Low Franconian, Limburg (in both The Netherlands and Belgium) & Rhineland areas. Unlike many of its sister Germanic languages, Limburgish does not capitalize the months.

19 oktober 2019  ▭

Lingala: Lingala ✧ LIN ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, tonal. Spoken by 15 million in both Congos. Lingala prefixes to signify noun classes; but unusually, these prefixes tend to recur throughout the sentence with its adjectives and verbs.

19 sánzá ya zómí 2019  ▭

Lingarak (Neverver): Lingarak (Neverver) ✧ LGK ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Malekula subgroup, spoken by 500 central Malekula Island natives in Vanuatu. It’s under serious threat from Bislama (q.v.), English, and French.

19 nelavlav -or- nilavda 2019

Lisu [Northern]: Lisu [Northern] ✧ LIS ✧ Sino-Tibetan, related to similarly named Lahu (q.v.). There are 940,000 speakers of all dialects of Lisu inclusive in China, India, Myanmar, and Thailand. The Northern dialect is considered the Standard.

19 cihan 2019

Lisu [Southern]: Lisu [Southern] ✧ LIS ✧ Another Lisu dialect. Uses unusual Fraser alphabet from 1915 in which dots, commas, apostrophes, and bars serve to indicate tones. For Roman transcription, tones are indicated by superscript numbers.

19 [ts^hi³³ ha²¹] 2019

Lithuanian: Lithuanian ✧ LIT ✧ Indo-European, Baltic, 3 million speakers. Unusually, its alphabet places Y after Į. Earliest writings date from the sixteenth century.

19 spalio “Flax” 2019

Livonian: Livonian ✧ LIV ✧ Uralic, akin to Finnish and Estonian (qq.v.). Its last native speaker was Grizelda Kristina (1910-1913) but many are acquiring it as a second language through programs at universities in Estonia, Latvia, and Finland.

19 vímõkú “Rain month” 2019  ▭

Lombard [Eastern]: Lombard [Eastern] ✧ LMO ✧ Romance, spoken in Northern Italy around Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua, Crema, and Trentino. Lombard and its dialects are not mutually intelligible with Italian.

19 utuber 2019  ▭

Lombard [Eastern Bergamasque]: Lombard [Eastern Bergamasque] ✧ LMO ✧ A subdivision of Eastern Lombard spoken by 700,000

19 otóer 2019

Lombard [Mantuan]: Lombard [Mantuan] ✧ LMO ✧ Lombard dialect spoken in the city and commune of Mantua in Lombardy

19 otobar 2019

Lombard [Western] (Insubric): Lombard [Western] (Insubric) ✧ LMO ✧ The Lombard spoken in Southern Switzerland and Northern Italy around Milan

19 utuber 2019  ▭

Lorrain [Vosgien La Bresse]: Lorrain [Vosgien La Bresse] ✧ ??? ✧ Romance, Langue d’oïl, Lorraine subgroup. Lorraine’s Vosgien dialects were spoken in France in Vosges, St. Quirin, eastern Badonviller, and two Alsace Departments. Seldom heard today, though much of their influence and vocabulary lives on.

19 octôbre 2019  ▭

Lorrain [Vosgien La Haye]: Lorrain [Vosgien La Haye] ✧ ??? ✧ Another Vosgien subdialect

19 octôb 2019

Lorrain [Vosgien Ville sur Illon]: Lorrain [Vosgien Ville sur Illon] ✧ ??? ✧ Another Vosgien subdialect

19 oktôp 2019

Louisiana Creole: Louisiana Creole ✧ LOU ✧ French-derived, African plus other elements. Unlike French, verbs don’t conjugate. Not to be confused with Louisiana French, ᴀᴋᴀ Cajun, a dialect of Metropolitan (Standard) French.

19 oktob 2019  ▭

Lower Tanana: Lower Tanana ✧ TAA ✧ Endangered Athabaskan language with a dozen or so speakers. Minto, Alaska.

19 kheyenen-nosrekhtelyayee 2019

Loxrlavu [Yao'an] (Lolopo): Loxrlavu [Yao'an] (Lolopo) ✧ YCL ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Ngwi-Burmese, Ngwi. Spoken by 60,000 Loxrlapor in China’s Chuxiong Prefecture and Xiangyun County, Midian Township. Greeting: “May you have peace,” Ni leil zzaso lol nia [ni ³³ le ⁵⁵ dza ³³so ³³ lo ⁵⁵ n ^ja ³³].

19 ceixiu 2019

Lozi: Lozi ✧ LOZ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, spoken in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. It arose as a hybrid of two other Bantu languages, Luyana and Kololo.

19 Yende 2019

Luba-Kasai (Ciluba or Western Luba): Luba-Kasai (Ciluba or Western Luba) ✧ LUA ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, spoken in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Closely related to, but not to be confused with, Luba-Katanga (q.v.).

19 ngondo wa dikumi -or- kasua mansense -or- kabitende 2019

Luba-Katanga: Luba-Katanga ✧ LUB ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, spoken in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Closely related to, but not to be confused with, Luba-Kasai (q.v.).

19 Lungùdi 2019

Ludic: Ludic ✧ LUD ✧ Uralic, Finnic, critically endangered. 3000 speakers near the northeastern shore of Lake Onega, Republic of Karelia, Russia. Described as a transitional language between Veps and the Livvi/Olonets dialect of Karelian (qq.v.).

19 ligakuu 2019  ▭

Luganda (Ganda): Luganda (Ganda) ✧ LUG ✧ Niger-Congo, Northeast Bantu, 4 million speakers mostly in the Baganda area of Uganda. Tonal (high, low, falling), both consonants and vowels can be long, shown by doubling the letter, or short.

19 Bitungotungo -or- Mukulukusa -or- omwezi ogw'ekumi 2019  ▭

Lugbara: Lugbara ✧ LGG ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, Uganda (west Nile region) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. First written in 1918, uses Roman alphabet except for Q and X.

19 Abibi 2019

Luo (Dholuo): Luo (Dholuo) ✧ LUO ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, Western Nilotic, Mutually intelligible with Acholi (q.v.), 4. 2 million speakers in Kenya and Tanzania. Barak Obama Sr. was Luo.

19 Dwe mar apar 2019

Lurish (Luri) [Southern]: Lurish (Luri) [Southern] ✧ LUZ ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, descended from Middle Persian, 4-5 million speakers. This Lurish dialect is heard in Iran’s Kohgiluyeh, Boyer-Ahmad, Fars, Bushehr, and Khouzestan provinces.

19 âbân 2019

Luxembourgish [Traditional]: Luxembourgish [Traditional] ✧ LTZ ✧ Indo-European, Germanic, French influences. Its CH is pronounced like English SH (š). “Moselle Franconian” is an umbrella term for Luxembourgish and its related West Germanic dialects.

19 Wäimount 2019  ▭

⌅

Maa [Maasai]: Maa [Maasai] ✧ MAS ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, spoken in Kenya & Tanzania by 1. 3 million. Highly tonal and features implosives, an example of which is the way English speakers imitate those cartoonish “glug-glug” sounds.

19 olgísàn 2019

Maa [Samburu]: Maa [Samburu] ✧ SAQ ✧ Maa dialect of the Northern Kenya highlands, 240,000 speakers. Neither dialect of Maa are often written.

19 Lapa le tomon 2019

Macedonian [Archaic/Folk]: Macedonian [Archaic/Folk] ✧ MKD ✧ Indo-European, South Slavic. Lacks the noun case system characteristic of most other Slavic languages. Not to be confused with Macedonian Greek, an unrelated Hellenic language spoken during the first millennium BCE.

19 листопад [listopad] “Falling leaves” 2019  ▭

Mada [Rija]: Mada [Rija] ✧ MDA ✧ Niger-Congo, Plateau, Ninzic, spoken by over 100,000 (all dialects) in Nigeria’s Plateau and Kaduna States. Tonal. Not to be confused with Maɗa, an Afro-Asiatic language of Cameroon.

19 hwә yә̄ gùr 2019

Maguindanao [Pre-Spanish Conquest]: Maguindanao [Pre-Spanish Conquest] ✧ MDH ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by 1. 1 million descendants of the Sultanate of Maguindanao on southwest Mindanao in the Philippines

19 elkilim 2019

Makasai [Makalero]: Makasai [Makalero] ✧ MJB ✧ From the Trans-New Guinea family, Makasai itself is spoken by 100,000 in the Baucau and Viquequ districts of East Timor; of those, 6000 speak the Makalero dialect. This is their rarely used Gregorian month terminology.

19 bare mata “Beginning of dry season” 2019

Makassarese [Traditional, before 1605]: Makassarese [Traditional, before 1605] ✧ MAK ✧ Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by 2. 1 million, native to the South Sulawesi province of Indonesia. Terminology shown was that of the Pre-Islamic Kindgom of Goa.

XVIIII bulang Mangasierai MMXVIIII

Makhuwa-Meetto: Makhuwa-Meetto ✧ MGH ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, spoken by 6. 6 million Makua in Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. Few vowels but rich consonant inventory that includes includes both English th sounds (IPA θ and ð), a ph (IPA pʰ), as well as č (IPA tɕ, cherry) and š (IPA ʃ, shine).

19 Mweri wo kumi 2019

Makonde (Kimakonde): Makonde (Kimakonde) ✧ KDE ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, Ruvuma, 1. 4 million speakers in Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania. Beyond the standard, the dialects Matembwe and Mabiha differ enough from it to be considered separate languages.

19 Mwedi wa Nnyano na Nnyano 2019

Malagasy: Malagasy ✧ MLG ✧ In all dialects inclusive, spoken by 25 million in Madagascar but (surprise!) it’s Malayo-Polynesian rather than African. The first southeast Asians began arriving by boat here only about 1800 years ago. They were the island’s first permanent inhabitants.

19 Oktobra 2019  ▭

Malagasy [Antankaraña]: Malagasy [Antankaraña] ✧ XMV ✧ Dialect spoken by 156,000 ethnic Antankaraña in the north. Malagasy’s demonstrative pronouns specify seven degrees of distance, as compared to only two (“this” versus “that”) for English.

19 Taroka 2019

Malagasy [Sakalava]: Malagasy [Sakalava] ✧ SKG ✧ Dialect spoken by 1. 2 million ethnic Sakalava in northern Madagascar

19 Asarabe 2019

Malagasy [Tandroy-Mahafaly]: Malagasy [Tandroy-Mahafaly] ✧ TDX ✧ Dialect spoken by 1. 3 million ethnic Tandroy and Mahafaly in southwestern Madagascar

19 Oktobra 2019

Malecite-Passamaquoddy: Malecite-Passamaquoddy ✧ PQM ✧ Algonquian family, Eastern, endangered, spoken by several hundred in New Brunswick and Maine. It has twelve consonants with no distinction between voiced and unvoiced forms.

19 amilkewi-kisuhs “Harvest moon” 2019

Maltese: Maltese ✧ MLT ✧ Afro-Asiatic family, descendent from an extinct variety of Arabic that developed on Sicily. Spoken on Malta by 370,000. It’s been heavily influenced by Sicilian (q.v.) and Italian and uses many English loans.

19 Ottubru 2019  ▭

Manchu: Manchu ✧ MNC ✧ Tungusic, spoken natively by fewer than 20 in Northeast China, but also by several thousand as an acquired language thanks to recent revival efforts

[žuwan biya]   ▭

Mandinka(Mandingo): Mandinka(Mandingo) ✧ MNK ✧ Niger-Congo family, Mande branch, Manding group. Bitonal. Its dialects don’t diverge very much. Officially Mandinka uses the Roman alphabet but its 17-character Arabic-derived script is more popular and enjoys a longer tradition.

19 okutooba karoo 2019

Mandinka (Mandingo) [Traditional]: Mandinka (Mandingo) [Traditional] ✧ MNK ✧ These were the Mandinka terms before it adopted the neo-Latin.

19 minkaro 2019

Mang: Mang ✧ ZNG ✧ Austroasiatic family, 3200 speakers in Lai Châu Province, Vietnam and neighboring areas in China. The outside world only discovered this language in 1974.

19 meː⁶ ʑiː⁴ 2019

Mangarevan: Mangarevan ✧ MRV ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, spoken by 600 in French Polynesia’s Mangareva and Gambier Islands. Though many speakers are bilingual with French, Mangarevan itself borrows little from unrelated languages.

19 akihea -or- irigama 2019

Mangbai: Mangbai ✧ ZNG ✧ Niger-Congo, Mbum, Tupuri–Mambai, 14,000 speakers in Cameroon (Bénoué) and Chad (Lac-Léré). First studied academically in 1971, official alphabet published in 2004. Mangbai has tones but they’re not indicated in its writing.

19 fee naveega -or- fee tikpurkpur 2019

Mankanya: Mankanya ✧ KNF ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bak branch, spoken natively by 75,000 in Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal.

19 Pli pŧeek pi kanjalën 2019

Mansi: Mansi ✧ MNS ✧ Uralic, related to Hungarian and Khanty (qq.v.), 3000 speakers in central Siberia. Word order is fixed.

19 мань таквс [man’ takws] 2019  ▭

Manx: Manx ✧ GLV ✧ Celtic, Goidelic (related to Irish Gaelic), native to the Isle of Man. Its last native speaker was Ned Maddrell (1877-1974). The local folk band Briskee Brisht performs songs in both English and Manx.

19 Jerrey Fouyir 2019  ▭

Māori [New Zealand]: Māori [New Zealand] ✧ MRI ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, closely related to Tahitian. Personal pronouns come in singular, dual, and plural. Vowel length is contrastive, the long version signaled with a macron.

19 Whiringa ā nuku 2019  ▭

Māori [Cook Islands] (Rarotongan): Māori [Cook Islands] (Rarotongan) ✧ MRI ✧ This is the Māori dialect official in the Cook Islands with approx. 14,000 speakers there and another 8000 in New Zealand.

19 ՙOkotopa 2019  ▭

Māori [Moriori]: Māori [Moriori] ✧ MRI ✧ Māori dialect of the Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand’s South Island. In 1835 two waves of Māori invaded the Moriori and virtually annihilated them. Their dialect died natively with its last speaker Hirawanu Tapu in 1898.

19 Muruangina 2019  ▭

Mapudungun (Mapuche): Mapudungun (Mapuche) ✧ ARN ✧ Language isolate native to Chile and Argentina, 260,000 speakers. Writing system under dispute.

19 hueul-cújen 2019  ▭

Mari [Meadow or Eastern] (Cheremis): Mari [Meadow or Eastern] (Cheremis) ✧ MHR ✧ Uralic language spoken in Russia’s Mari Replublic. Nine noun cases, 470,000 speakers. The other chief dialect is Hill Mari, which in contrast to Meadow relies on Russian/Neo-Latin Gregorian month terms.

19 шыжа [šǝža] 2019  ▭

Marshallese: Marshallese ✧ MAH ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, two main dialects, spoken by 44,000 on the Marshall Islands.

19 Oktoba 2019

Mashi (Kwandu): Mashi (Kwandu) ✧ MHO ✧ A Niger-Congo, Bantu language spoken by 22,000 in parts of Angola, DR Congo, and Zambia.

19 Muhaho 2019

Matlatzinca: Matlatzinca ✧ MAT ✧ From the Oto-Manguean family, spoken by 650 in and around San Francisco Oxtotilpa, Mexico. Matlatzinca is seriously endangered, though with 61 other languages Mexico recognizes it as official.

19 rat՚ anbë 2019  ▭

Mavea: Mavea ✧ MLV ✧ A moribund Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic language spoken by 34 (as of 2008) on Vanuatu’s Mafea Island. Rapidly being displaced by Bislama (q.v.) with little or no effort being made to preserve it.

19 elada 2019

Maxakalí: Maxakalí ✧ MBL ✧ Macro-Gê family, spoken by a few hundred in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Maxakalí forms compound terms by combining various verbs, adjectives, and nouns: house, for example, is mĩptut (“wood mother”), while vehicle is mĩptutmog (“wood mother go”).

19 oxtop 2019

Mazanderani (Tabäri): Mazanderani (Tabäri) ✧ MZN ✧ Indo-European, Western Iranian, spoken by 3 million in Iran’s provinces along the southern Caspian coast. Famous for its rich literary heritage. Not mutually intelligible with Persian.

19 اکتبر [aktebr] 2019

Mbuko: Mbuko ✧ MHW ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Chadic. 13,000 speakers in Northern Camaroon. Not to be confused with Mbukushu below, from the Niger-Congo family.

19 kiya cohoh 2019

Mbukushu: Mbukushu ✧ MHW ✧ Niger-Congo family, a Bantu language that unlike most uses clicks, spoken by 50,000 along Namibia’s Okavango River and in Batswana, Angola, and Zambia. Not to be confused with Afro-Asiatic Mbuko above.

19 katutu 2019

Mbula: Mbula ✧ MNA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, spoken by 4500 in Morobe, Papua New Guinea. Many bilingual in Tok Pisin (q.v.) and/or English. Five first-person pronouns.

19 Mbui rekrek 2019

Mbèlimè: Mbèlimè ✧ MBL ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, Oti-Volta, 40,000 speakers in the communes of Cobly and Boukoumbé in the department of Atacora in northwest Benin and areas of Togo adjacent. Related to Waama and Moba (qq.v.).

19 dibadìsiìdè 2019

Meitei (Manipuri): Meitei (Manipuri) ✧ MNI ✧ Sino-Tibetan. Spoken in India, Bangladesh, Burma and not to be confused with Bishnupriya Manipuri (q.v.) which is Indo-European. Unique script.

[waakching]

Mele (Atara Imere): Mele (Atara Imere) ✧ MXE ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, one of two interintelligible languages (the other is Fila) spoken natively by 3500 on Vanuatu’s Efate Island. Mele uses a sound that’s rare for a Polynesian language, č (IPA tɕ, the ch in cherry).

19 Oktoopere 2019

Menominee: Menominee ✧ MEZ ✧ Algonquian family, spoken by about three dozen in northern Wisconsin and nearly extinct natively but enthusiastically supported and taught in local schools. Menominee is distinctive in its rather singsong pitch modulations.

19 Penīpīmakat kēsoq “Falling leaves moon” 2019

Meriam Mir (Eastern Torres Strait): Meriam Mir (Eastern Torres Strait) ✧ ULK ✧ Trans-Fly family of Papua New Guinea, spoken by around 200 on six islands in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea. Almost half its vocabulary comes from the unrelated Kala Lagaw Ya language spoken in the Western Torres Strait.

19 Oktoba 2019

Meta': Meta' ✧ MGO ✧ This impossible-to-Google Niger-Congo, Bantu language is spoken by 190,000 in Cameroon. There is radio programming in Meta' and the language is used informally in schools there.

19 iməg tèsiʼe 2019

Meänkieli: Meänkieli ✧ FIT ✧ Endangered Finnish dialect group spoken in Sweden’s Norrbotten province. Unlike Finnish (q.v.), it borrows neo-Latin terms for the months.

19 oktuuperi 2019  ▭

Miami-Illinois (Myaamia): Miami-Illinois (Myaamia) ✧ MIA ✧ Algonquian, originally midwestern US. Extinct but under revival. Uses an iambic stress pattern (de-DA de-Da de-DA) with the syllables in a word.

19 šaašakaayolia kiilhswa 2019  ▭

Michif: Michif ✧ CRG ✧ A French-Cree hybrid, < 1000 speakers. North Dakota, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. It borrows its Gregorian calendar terms from French.

19 octóbr 2019

Micmac: Micmac ✧ MIC ✧ Eastern Algonquian family, approx. 7000 speakers in extreme eastern Canada and northern New England. At one time Micmac used a system of Egyptianesque hieroglyphics called Komqwejwi’kasikl.

19 Wikewiku’s “Animal fattening time” 2019  ▭

Miju Mishmi (Kaman): Miju Mishmi (Kaman) ✧ MXJ ✧ Either Sino-Tibetan (?) or an isolate (?), spoken by 18,000 in India’s Arunachal Pradesh and Zayü County in Tibet. Features both voiced and unvoiced th sounds (IPA ð and θ). Two tones, shown with acute and grave accent marks; plus level, shown with a macron.

19 nā̀l 2019

Min Dong [Fuzhou]: Min Dong [Fuzhou] ✧ CDO ✧ Sino-Tibetan, unintelligible with Mandarin or Cantonese, untra-complex tonality, southern China, 9. 5 million speakers

19 dâ̤ sĕk nguŏk 2019

Mingrelian: Mingrelian ✧ XMF ✧ An endangered Kartvelian language akin to Georgian and Laz (qq.v.), with some mutual intelligibility with the latter. Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia spoke Mingrelian.

ით გიმათუთა [gimatuta] ცით  ▭

Mirandese: Mirandese ✧ MWL ✧ Romance language, over 1000 years removed from Portuguese, spoken by around 5000 in Portugal’s municipalities of Miranda do Douro (where its regulatory academy, the Anstituto de la Lhéngua, resides), Mirandesa, Vimioso and Mogadouro.

19 outubre 2019  ▭

Miskito: Miskito ✧ MIQ ✧ From the small Misumalpan family, spoken by approx. 150,000 in Honduras and Nicaragua. English loans are numerous in Miskito; Spanish, less so.

19 waupasa kâti 2019  ▭

Mixe [Isthmus or Coatlán]: Mixe [Isthmus or Coatlán] ✧ MCO ✧ Mixe–Zoquean family, Mixean, Lowland, 45,000 speakers in Northeastern Oaxaca, Mexico. Agglutinative — i.e., words grow from stems with arbitrarily large numbers of prefixes and suffixes.

19 äämbë oktuubrë 2019

Mixtec [Magdalena Peñasco]: Mixtec [Magdalena Peñasco] ✧ XTM ✧ Oto-Manguean family, Mixtecan branch, Mixtec subgroup. Magdalena Peñasco, “Language of the Rain People,” is spoken by 9100 in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

19 yoo otubre 2019

Mixtec [Tututepec]: Mixtec [Tututepec] ✧ MTU ✧ A Mixtec language spoken by 1200 in Santa María Acatepec, Santa Cruz Tututepec, and San Pedro Tututepec in Oaxaca, Mexico. Of over 30 Mixtec languages total, Tututepec is among the most divergent.

19 yòò ná xaa 2019

Miyako: Miyako ✧ MVI ✧ Japonic, Southern Ryukyuan, with an estimated 10,000 speakers, mostly over 60, on the Miyako Islands of Okinawa, Japan. “Definitely endangered” per UNESCO.

19 ʑu-gacї 2019  ▭

Mizo (Lushai): Mizo (Lushai) ✧ LUS ✧ Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Myanmar, BangladeshMeänkieliIndia. Akin to Biete (q.v.).

19 khuangchawi thla 2019  ▭

Moba [Ben]: Moba [Ben] ✧ MFQ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Gur, Oti-Volta, Gurma, spoken by 300,000 in extreme northwest Togo concentrated in the city of Dapaong, then extending further west to Ghana and northward to Burkina Faso. Related to Waama and Mbèlimè (qq.v.).

19 saakpaan -or- ditonu 2019

Moba [Bimoba or Moar]: Moba [Bimoba or Moar] ✧ BIM ✧ This is the rarer Moba dialect spoken by 32,000 in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Not to be confused with another language called Moar (aka Liki) spoken in Indonesia.

19 ŋmaaripiik -or- mɔkaru 2019

Mòcheno: Mòcheno ✧ MHN ✧ West Germanic, Bavarian, akin to Cimbrian (q.v.), spoken by 1900 in Italy’s Bersntol region. In Trentino it’s official where many street signs are bilingual Italian /Mòcheno.

19 schanmikeal 2019

Mochica (Chimú): Mochica (Chimú) ✧ OMC ✧ A language native to the northwest Peruvian coast, tentatively assigned to the hypothetical Chimuan family, extinct since the early 20th century.

19 shache “Nest” 2019

Mohawk: Mohawk ✧ MOH ✧ Iroquoian family, 3500 speakers in Ontario, Quebec, and Northern New York State. Curiously, no labial (lip-produced) consonants.

19 kenténha “Time of poverty” 2019  ▭

Mokilese: Mokilese ✧ MKJ ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Chuukic-Pohnpeic, native to Mwoakilloa Island in the Federated States of Micronesia, 1200 speakers. Uses four sets of numbers for different classes of objects.

19 oaksohpe 2019

Moksha: Moksha ✧ MDF ✧ Uralic language, Mordvinic, spoken along the central Volga. Related to Erzya (q.v.). There are three main dialects, of which the central, called “ä,” is the literary standard.

IIII/Λ oktjabrjkov IIII/Λ  ▭

Mong Njua [Green Miao]: Mong Njua [Green Miao] ✧ HNJ ✧ Unlike Hmong Daw (q.v.), this dialect lacks the unvoiced m, thus it’s spelled Mong without the initial H. Hmong Daw and Mong Njua are “mutually intelligible to a well-trained ear” according to a US agency assisting post-Vietnam War refugees.

19 lú ka͊u.hli -or- nåη.hli 2019

Mongolian: Mongolian ✧ MON ✧ Central Mongolic, as are Buryat and Oirat (qq.v.), with 5. 2 million speakers. Observes vowel harmony and lacks the standard L sound, instead treating the letter like an S or a Z with the air escaping from the sides rather than the front (IPA ɮ).

аравдугаар сар [aravdugaar sar]   ▭

Monguor (Tu): Monguor (Tu) ✧ MJG ✧ Mongolic family, Shirongolic branch, 150,000 speakers in China’s Qinghai and Gansu provinces. Two chief dialects are Mongghul and Mangghuer; speakers of the latter count in Chinese. Unlike its kin, it uses the Roman alphabet.

19 haran sara 2019

Montagnais Innu: Montagnais Innu ✧ MOE ✧ Algonquian language related to Cree (q.v.), spoken by 11,000 in Labrador and Quebec. Contrastive vowel length.

19 uashtessiu-pishim^u 2019  ▭

Moro: Moro ✧ MOR ✧ Niger-Congo, Kordofanian, spoken in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. Though there were 30,000 speakers in six clans reported in 1982, subsequent warfare may have altered this. The area is remote; information, sparse.

19 ubwa gə'Đəpəɽa 2019

Mossi (Mòoré): Mossi (Mòoré) ✧ MOS ✧ A Niger-Congo language, akin to Frafra (q.v.), spoken by 5 million, mostly in Burkina Faso

19 zĩ-likri 2019

Moxo [Trinitario]: Moxo [Trinitario] ✧ TRN ✧ Arawakan family, Southern, native to northeast Bolivia. The Endangered Languages Project reports 3100 speakers.

19 ojtuure 2019

Mozarabic (Andalusi Romance): Mozarabic (Andalusi Romance) ✧ MXI ✧ A set of non-standardized, extinct Romance languages spoken in the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula (Al Andalus) between the eighth and sixteenth centuries. Three writing systems.

XVIIII / uxtúbar MMXVIIII  ▭

Mundang: Mundang ✧ MUA ✧ A Niger-Congo language spoken by 250,000 in Southern Chad. Its writing system adds Ɓ, Ɗ, Ə, and Ŋ and eliminates Q and X. Contrastive vowel length; nasalizations are shown with tildes (ã, ẽ, ə̃, ĩ, õ).

19 fĩi mundaŋ 2019

Mussau-Emira: Mussau-Emira ✧ EMI ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, St. Matthias, with 5000 speakers based primarily on Papua New Guinea’s islands of Mussau and Emira. All Mussau-Emiraphones are bilingual in Tok Pisin (q.v.) and many can read English.

19 kasangauluna ateva ulana 2019

Muyang: Muyang ✧ MUY ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Chadic, Central, South, spoken by 30,000 in Camaroon’s Far North Province, arrondissement of Tokombéré. Tonal, uses a confirmation tag (“a”).

19 kiye ga bəza magulaŋ 2019

Muya: Muya ✧ MVM ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, Northern Qiangic; two chief dialects not mutually intelligible. There are 10,000 speakers, of which 2000 speak only Muya. China’s Sichuan Province, Kangbo and Jiulong, Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Simian county, Ya’an district.

19 dε³³wε⁵⁵tɕyɯ⁵³pε⁵³ 2019

Mwotlap [Folk/Traditional]: Mwotlap [Folk/Traditional] ✧ MIV ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic, spoken natively by 2100 on Vanuatu'a Mota Lava, Ra, and Banks Islands. Uses four numbers for humans: singular, dual, trial, plural. Non-human subjects are inflected as singular.

19 n-in-yig 2019  ▭

Myene (Omyene): Myene (Omyene) ✧ MYE ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, 45,000 speakers of the Mpongwe, Nkomi, Galwa, and Bongo Pygmy groups in Gabon.

19 fogwɛgoni 2019

⌅

Nāhuatl: Nāhuatl ✧ NAH ✧ Uto-Aztecan, from the original language group of the Aztecs, presently 1.7 million speakers. Of its many dialects, Huasteca Nāhuatl is the most heavily spoken.

19 tlamahtlācti 2019  ▭

Na [Yongning]: Na [Yongning] ✧ NRU ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic, spoken in Yongning township, Lijiang municipality in China’s Yunnan Province. Akin to Nakhi (q.v.).

19 ceilhimi 2019

Nafsan (South Efate): Nafsan (South Efate) ✧ ERK ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, native to Efate Island of northeast Vanuatu with 6000 speakers. They count in base 5.

19 atlag karalim iskei 2019

Nakhi (Naxi): Nakhi (Naxi) ✧ NXQ ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic, spoken in Yunnan by 350,000, famous for its Dongba “picture” writing. Related to Na (q.v.).

19 ceiqmei -or- sheefyui 2019

Nàmá (Khoekhoe): Nàmá (Khoekhoe) ✧ HQM ✧ Khoisan family, 300,000 speakers. Consonants include 20 clicks. Formerly called Hottentot.

19 hooǂgais -or- ǂnûǁnâiseb 2019  ▭

Nanai (Gold): Nanai (Gold) ✧ GLD ✧ Tungusic. 1400 speakers, decendents of Manchurian Jurchen. Switched from Roman to Cyrillic in 1937. Compared with Russian Cyrillic, Nanai adds Ӈ for an ŋ sound (as in fang).

19 муйрэ биани [muyrə biani] 2019  ▭

Nandi: Nandi ✧ KLN ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, Nilotic, Kalenjin group, spoken in east Africa’s Rift Valley. Tonal, contrastive vowel length. Not to be confused with Nande (Kinande), a Niger-Congo language.

19 Epeso 2019  ▭

Nandi [Cemual]: Nandi [Cemual] ✧ NIQ ✧ A Nandi subdivision spoken by 950,000 in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province.

19 Kipsunde nebo aeng 2019

Naskapi: Naskapi ✧ NSK ✧ Algonquian family, spoken by 1,230 in Quebec and Labrador. Uses the Cree syllabic writing system.

19 [wiisaakw-piisim na] “Month caribou are in rut” 2019

Navajo (Diné bizaad): Navajo (Diné bizaad) ✧ NAV ✧ Athabaskan family, southwest US. Tonal, uses ejectives like the Caucasian languages.

19 Ghąąjįʼ 2019  ▭

Nawdm: Nawdm ✧ NMZ ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, Northern, 150,000 speakers in Togo plus more in Ghana. Nawdm’s alphabet includes six digraphs: gw, gb, kw, kp, ny, ŋm. To distinguish paired consonants as not part of a digraph, the first takes a diaeresis (e.g., g̈w).

19 nàà -or- dumɔla -or- didimr kidga 2019

Ndebele [Northern] (Zimbabwean Ndebele): Ndebele [Northern] (Zimbabwean Ndebele) ✧ NDE ✧ Niger-Congo, Southern Bantu, Nguni. Native to Zimbabwe and part of Botswana, spoken by descendants of Zulu leader Mzilikazi (1790-1868).

19 uMfumfu 2019  ▭

Ndebele [Southern] (Transvaal Ndebele): Ndebele [Southern] (Transvaal Ndebele) ✧ NBL ✧ Niger-Congo, Southern Bantu, Nguni. Spoken in South Africa’s provinces of Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng, and North West.

19 uSewula 2019

Ndyuka (Aukan): Ndyuka (Aukan) ✧ DJK ✧ English-based creole spoken by 25,000 to 30,000 rainforest dwellers known as the Maroon in Surinam and French Guiana. Afáka Atumisi’s 56-character syllabary from 1908, which he attributed to angelic revelation, is still used today.

19 tin mun 2019

Neapolitan: Neapolitan ✧ NAP ✧ Romance language named not after the city but the Kingdom of Naples, spoken in central Italy. The term paparazzo from Frederico Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita (1960) arose from the Abruzzo dialect of Neapolitan spoken by one of his screenwriters.

19 uttóbbr 2019  ▭

Neapolitan [Tarantine]: Neapolitan [Tarantine] ✧ NAP ✧ Dialect of Neapolitan with Ancient Messapic roots, spoken by 300,000 in and around the city of Taranto in the Italian heel area.

19 ottommre 2019

Nenets 1: Nenets 1 ✧ YRK ✧ Uralic family, Samoyedic, spoken by 22,000 in a swath starting from Russia’s Kola Peninsula, eastward along the northern Siberian coast, then to the whole of Krasnoyarsk Krai approaching Russia’s southern border. The word “parka” comes from Nenets.

19 ӈэрёй иры [ngeryoy yriy] 2019  ▭

Nenets 2: Nenets 2 ✧ YRK ✧ Alternate terms from a different source, corresponding to January through September

19 ӈэрёй иры [ngeryoy yriy] 2019

Nez Perce: Nez Perce ✧ NEZ ✧ Plateau Penutian family, Idaho, < 200 speakers, revival underway. Observes vowel harmony, acute accents show stress.

19 Hóopl’al 2019

Nganasan: Nganasan ✧ NIO ✧ Uralic family, Samoyedic. Extreme north central Russia, approx. 1000 speakers.

19 kêndypsä 2019  ▭

Ngiemboon: Ngiemboon ✧ NNH ✧ Niger-Congo family, Southern Bantoid, Grassfields. Spoken in Province de l'Ouest and Bamboutos in Cameroon by 250,000.

19 saŋ tàŋa tsetsáʼ 2019

Ngomba: Ngomba ✧ JGO ✧ A Niger-Congo family, Southern Bantoid, Grassfields language like Ngiemboon above. Spoken in Province de l'Ouest and Bamboutos in Cameroon by 63,000.

19 pɛsaŋ nɛgɛ́m 2019

Ngwo (Engwo): Ngwo (Engwo) ✧ NGN ✧ Niger-Congo, Southern Bantoid, 22,000 speakers in the Northwest Region of Cameroon — Momo Division, Njikwa Subdivision. Ngwo is tonal and agglutinative.

19 Tóbà 2019

Nheengatu: Nheengatu ✧ YRL ✧ Tupi-Guaraní family, spoken by 19,000 in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela. The name means “good tongue.”

19 îasypá 2019  ▭

Nisga’a: Nisga’a ✧ NCG ✧ Tsimshianic family, seriously endangered, British Columbia, Canada. A close kin to Gitxsan (q.v.).

19 Xlaaxw 2019  ▭

Niuean: Niuean ✧ NIU ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by 2000 in the South Pacific island nation of Niue and another 5700 elsewhere. Unlike Hawaiian, it uses no glottal stop.

19 Oketopa 2019

Nivkh (Gilyak): Nivkh (Gilyak) ✧ NIV ✧ Language isolate spoken on western Sakhalin Island and adjacent mainland by around 1000. Nivkh is genderless and doesn’t have adjectives. It uses a modified Cyrillic alphabet with 46 letters.

19 oni lami long 2019  ▭

Nkore (Runyankore): Nkore (Runyankore) ✧ CGG ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu. Spoken by 2.3 million in southwestern Uganda. So close to Kiga /Rukiga (q.v.) that many consider them dialects of the same language.

19 Kashwa 2019

Nogai (Alabugat Tatar): Nogai (Alabugat Tatar) ✧ NOG ✧ Turkic, spoken by 87,000 in southwestern Russia’s Tuva region by Golden Horde descendants. Nogai Khan (died ca. 1300) was a grandson of Genghis Khan.

19 казан ай [kazan ay] 2019  ▭

Noni (Noone): Noni (Noone) ✧ NHU ✧ Niger-Congo, Southern Bantoid, Eastern Beboid, 50,000 speakers in Cameroon. Noni is said to have been heard as a cryptolect (secret language) in an Indiana Jones movie.

19 kpwee Nfien 2019

Norman: Norman ✧ NRF ✧ Romance, Langue d’oïl with a substantial Norse element, spoken by approx. 100,000 in Normandy. The Channel Island languages Guernésiais, Jèrriais, and Sercquiais described below descended from medieval Norman.

19 octobe 2019

Norman [Guernésiais/Dgèrnésiais]: Norman [Guernésiais/Dgèrnésiais] ✧ NRF ✧ Norman dialect spoken by approx. 200 on the Channel Island of Guernsey. Victor Hugo contemporary George Métivier (1790–1881) was a widely celebrated author in Guernésiais.

19 octobre 2019  ▭

Norman [Jèrriais]: Norman [Jèrriais] ✧ NRF ✧ Norman dialect spoken natively by 2000 on the Channel Island of Jersey. Actress and socialite Lillie Langtry (1853-1929), whose father was Dean of Jersey, quite famously spoke Jèrriais.

19 octobe 2019  ▭

Norman [Sercquiais] (Sarkese): Norman [Sercquiais] (Sarkese) ✧ NRF ✧ The Norman dialect spoken by approx. 20 on the Channel Island of Sark, descended from 16th century Jèrriais. The word for August below isn’t a misprint.

19 oktobr 2019

Nuer: Nuer ✧ NUS ✧ Nilo-Saharan. South Sudan and Ethiopia, 900,000 speakers. Breathy vs. non-breathy vowels. Related to Reel (q.v.).

19 Laath 2019

Nukuoro: Nukuoro ✧ NKR ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, approx. 860 speakers on Nukuoro Atoll and Pohnpei Island (Federated States of Micronesia). Five vowels, each of which can be long or short, and ten consonants total.

19 madaangahulu-malama -or- seedaa 2019  ▭

Nusu (Nu) [Northern] (Wawa-Kongtong dialect): Nusu (Nu) [Northern] (Wawa-Kongtong dialect) ✧ NUF ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Lolo-Burmese, preliterate, 2,000 speakers in China’s Fugong, Wawa, Kongtong, and Youduoluo Counties. Not to be confused with Yi /Nuosu, or with the distaff Nüshu script used to write another Sino-Tibetan language called Shaozhou Tuhua.

19 tshe³¹ ɬa⁵⁵ 2019

Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) [Hesquiaht, Muwač’atḥ]: Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) [Hesquiaht, Muwač’atḥ] ✧ NUK ✧ Of the Southern Wakashan family, Nuuchahnulth as a whole is spoken natively by 130 on Vancouver Island’s west coast. There were at least 15 dialects; this one survives through the efforts of The Hesquiaht Language Program.

19 č̓iiyaaqumł 2019  ▭

Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) [Ahousaht, ʕaaḥusʔatḥ]: Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) [Ahousaht, ʕaaḥusʔatḥ] ✧ NUK ✧ Another dialect of Nuuchahnulth

19 qatqumł or č’iyaaqumł 2019

Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) [Tseshaht, C’išaaʔatḥ]: Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) [Tseshaht, C’išaaʔatḥ] ✧ NUK ✧ Another dialect of Nuuchahnulth

19 č’iyaaqimł 2019

Nyole (Lunyole) [Ugandan]: Nyole (Lunyole) [Ugandan] ✧ NUJ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, 340,000 speakers in the Tororo District of Uganda. It shares approx. 60% of its vocabulary with Kenyan Nyole.

19 Mulumbi 2019

Nzime (Badweʼe): Nzime (Badweʼe) ✧ PAC ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu Zone A, spoken by 40,000 Dweʼe and Nzime people in Cameroon. Two dialects, Koonzime and Bajue.

19 bol-mban 2019

⌅

Occitan [Aranese]: Occitan [Aranese] ✧ OCI ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Langue d’òc (after its word for yes, oc rather than oui, hence the term Occitan). Spoken in northeast Spain’s Aran Valley, official in Catalonia alongside Catalan (q.v.) and Spanish.

19 octobre 2019  ▭

Occitan [Gascon]: Occitan [Gascon] ✧ OCI ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Langue d’òc. Spoken in Gascony in Southern France. Considered by some linguists to be a separate language as opposed to an Occitan dialect.

19 octobre 2019  ▭

Occitan [Provençal]: Occitan [Provençal] ✧ OCI ✧ Indo-European, Romance, closely related to Catalan (q.v.). A Langue d’òc spoken in Southern France.

19 óutobre 2019  ▭

Occitan [Vivaro-Alpine]: Occitan [Vivaro-Alpine] ✧ OCI ✧ Seriously endangered Occitan dialect spoken by 200,000 in SE France and northwest Italy. The term “Vivaro-Alpine” was coined in the 1970s.

19 octèbre 2019

Oirat [Kalmyk]: Oirat [Kalmyk] ✧ XAL ✧ Mongolic, grammatically genderless, earliest written samples dating from the 11th century. The Ewok speech in Return of the Jedi was inspired by the distinctive sound of Oirat.

19 хулһн сар [ĥulġn sar] 2019  ▭

Ojibwe (Chippewa) [Eastern]: Ojibwe (Chippewa) [Eastern] ✧ OJG ✧ Algonquian family, akin to Algonquin (q.v.), 100,000 speakers of all dialects inclusive in north-central US and Canada. Ojibwe tends to avoid borrowing terms from other languages.

19 Binaakwe Giizis “Falling Leaves Moon” 2019  ▭

Ojibwe (Chippewa) [Western]: Ojibwe (Chippewa) [Western] ✧ OJW ✧ The other major dialect of Ojibwe

19 Waatebagaa Giizis “Falling Leaves Moon” 2019

Oneida: Oneida ✧ ONE ✧ Iroquoian family, approx. 250 native speakers in Ontario, New York State, and Green Bay, Wisconsin. Consonant inventory is relatively spare: K, L, N, S, T, H, W, Y and a glottal stop.

19 Yutékhwayʌh̲e̲’ “Someone stores food.” 2019  ▭

Onondaga: Onondaga ✧ ONO ✧ Iroquoian family, approx. 50 speakers in Ontario and New York State. Like Oneida (q.v.) and other Iroquoian languages its consonant inventory is small, but its five vowels can be long or short as well as nasal or non-nasal.

19 kenten ha 2019

O’odham (Papago-Pima): O’odham (Papago-Pima) ✧ OOD ✧ From the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken by some 10,000 in south-central Arizona and Northern Sonora. No f, r or z sounds; extremely fluid word order.

19 ’al ju:pig maşad “Little rains month” -or- pipiast maşad “Feast month” 2019

Oroch: Oroch ✧ OAC ✧ Northern Tongusic language, eight (as of 2010) native speakers in Khabarovsk Krai in eastern Siberia and thus critically endangered, three dialects. Not to be confused with the Southern Tungusic language called Orok.

19 беэ сакту [bjey saktu] 2019

Oromo: Oromo ✧ ORM ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic. Non-Roman scripts were once banned. Oromo’s modern Roman standard, called Qubee, was formalized in 1991.

19 onkololeessa 2019

Ös (Chulym): Ös (Chulym) ✧ CLW ✧ Western Turkic, moribund, spoken by a few dozen in southwestern Siberia north of the Altay Mountains. Soviet-era school children were punished when caught speaking Ös.

19 gariš ai 2019  ▭

Osage: Osage ✧ OSA ✧ This Oklahoma-based Siouan language went natively extinct in 2005 with the death of its last speaker, Lucille Roubedeaux. Like European languages such as Dalecarlian (q.v.), Polish, and Lithuanian, Osage features nasalized vowels.

19 mį́įǫpa lébrą 2019

Ossetian [Digor]: Ossetian [Digor] ✧ OSS ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian. Ossetian is spoken by around 600,000 in Ossetia, a semi-autonomous region divided into North — Alania (in Russia) and South (in Georgia). This is the less popular of its two dialects, spoken by about 100,000.

19 kæfty mæyæ 2019

Ossetian [Iron]: Ossetian [Iron] ✧ OSS ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian. Pronounced ee-ron, this is the more popular Ossetian dialect, with slightly under half a million speakers. Digorians can understand Iron fairly well while Iron speakers don’t understand Digor.

19 кæфты мæй [kæfti mæy] 2019  ▭

Ozolotepec: Ozolotepec ✧ ZAO ✧ Oto-Manguean family, Zapotecan group, spoken by 6500 in Oaxaca, Mexico. Zapotecan languages like Ozolotepec are tonal.

19 oktubr 2019

⌅

Pacoh: Pacoh ✧ PAC ✧ Austroasiatic, Eastern Mon-Khmer, Katuic, 32,000 speakers in Laos and Vietnam. Six vowels which can be short or long, and use either normal or creaky voicing. Heavy Vietnamese influence.

19 kixay muchít 2019

Paicî: Paicî ✧ PRI ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic, Northern New Caledonian, 7300 speakers on New Caledonia’s east coast and inland valleys. Paicî’s consonant inventory is spare but it has many nasal vowels. It’s also tri-tonal.

19 cèù mûûrû mötö pwicîrî 2019

Palauan: Palauan ✧ PAU ✧ Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, approx. 15,000 speakers. Palau, Guam, Mariana Islands.

19 ongetruich el buil 2019  ▭

Palawano [Brook’s Point]: Palawano [Brook’s Point] ✧ PLW ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Greater Central Philippine. Of three dialects, this one is spoken by 25,000 on Palawan Island, Philippines. Amazingly, its 26-letter alphabet is identical to the English one.

19 uktubri -or- pengengeig et dumasun 2019

Palor (Sili-Sili): Palor (Sili-Sili) ✧ FAP ✧ Niger-Congo family, Cangin, 11,000 speakers in the Thies area of Senegal.

19 oktoobar 2019

Pame (Xi’iui): Pame (Xi’iui) ✧ PBS ✧ From the Oto-Manguean family, tonal, spoken by 11,000 in central Mexico’s state of San Luis Potosí. Pame speakers traditionally count in base 8 (octal), as they use their knuckles rather than their fingers.

19 ngum’au xix 2019

Pashto [Northern/Eastern]: Pashto [Northern/Eastern] ✧ PUS ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, spoken by the Pashtuns of northeast Pakistan

19 warukay achtar 2019  ▭

Pashto [Southern/Western]: Pashto [Southern/Western] ✧ PUS ✧ Pashto dialect spoken in western Afghanistan and Iran

19 kuchnay achtar 2019

Pawnee [South Band]: Pawnee [South Band] ✧ PAW ✧ Caddoan family, north-central Oklahoma, seriously endangered, fewer than a dozen native speakers. Along with Arikara (q.v.), we hear Pawnee spoken in the 2015 film The Revenant.

19 Ruútuʾ 2019

Pecheneg: Pecheneg ✧ XPC ✧ A mysterious, poorly attested Turkic language with no known descendants, spoken on Crimea and large expanses beyond the northern shore of the Black Sea, extinct by 1300

19 vanım 2019

Pemon (Arekuna): Pemon (Arekuna) ✧ AOC ✧ From the Cariban family, spoken by 30,000 in SE Venezuela, Brazil’s Roraima State, and Guyana. It was preliterate until the 20th century.

19 Masa´ püre kapüyi 2019

Penan-Nibong: Penan-Nibong ✧ PEZ ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, North Sarawakan, spoken by 13,000 in Sarawak, Borneo. Two main dialects.

19 laseh polo' 2019

Pennsylvania “Dutch” (Deitsch): Pennsylvania “Dutch” (Deitsch) ✧ PDC ✧ A Palatinate German spoken by the Amish, a sect of Swiss German Anabaptists dating back to 1693.

19 Oktower 2019  ▭

Penrhyn (Tongarevan): Penrhyn (Tongarevan) ✧ PNH ✧ Seriously endangered Polynesian language spoken by around 200, Northern Cook Islands

19 okotopa 2019

Picard (Ch’ti or “Patois”): Picard (Ch’ti or “Patois”) ✧ PCD ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Langue d’oïl, extreme northern France. As its 700,000 speakers are mostly elderly, UNESCO has declared it seriously endangered.

19 octob 2019  ▭

Picard [Medieval]: Picard [Medieval] ✧ PCD ✧ As seen on the Astrolabe of Berselius (14th century)

XVIIII octēbre MMXVIIII

Piedmontese: Piedmontese ✧ PMS ✧ Indo-European, Romance; 3 million speakers in Northern Italy. Curiously, Piedmontese lacks ordinal numbers exceeding “sixth” and instead resorts to phrases (“the one that makes seven,” etc.) to express ordinals beyond that.

19 otóber 2019  ▭

Pingelapese: Pingelapese ✧ PIF ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by < 1000. Micronesia, Pingelap atoll. Like Batak above, each day in the month has its own name, shown here in angle quotes. Another quirk: 1 in 10 Pingelapese are so colorblind they see only in black and white.

19 《koahmwaloa》 kepihsukoru 2019

Pipil (Nawat): Pipil (Nawat) ✧ PPL ✧ Uto-Aztecan language under revival, El Salvador. There are now over 3000 speakers.

19 metzi majtakti 2019

Piro [Yine]: Piro [Yine] ✧ PIB ✧ Arawakan family, spoken by the 4000 ethnic Yine who live in the Peruvian Urubamba River Valley and taught in their schools alongside Spanish.

19 goktowre ksuru 2019

Pitcairn-Norfolk: Pitcairn-Norfolk ✧ PIH ✧ An endangered Tahitian /English creole spoken on Pitcairn & Norfolk Islands

19 oktoeba 2019

Pnar (Jaintia or Synteng): Pnar (Jaintia or Synteng) ✧ PBV ✧ Austroasiatic language, 320,000 speakers, Meghalaya, northeast India and adjacent areas in Bangladesh. Shares much in common with Khasi (q.v.) though the two are not mutually inteligible.

19 naj ʧip^haw 2019  ▭

Pohnpeian: Pohnpeian ✧ PON ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Micronesian, 34,000 speakers on Pohnpei Island in the Caroline Islands. Offers 30 sets of 1-to-9 numerals used when referring to different classes of objects (stalks, small round things, bundles, gusts of wind, songs, etc.).

19 oakotope 2019

Poitevin-Saintongeais: Poitevin-Saintongeais ✧ ??? ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Langue d’oïl with Langue d’òc elements, spoken in Poitu /Vendée. Earliest known writings date from the fifteenth century poetry of François Villon. Vendée native Georges Clemenceau likely spoke or at least knew it.

19 octoubre 2019

Pökut (Pokot): Pökut (Pokot) ✧ KLN ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, Kalenjin. 264,000 speakers in Kenya’s West Pokot and Baringo counties and in Uganda’s Karamoja sub-region. Two dialects, East and West.

19 Kipsit 2019

Polabian: Polabian ✧ POX ✧ West Slavic with Germanic influences. Last native speaker Emerentz Schultze died in 1756. The protagonists in the Russian opera-ballet Mlada describe themselves as Polabians. The name Berlin likely derives from a Polabian term for “swamp.”

19 wainjă môn -or- weiniamon 2019

Pomeranian [Kashubian]: Pomeranian [Kashubian] ✧ CSB ✧ Indo-European, West Slavic, Lechtic. Some 100,000 speakers living in Germany, Poland, and within a community in Renfrew County, Ontario.

19 rujan 2019  ▭

Pomeranian [Slovincian]: Pomeranian [Slovincian] ✧ CSB ✧ The other major dialect of Pomeranian, extinct since World War I. One source cited its last speaker as having died in 1913. A definitive Slovincian grammar and dictionary was published by German historian Friedrich Lorentz (1870-1937).

19 ŏktŏu̯bĕr 2019

Pontic: Pontic ✧ PNT ✧ Indo-European, Hellenic. Spoken actively by 200,000 in Northern Greece, Turkey, and diaspora communities worldwide. Many consider Pontic a Greek dialect, but orally the two are not mutually intelligible.

19 Τρυɣομηνάς [Trigominas] 2019

Potawatomi: Potawatomi ✧ POT ✧ Algonquian language of the Great Lakes Area (Michigan, Wisconsin, Southern Ontario). One of its last native speakers, Cecilia Miksekwe Jackson (d. 2011), worked to document and teach Potawatomi. Revival efforts are currently underway.

19 watébgya-gizes 2019

Proto-Germanic: Proto-Germanic ✧ ??? ✧ Reconstructed ancestor of all Germanic languages, last spoken ca. 250 BCE. The character þ is a thorn, representing the English th (IPA θ) sound. Aside from English, Icelandic, and a couple of others, most modern Germanic languages have lost it.

XVIIII winamenoþ “Wine month” MMXVIIII  ▭

Proto-Slavic: Proto-Slavic ✧ ??? ✧ Reconstructed ancestor of all Slavic languages, 5th to 8th centuries CE

XVIIII rujn MMXVIIII  ▭

Pukapukan: Pukapukan ✧ PKP ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language from Danger Island (Cook Islands group). Over 4000 speakers.

19 Okotopa 2019

Pumi [Qingua or Southern]: Pumi [Qingua or Southern] ✧ PMJ ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic. Spoken by 22,000 highland ethnic Pumi in Yunnan.

19 ɳɑ¹³dzu¹³ɬi⁵⁵ 2019

Pumi [Taoba or Northern]: Pumi [Taoba or Northern] ✧ PMI ✧ The other chief dialect of Pumi, spoken by 55,000. Northern and Southern Pumi are not mutually intelligible.

19 tshi³⁵li⁵⁵mei³⁵ 2019

Purépecha (Tarascan): Purépecha (Tarascan) ✧ TSZ ✧ A language isolate of the descendants of the Purépecha civilization, which rivaled that of the Aztecs up until the European conquest. Still spoken natively by 125,000 in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán.

19 oktubri 2019

Puroik (Sulung): Puroik (Sulung) ✧ SUV ✧ So far unclassified. Spoken by 20,000 in seven (or so) dialects by the Puroik people of India’s Arunachal Pradesh. Genderless, seven noun cases.

19 ra³³ lɯh⁵³ aŋ³³ bo³³ 2019

⌅

Q’eqchi’ (Kekchi): Q’eqchi’ (Kekchi) ✧ KEK ✧ Mayan family, half a million speakers in Guatemala and Belize. Q’eqchi’ uses ejectives and accents virtually all its words on the last syllable.

19 aktuuwr -or- xlaje po 2019  ▭

Qiang [Horpa/Ergong]: Qiang [Horpa/Ergong] ✧ ERO ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, Qiangic, non-tonal, 50,000 Sichuan-area speakers. Linguists consider it a “living fossil.”

19 vtɕi pa 2019

Qiang [Northern, Central Heishui, Máwō]: Qiang [Northern, Central Heishui, Máwō] ✧ CNG ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic, non-tonal, 130,000 speakers in China’s Sichuan

19 hədiuʂ 2019  ▭

Qiang [Southern, Taoping]: Qiang [Southern, Taoping] ✧ QXS ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic, but tonal (unlike Ergong and Máwō above), 80,000 speakers

19 χɑ³¹dy²⁴ʂı³³ 2019

Qiang [Southern, Western Lixian]: Qiang [Southern, Western Lixian] ✧ QXS ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Qiangic, tonal, native to Li County, Sichuan. Western Lixian’s four subdialects are Puxi, Xuecheng, Muka, and Jiuzi.

19 χadʑyχl 2019

Quechan (Yuma): Quechan (Yuma) ✧ YUM ✧ Yuman family, around 300 native speakers in southeast California and western Arizona. Verbs carry most of the meaning in a sentence. Not to be confused with the entirely unrelated Quechuan languages directly below.

19 xaly'á shaaxúk 2019

Quechua [Standard]: Quechua [Standard] ✧ QUE ✧ Quechuan family, spoken by Inca Empire descendants. Natively it lacks the vowels E and O.

19 ñiqin kantaray killapi 2019  ▭

Quechua [Huallaga]: Quechua [Huallaga] ✧ QUE ✧ Quechua dialect spoken in the Huánuco Province in Peru

19 uctubri 2019

Quechua [Northern/Ecuadorian]: Quechua [Northern/Ecuadorian] ✧ QUE ✧ Quechua dialect, called Kitchwa, spoken in Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru

19 yaku -or- wayruk 2019  ▭

Quechua [Southern/Bolivian Cochabamba]: Quechua [Southern/Bolivian Cochabamba] ✧ QUH ✧ Of Southern Bolivian Quechua as a whole there are 1.6 million speakers in Bolivia (where it’s the most heavily spoken indigenous language), Argentina, and Chile. This is its Cochabamba dialect.

19 pawqarwara killa -or- chunka ñeqen killa 2019

Quechua [Southern/Cusco]: Quechua [Southern/Cusco] ✧ QUZ ✧ Modern terminology for the Quechua dialect spoken in the Peru’s Cusco region

19 kantaray 2019  ▭

Quechua [Southern/Cusco Imperial]: Quechua [Southern/Cusco Imperial] ✧ QUZ ✧ This is the traditional terminology of the Inca Empire, citing its monthly celebrations

19 uma raymi “Water festival” 2019

Quileute (Quillayute): Quileute (Quillayute) ✧ QUI ✧ Chimkakuan family, extinct but undergoing revival at the Quileute Tribal School in La Push, Washington. Quirk: it prefixes words according to the physical traits of the person being spoken to — cross-eyed, hunchbacked, short, lame, etc.

19 ʔilaḳsiʔaliḳtiyat 2019  ▭

⌅

Rade: Rade ✧ RAD ✧ Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Chamic, Highlands, akin to Cham (q.v.), spoken by 180,000 E-de people in southern Vietnam and in refugee communities in the US.

19 mlan pluh 2019

Raivavaen: Raivavaen ✧ ??? ✧ A presumably extinct Malayo-Polynesian language native to the island of Raivavae in French Polynesia. The source: a dictionary completed in 1938 by ethnologist Frank Stimson but never published.

19 ma tau ‘auhune “Short season of abundance” 2019

Rangi (Langi): Rangi (Langi) ✧ LAG ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, with between 270,000 and 410,000 speakers in central Tanzania. Its nouns divide into 19 classes encompassing a range from ethnicities and professions, to trees and other natural phenomena, to things that are long.

19 Kwiinyi 2019

Rapa Nui (Pascuanese): Rapa Nui (Pascuanese) ✧ RAP ✧ Eastern Polynesian, Easter Island, 2700 native speakers. Major differences from other EP languages. Its native writing system, called Rongorongo, remains undeciphered.

19 anga roa uri 2019  ▭

Rawang (Krangku): Rawang (Krangku) ✧ RAW ✧ Sino-Tibetan family, Tibeto-Burman, Nungish, 63,000 speakers in India and Northern Myanmar. Roman alphabet writing system developed by American missionary Robert Morse starting in 1950.

19 sé shvlá 2019

Reel (Atuot): Reel (Atuot) ✧ ATU ✧ Presumably Nilo-Saharan, related to Nuer (q.v.), spoken by some 50,000 Atuot people living near Yirol in South Sudan’s Eastern Lakes State.

19 Biiltɔtɔ 2019

Rennell-Bellona (Rennellese): Rennell-Bellona (Rennellese) ✧ MNV ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, 4000 speakers, Solomon Islands' Rennell and Bellona provinces. For most people who live there it’s their first language. No ng (ŋ) sound; doubled vowels sound out as separate syllables.

19 Okitoba 2019

rGyalrong [Northwestern] (Sidaba): rGyalrong [Northwestern] (Sidaba) ✧ JYA ✧ rGyalrong is a group of Sino-Tibetan languages; Sidaba, one of its five major dialects. Verbs are marked with directional orientation cues. Sichuan.

19 zla wa ptʃǝpɐ 2019

Rohingya: Rohingya ✧ RHG ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Bengali-Assamese. Six noun cases. Heavily persecuted, the Rohingya are toughing it out in Burma and in refugee camps in Bangladesh.

19 fuc 2019  ▭

Romani [Balkan Sofia Erli]: Romani [Balkan Sofia Erli] ✧ RMN ✧ Indo-Aryan language spoken by Romani in Bulgaria. There are around 760,000 Balkan Romani speakers as a whole, of which Sofia Erli is a subdivision.

19 oktobro 2019

Romani [Balkan Ursari]: Romani [Balkan Ursari] ✧ RMN ✧ A Balkan Romani spoken in Moldavia and Romania

19 oktombrija 2019  ▭

Romani [Kale Finnish]: Romani [Kale Finnish] ✧ RMF ✧ Indo-Aryan language, by way of Scotland, spoken by the Finnish Romani

19 panjako čoon 2019

Romani [Kale Iberian] (Caló): Romani [Kale Iberian] (Caló) ✧ RMQ ✧ Indo-Aryan language spoken by Iberian Peninsula Romani. The characters singing the famous “Anvil Chorus” in Verdi’s opera Il trovatori would have likely represented Caló.

19 octorba 2019

Romani [Kale Welsh]: Romani [Kale Welsh] ✧ RMW ✧ Romani variety spoken in Wales until at least 1950, introduced during the 15th century. Its purported last native speaker was Manfri Frederick Wood (d. 1968).

19 putatengo čeros -or- putatengo munþos -or- určengo munþos 2019

Romani [Vlax]: Romani [Vlax] ✧ RMY ✧ Today’s most widely spoken Romani, originally the language of the Romani enslaved in the territory of Romania. Vlax has some 14 subdialects including Kalderash and Lovari.

19 deshtonai 2019

Romanian [Meglenitic] (Megleno-Romanian): Romanian [Meglenitic] (Megleno-Romanian) ✧ RUQ ✧ Eastern Romance, native to Greece, Macedonia, Romania, and Turkey. Some consider Meglenitic a separate language, others a dialect of either Romanian or Aromanian (q.v.). Only 5000 speakers, endangered.

19 nuclu 2019

Romanian [Old Church/Traditional]: Romanian [Old Church/Traditional] ✧ RON ✧ Indo-European, Romance. Pre-20th century.

19 brumărel “Little hoar-frost” 2019

Romansh [Grischun]: Romansh [Grischun] ✧ ROH ✧ Indo-European, Rhaeto-Romance. Romansh comes in seven chief dialects. Not included among those is Grischun, a controversial “pan-regional” Romansh standard introduced in 1982.

19 october 2019  ▭

Romansh [Putèr]: Romansh [Putèr] ✧ ROH ✧ Romansh dialect spoken in the Engadine Valley, Switzerland. The term Putèr likely derives from a term describing its speakers as “porridge eaters.”

19 october 2019

Rombo (Kirombo): Rombo (Kirombo) ✧ ROF ✧ Niger-Congo, Northeast Bantu, Chaga, spoken in Tanzania’s Kilimanaro Region. Four dialects: Keni, Mashati, Mkuu, and Usseri.

19 Mweri wa ikumi 2019

Rongga: Rongga ✧ ROR ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern, spoken in East Nuse Tenggara Province in central Flores, Indonesia. Not to be confused with Ronga, a Bantu language. Unlike English, Rongga’s first person plural offers both inclusive and exclusive forms.

19 naju 2019

Rongmei Naga: Rongmei Naga ✧ NBU ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Kuki-Chin Naga (?), Zeme. About 94,000 Rongmei live in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland in Northeast India. Six tones.

19 baanchtbw 2019  ▭

Rotokas: Rotokas ✧ ROO ✧ North Bougainville family, spoken by approx. 4000 in Papua New Guinea. Famous for its tiny sound inventory, its entire alphabet consists of A, E, G, I, K, O, P, R, S, T, U, and V. There are no nasal sounds like m, n, or ng.

19 katai taupa kekira 2019

Russian [Ninilchik]: Russian [Ninilchik] ✧ ??? ✧ Endangered but still spoken by descendants of 19th century Russian American Company workers in Ninilchik, Alaska. Sufficiently diverged from Russian that linguists consider it a separate language.

19 Akt’áp 2019  ▭

Russian [Premodern]: Russian [Premodern] ✧ RUS ✧ This was Russian before it adopted neo-Latin (more accurately, Byzantine Greek) month conventions. For several centuries starting in the 1100s, both nomenclatures coexisted.

19 свадебник [svadebnik] “Wedding” 2019

Rusyn (Ruthene or Ruthenian): Rusyn (Ruthene or Ruthenian) ✧ RUE ✧ East Slavic, approx. 60,000 current speakers. Unlike Russian it loses the letter Э but then adds Ґ, Є, І, and Ї and (at least at one time) Ѣ. Lemko is a Rusyn dialect. Andy Warhol and Sandra Dee were of Rusyn extraction.

19 жолтень [žolten’] “Dying leaves and grass” 2019  ▭

Rwanda-Rundi [Kinyarwanda]: Rwanda-Rundi [Kinyarwanda] ✧ KIN ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu. Tonal, official in Rwanda. Of the 20 million speakers for Rwanda-Rundi in total, 9.8 million speak this Kinyarwanda dialect.

19 Ukwa cumi -or- Ukwakira 2019

Rwanda-Rundi [Kirundi]: Rwanda-Rundi [Kirundi] ✧ RUN ✧ The other chief dialect of Rwanda-Rundi, spoken in Burundi by 8.8 million

19 ukwēzi kwa cumi -or- Gitugutu 2019

⌅

Sa‘a (South Malaita or Apae‘aa): Sa‘a (South Malaita or Apae‘aa) ✧ APB ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, SE Solomonic, spoken by 12,000 in South Malaita, Solomon Islands.

19 madamada sulu “Dirty water” -or- oku mwaa 2019

Sabaean (Sabaic or Himyarite): Sabaean (Sabaic or Himyarite) ✧ XSA ✧ Afro-Asiatic, putative language of the Queen of Sheba/Saba, spoken in Yemen between ca. 1000 BCE and 600 CE. You’re seeing it in its Ancient South Arabian script, reading right-to-left and displaying no vowels.

  [ḏṣrbn]   ▭

Sabaean, Contemporaneously Arabicised: Sabaean, Contemporaneously Arabicised ✧ XSA ✧ Like Hebrew script, the Arabic hints at vowels but doesn’t show them explicitly. Here some ā (as in cat) and u sounds can be inferred, but little beyond that in this particular case. The “ʔ” in the transliteration signals a glottal stop.

١٩ ذو الصراب [ḏūʔlṣrāb] ٢٠١٩

Saho: Saho ✧ SSY ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic, Lowland East, 220,000 native speakers in Eritrea and in Tigray in Ethopia. Closely akin to Afar (q.v.).

19 thiqqimti 2019

Sakizaya: Sakizaya ✧ SZY ✧ Austronesian, East Formosan, Ami, an indigenous language spoken by around 900 on Taiwan (Keelung, Taoyuan City, New Taipei, Hualien). Closely related to Amis (q.v.).

19 cacay bataan bulad 2019

Salish, Coastal [Island Halkomelem]: Salish, Coastal [Island Halkomelem] ✧ HUR ✧ A language from the Salishan family spoken by approx. 200 on the east coast of Vancouver Island

19 xwusulénuxw “Falling leaves” 2019

Salish, Coastal [Klallam]: Salish, Coastal [Klallam] ✧ CLM ✧ Salishan family, heard in the Pacific Northwest on the northern shore of the Olympic Peninsula. Natively extinct with the death of Hazel Sampson in 2014, though being taught in high school.

19 pəq̕əlenəxʷ -or- sx̣ʷúpč 2019

Salish, Coastal [North Straits]: Salish, Coastal [North Straits] ✧ STR ✧ Salishan family, Vancouver area. Six sub-dialects, nearly extinct.

19 sx̱ʷúpč 2019

Salish, Coastal [North Straits Saanich]: Salish, Coastal [North Straits Saanich] ✧ STR ✧ Dialect of North Straits Salish, five native speakers reported. Saanich uses no rounded vowels (o, oo, ow, etc.) except in foreign loans.

19 pəq̕əlénəxʷ 2019  ▭

Salish, Coastal [Puget Sound] (Lushootseed): Salish, Coastal [Puget Sound] (Lushootseed) ✧ LUT ✧ Another Salishan language, spoken by fewer than 100. The word geoduck (elephant clam) derives from Puget Sound Salish.

19 pədxʷit̕xʷit̕il 2019  ▭

Salish, Coastal [Sechelt] (Shashishalhem): Salish, Coastal [Sechelt] (Shashishalhem) ✧ SEC ✧ This Salishan family language is native to the Sechelt Peninsula area of British Columbia. Fewer than a dozen native speakers remain, all elderly.

19 temsyanxw shalshal 2019

Salish, Coastal [Squamish]: Salish, Coastal [Squamish] ✧ SQU ✧ Salishan, native to Squamish, North Vancouver, and West Vancouver in British Columbia. Half a dozen native speakers remain; the language is taught at Capilano University.

19 tem p՚í7tway 2019

Salish, Interior [Colville-Okanagan] (Syilx): Salish, Interior [Colville-Okanagan] (Syilx) ✧ OKA ✧ Southern British Columbia and Northern Washington State. Considered moribund, Syilx is spoken natively by approx. 600 of whom only a quarter are “deeply fluent” and mostly over 50.

19 sk̓aʔáym 2019

Salish, Interior [Kalispel–Spokane–Flathead]: Salish, Interior [Kalispel–Spokane–Flathead] ✧ FLA/SPO ✧ Also called Montana Salish, spoken by approx. 100 elders in the central Montana’s Flathead Nation and in the Kalispel and Spokane Reservations in Washington. Critically endangered.

19 sčłip spq̓niʔ 2019  ▭

Salish, Interior [Lillooet]: Salish, Interior [Lillooet] ✧ LIL ✧ Endangered Salishan language (perhaps 200 elderly speakers) native to Canada’s British Columbia and Fraser and Lillooet Rivers.

19 ɬwál̓c-tən “Autumn” 2019

Salish, Interior [Shuswap]: Salish, Interior [Shuswap] ✧ SHS ✧ The northernmost Interior Salishan language, spoken natively by around 200 in central and southern British Columbia. Stress is predictable: the vowels U and I are always stressed.

19 Pesllwélsten “Abandoning month” 2019

Sami [Inari]: Sami [Inari] ✧ SMN ✧ Finno-Ugric, 300 speakers, seriously endangered. The term “Lapp” for the Sami language group is considered derogatory and no longer used. Like Finnish, Sami dialects are agglutinative.

19 roovvâdmáánu 2019  ▭

Sami [Kildin]: Sami [Kildin] ✧ SJD ✧ A Sami spoken by approx. 600 in the Lovozero area of the Kola Peninsula

19 рэгкэмманну [reegkeemmannu] 2019

Sami [Lule]: Sami [Lule] ✧ SMJ ✧ Spoken by between 1000 and 2000 around the Lule River in Sweden and in Norway’s Nordland County.

19 gålgådismánno 2019  ▭

Sami [Northern]: Sami [Northern] ✧ SME ✧ The most widely spoken Sami, approx. 20,000 speakers

19 golggotmánu 2019  ▭

Sami [Skolt]: Sami [Skolt] ✧ SMS ✧ Seriously endangered, 400 speakers mostly around Sevettijärvi, Finland. Oldest writings date from 1884.

19 kålggmannu 2019  ▭

Sami [Southern]: Sami [Southern] ✧ SMA ✧ Seriously endangered, 500 speakers in Norway’s Snåsa and Hattfjelldal districts

19 golken 2019  ▭

Samlandish (Old Baltic Prussian): Samlandish (Old Baltic Prussian) ✧ PRG ✧ Indo-European, Balto-Slavic (as opposed to Germanic, the other, entirely unrelated “Prussian”). Extinct by 1800, largely owing to plague epidemics and famines during the period 1709-1711.

19 spallinas 2019  ▭

Samoan [Traditional]: Samoan [Traditional] ✧ SMO ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, about 500,000 speakers in the Samoan Islands and expat communities elsewhere. Elements of speech often differ with register, viz., informal, formal, and ceremonial.

19 Le-fanoga 2019

Samogitian: Samogitian ✧ SGS ✧ Indo-European, Baltic, spoken in western Lithuania. A Lithuanian dialect to some, a separate language to others. Akin to Curonian and Latgalian (qq.v.).

19 spalis “Flax harvest” 2019

Sango: Sango ✧ SAG ✧ Ubangian-derived creole, three tones, central Africa, 450,000 native speakers. Along with French, Sango is an official language of the Central African Republic.

19 telötï 2019

Sangu {Tanzania}: Sangu {Tanzania} ✧ SBP ✧ Niger-Congo family, Northeast Bantu, Bena-Kinga, 75,000 speakers in Tanzania’s Mbeya Region. Not to be confused with Sango (above) or the Sangu language of Gabon.

19 Mokhu 2019

Sanskrit: Sanskrit ✧ SAN ✧ One of the oldest attested Indo-European languages. Modern representatives of its sub-branch include Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, and approximately 220 others, collectively spoken by 800-900 million.

१९ दशममास [daśamamāsa] २०१९  ▭

Santali: Santali ✧ SAT ✧ Austroasiatic, Munda, spoken by 7.6 million in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal. Agglutinative, uses Ol Chiki alphabet devised in the early 20th century. Sound inventory lacks both labiodentals (the f and v sounds) and z.

[akṭabar

Saramaccan: Saramaccan ✧ SRM ✧ Portuguese/English/Dutch creole with African traits. Suriname, 90,000 speakers.

19 tínímú líba -or- tímu “Tenth month” 2019

Sardinian [Campidanese]: Sardinian [Campidanese] ✧ SRD or SRO ✧ 500,000 speakers in Sardinia in the Cagliari metro area and elsewhere in Oristano, South Sardinia, and Nuoro. Proposed as a co-standard along with Logudorese (q.v.).

19 mesi de ladàminis -or- mesi di santu Sadurru -or- sant’Aii 2019

Sardinian [Gallurese]: Sardinian [Gallurese] ✧ SDN ✧ 100,000 speakers, Sardinia’s Gallura region and elsewhere in the Northeast. It has more noticeable Spanish and Catalan influences. Many consider Gallurese a dialect of Corsican (q.v.).

19 ottobbri 2019  ▭

Sardinian [Logudorese]: Sardinian [Logudorese] ✧ SRD or SRC ✧ 500,000 speakers. Central-southern Sardinian Province of Sassari, northern parts of the Provinces of Nuoro and Oristano. Proposed as a co-standard along with Campidanese (q.v.).

19 santu Aine -or- santu Gavinu -or- santu Miali 2019

Sardinian [Logudorese Nuorese]: Sardinian [Logudorese Nuorese] ✧ SRD or SRC ✧ Subdialect with features found nowhere else on Sardinia including some th (IPA symbol θ) sounds and the simplification of ny (ɲ) and ly (ʎ) sounds into n and l (e.g., Sardinna instead of Sardegna).

19 santu Gabinu 2019

Sardinian [Sassarese]: Sardinian [Sassarese] ✧ SDC ✧ 100,000 speakers tending toward the north of the island. Heavy Corsican (q.v.) influences.

19 santuaini -or- sant’Aini 2019

Satawalese: Satawalese ✧ STW ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Micronesian, Trukic, spoken by 500 on Satawal, Yap, and other islands and atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia. Features loans from other Micronesian languages such as Woleaian (q.v.) and Ulithian as well as English, Japanese, Spanish.

19 Isenitiw 2019

Saxwe (Tsáphɛ): Saxwe (Tsáphɛ) ✧ SXW ✧ Niger-Congo family, Gbe group, tonal, spoken by 170,000 in Benin. Most speakers understand some Fon (q.v.) and another Gbe language, Gen.

19 Ozovɔsun 2019

Secoya (Pai Coca): Secoya (Pai Coca) ✧ SEY ✧ Tucanoan family, spoken by 1200 in Peru and Ecuador along the Putumayo and Vaupés Rivers. Nouns can be animate, inanimate, personal, or supernatural/spiritual. Secoya culture and language are under serious threat from the petroleum industry.

19 kakotëji 2019

Sedang: Sedang ✧ SED ✧ Austroasiatic language native to Laos & Vietnam, 100,000 speakers. Famously huge vowel inventory of 24 pure vowels and a similar number of dipthongs. Each can be plain (o), nasal (õ), or creaky (o̰); some, simultaneously nasal and creaky (õ̰).

19 khế môi chat 2019  ▭

Seediq [Truku/Taroko]: Seediq [Truku/Taroko] ✧ TRV ✧ Formosan, Atayalic. Indigenous language from Northern Taiwan with 20,000 speakers.

19 maxal idas 2019

Sekani [Fraser Lake]: Sekani [Fraser Lake] ✧ SEK ✧ Athabaskan language spoken by a few dozen in British Columbia. Bitonal. The name Sekani comes from Tse’Khene meaning “people of the rock.”

19 Bet Ooza 2019

Sekani [McLeod Lake]: Sekani [McLeod Lake] ✧ SEK ✧ Another Sekani variant

19 Uk'a ghu'i inza 2019

Selkup: Selkup ✧ SEL ✧ Uralic, Samoyedic. Yamalo-Nenets region in Siberia, 1500 speakers. Distinguishes between long and short vowels.

19 т’áбът пыңгълы иррет [t’áb″t pyñg″ly irret] “Leaves falling month” 2019  ▭

Serbian [Orthodox]: Serbian [Orthodox] ✧ SRP ✧ Serbian Orthodox Church tradition

19 митровски [mitrovsky] 2019

Serbian [Premodern/Folk]: Serbian [Premodern/Folk] ✧ SRP ✧ Serbian folk tradition, pre-19th century

19 шумопад [listopad] 2019  ▭

Seri: Seri ✧ SEI ✧ Indigenous language isolate spoken by < 1000 in Mexico. Uses nine definite articles that depend on the relative movement of the object.

19 queeto yao 2019

Seychellois Creole (Seselwa): Seychellois Creole (Seselwa) ✧ CRS ✧ French-based creole of the Seychelles, around 70,000 speakers. In some French-derived nouns, the definite article has merged with the word.

19 oktob 2019

Shan: Shan ✧ SHN ✧ Kra-Dai language, tonal. Spoken in Burma, Thailand, and China. It has a trill [IPA r] but uses it only rarely, mostly for loans. Many speakers can’t make it and substitute an l sound.

[lunjing]   ▭

Shawiya Berber (Tachawit): Shawiya Berber (Tachawit) ✧ SHY ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Berber, spoken among eastern Algeria’s Awras Mountains. Formerly preliterate, now expressed in Roman, Arabic, and Tifanagh script. Alternates shown, different versions or differing spellings.

19 tuber [huber] -or- kuber 2019

Shawnee: Shawnee ✧ SJW ✧ An Algonquian language with fewer than 200 speakers in Oklahoma, originally native to Tennessee’s Cumberland River area. Stress is oxytonic (i.e., on the final syllable), a feature commonly stereotyped in old western movies.

19 Sha'teepakanootha “Wilted Moon” 2019  ▭

Sheko: Sheko ✧ SHE ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Omotic, Dizoid, spoken natively between the towns of Tepi and Mizan Teferi in western Ethiopia by 39,000. Distinctive is its reliance on consonants pronounced retroflex — i.e., with the tongue curled backwards.

19 yākū ʔyatsʼn 2019  ▭

Sherpa: Sherpa ✧ XSR ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Bodic, Tibetic. Spoken by 150,000 in Nepal, Tibet, and Kashmir. Tonal.

19 dāwā čyuwā 2019  ▭

Shilluk [Cøllø]: Shilluk [Cøllø] ✧ SHK ✧ Possibly Nilo-Saharan, Northern Luo, spoken by 175,000 Shilluk people in Sudan and South Sudan. Three tones (low, mid, high) and four contours for them (rising, falling, high falling, “late” falling), all shown with various accent marks.

19 Köngag 2019

Shinasha (Borna or Boro): Shinasha (Borna or Boro) ✧ BWO ✧ Afro-Asiatic, either North or South Omotic (depending on whose paper you take to heart) dialect cluster with 37,500 speakers in Ethiopia.

19 shawiya 2019

Shixing: Shixing ✧ SXG ✧ A scantily documented Sino-Tibetan language of the Sichuan and the Tibet Autonomous Regions. Spoken by fewer than 2000, two thirds of whom are quite inconveniently monolingual in Shixing.

19 qε⁵⁵ɬɯ⁵⁵ 2019

Shona: Shona ✧ SNA ✧ Bantu language spoken by over 8 million, official in Zimbabwe but also heard in Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia. It has two tones, not shown in writing.

19 Gumiguru 2019  ▭

Shor [Kondoma]: Shor [Kondoma] ✧ CJS ✧ Turkic. Both Shor dialects together have 2800 speakers in Siberia’s Kemerovo Province. Mongolian and Russian loans, preliterate until 1885.

19 kurtuyak au 2019

Shor [Mrassu]: Shor [Mrassu] ✧ CJS ✧ The other major dialect of Shor

19 қуртуйақ айы [qurtuyaq ayï] 2019

Shoshone [Eastern]: Shoshone [Eastern] ✧ SHH ✧ Uto-Aztecan family. In all dialects inclusive, natively spoken by 1000 in Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Features some whispered vowels. Lewis and Clark’s translator, Sacagawea, was Shoshone.

19 Diê Yeva Mea "Little autumn month" 2019

Shuar: Shuar ✧ JIV ✧ Jivaroan family, 35,000 jungle-dwelling speakers in Ecuador’s Morona-Santiago and Pastaza Provinces. Not to be confused with Shiwiar, though of the same family. Generations ago, the Shuar produced shrunken heads (“tsantsa” in Shuar).

19 nunkui 2019  ▭

Sicilian: Sicilian ✧ SCN ✧ Indo-European, Romance. Arabic and Greek influences with pre-Indo-European roots. One departure from Italian is that Sicilian uses the vowels E and O far less frequently.

19 uttùviru 2019  ▭

Sikaiana: Sikaiana ✧ SKY ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, spoken by 750 on the small, isolated atol Sikaina in the Solomon Islands. Features two vowel lengths, so two words that differ only by that feature can have unrelated meanings.

19 Oktopa 2019

Silesian: Silesian ✧ SZL ✧ West Slavic, spoken by half a million in Poland and the Czech Republic. Some authorities consider it a dialect of Polish, others don't. In any case about a dozen sub-dialects of Silesian are cited, one unique to Panna Maria, Texas.

19 paźdzěrnik 2019  ▭

Siona (Bai Coca): Siona (Bai Coca) ✧ SNN ✧ Tucanoan family, spoken by 500 Siona people in Colombia and Ecuador along the Putumayo River. They are akin to the Secoya (Pai Coca) speakers (q.v.) and under similar threat.

19 kakorẽ 2019

Slavey [North]: Slavey [North] ✧ SCS ✧ Na-Dené, Athabaskan. Slavey as a whole has around 1800 speakers among the Slavey and Sahtu people in the Northwest Territories. This is the North dialect, 800 speakers.

19 Doídaa Sah 2019

Slavey [South]: Slavey [South] ✧ XSL ✧ This is the South Slavey dialect, 1000 speakers.

19 Łue Dats’ eté zá 2019  ▭

Slavonic [Old Church]: Slavonic [Old Church] ✧ CHU ✧ Indo-European, Slavic, dating from the 9th century. The original model for the Cyrillic alphabet, it called itself словѣ́ньскъ ѩꙁꙑ́къ [slověnĭskŭ językŭ].

XVIIII [octobr] MMXVIIII

Slavonic [New Church]: Slavonic [New Church] ✧ CHU ✧ The current liturgical language used in conservative Slavic European Orthodox churches as well as the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese. Descended from Old Church Slavonic (above).

19 ѻ҆ктѡ́врїй [októvryi] 2019

Slovenian [Standard Premodern]: Slovenian [Standard Premodern] ✧ SLV ✧ Indo-European, South Slavic, standardized from the Carniolan and other dialects during the 18th century. Not to be confused with Slovak, which is WEST Slavic and close to Czech (q.v.).

19 vinotok “Wine flowing” 2019  ▭

Slovenian [Prekmurian Premodern]: Slovenian [Prekmurian Premodern] ✧ SLV ✧ Prekmurian is a Slovenian dialect spoken in northeast Slovenia and western Hungary. It’s sufficiently divergent both culturally and linguistically that many consider it a separate language.

19 vsesvéšček 2019

Slovenian [Resian]: Slovenian [Resian] ✧ SLV ✧ From the Resia Valley in Italy’s Udine Province. Heavy Italic influences, considered a separate language by most speakers. Unlike Standard Slovenian its alphabet includes W.

19 otobar 2019

Somali: Somali ✧ SOM ✧ Afro-Asiatic family, Cushitic. Employs vowel harmony and three tones, spoken in the horn of Africa and in diaspora communities by 15 million.

19 bisha tobnaad -or- nasteexo -or- dambarsame 2019

Soninke: Soninke ✧ SNK ✧ Niger-Congo family, Western Mande, spoken in Mali (official), Senegal (official), Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia (official), Mauritania (official), Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Ghana. It uses the Arabic and Roman alphabets.

19 okutoburunxaso 2019

Sorbian (Lusatian or Wend) [Lower]: Sorbian (Lusatian or Wend) [Lower] ✧ WEN ✧ Indo-European, West Slavic, spoken by 10,000 in lower Saxony (Brandenburg). Six noun cases.

19 winski 2019  ▭

Sorbian (Lusatian or Wend) [Upper]: Sorbian (Lusatian or Wend) [Upper] ✧ WEN ✧ Indo-European, West Slavic, spoken by 40,000 in upper Saxony. Seven noun cases — one more than Lower Sorbian.

19 winowc 2019  ▭

Sotho (Sesotho): Sotho (Sesotho) ✧ SOT ✧ Niger-Congo, Southern Bantu, spoken in Lesotho (where it’s the official language) and South Africa. It’s tonal, and its novel sound inventory further includes ejectives, clicks, and a uvular trill.

19 Mphalane 2019

Sotho [Northern] (Pedi): Sotho [Northern] (Pedi) ✧ SOT ✧ Another dialect of Sotho, South Africa.

19 Diphalane 2019

Southern Luo [Lango]: Southern Luo [Lango] ✧ LAJ ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, Uganda. Luo is a group of several mutually intelligible dialects. This is Lango, with 1. 5 million speakers. All numerals under 20 begin with A.

19 Kwiinyi 2019

Southern Min (Minnan): Southern Min (Minnan) ✧ NAN ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Min, spoken by 47 million in China’s Fujian province. It’s unintelligible even with other Min branch languages, let alone Chinese.

19 十月 cha̍p-go̍eh 2019  ▭

Standard Moroccan Berber (Tamazight): Standard Moroccan Berber (Tamazight) ✧ ZGH ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Berber. This language was standardized in 2011 through amendments to the Moroccan Constitution.

19 [kṭubeṛ] 2019  ▭

Sudovian (Yotvingian): Sudovian (Yotvingian) ✧ XSV ✧ Indo-European, Baltic, unfortunately extinct by 1600. It was mutually intelligible with Samlandish (q.v.).

19 spalis -or- uktāberis 2019  ▭

Sumo [Northern, Mayangna]: Sumo [Northern, Mayangna] ✧ SUM ✧ Like Miskito (q.v.), from the small Misumalpan family. There are approx. 9000 speakers of Sumo languages in the Huaspuc River area in Nicaragua and Honduras; shown here is the Mayangna dialect.

19 salap wainku “Tenth month” 2019

Sumo [Northern, Tawakha]: Sumo [Northern, Tawakha] ✧ YAN ✧ Another Sumo dialect. Tawakha and Miskito (q.v.) are close kin and many Tawakha in the area (at the mouth of the river Wampú on the Atlantic side of Honduras) are trilingual between Tawakha, Miskito, and Spanish.

19 winnuh waiku 2019

Sumo [Southern, Ulwa]: Sumo [Southern, Ulwa] ✧ ULW ✧ Another Sumo dialect with about 400 speakers in eastern Nicaragua.

19 wing dutka waikaku 2019

Svan: Svan ✧ SVA ✧ Kartvelian family (Like Georgian, Mingrelian, and Laz — qq.v.), spoken in the Svaneti region of Georgia by around 30,000, who call it lushnu nin. It has no written standard.

ით შა̈შშობ [šäššob] ცით  ▭

Swazi (siSwati): Swazi (siSwati) ✧ SSW ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu. Swaziland (official), Lesotho, Mozambique, and South Africa. Three tones, none of which is expressed in writing.

19 íMphala 2019  ▭

Swedish [Traditional/Folk]: Swedish [Traditional/Folk] ✧ SWE ✧ North Germanic, descended from Old Norse. This is Swedish’s premodern terminology.

19 slaktmånad “Slaughter month” 2019

Syriac Aramaic (Suret): Syriac Aramaic (Suret) ✧ SYC ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Northwest Semitic, still used for liturgical purposes by Syrian Christians in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Armenia. Its script shares its ancestry with Hebrew and maps to it one-to-one. Not to be confused with Amharic (q.v.).

[tishrin qāmayā]  

⌅

Tabasaran: Tabasaran ✧ TAB ✧ Northeast Caucasian language notable for its vast noun case inventory — 48, give or take. Natively it lacks the vowel O; the palochka character (Ӏ) makes preceding consonant an ejective.

19 дулуркӀ [dulurk̓] 2019  ▭

Tacana: Tacana ✧ TNA ✧ Western Tacanan family, 1053 speakers out of a total native population of 7345 along the Beni & Madre de Dios rivers in Bolivia

19 badhi tunka 2019

Tachelhit (Shilha or Sussian): Tachelhit (Shilha or Sussian) ✧ SHI ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Berber, southern Morocco (or central Morocco, if you recognize its shaky claim on Western Sahara). Writings date from the 16th century CE. Consonant length is contrastive.

19 [kṭubṛ] 2019

Tagalog [Pre-colonial]: Tagalog [Pre-colonial] ✧ TGL ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Central Philippine, spoken by approx. 70 million (28 million fluently). This is the endemic terminology shown in the first Tagalog dictionary, published by Franciscan priest Pedro de San Buenaventura in 1613.

19 pangalan nang buang ikasampo sa lakad nang taon 2019  ▭

Taita (Daw'ida): Taita (Daw'ida) ✧ DAV ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu. 400,000 speakers in Kenya’s Taita Hills. Taita has three chief dialects, Daw’ida, Kasigau, and Sagala; but the latter diverges enough to be considered a separate language.

19 Mori ghwa ikumi 2019

Taki Taki (Sranan Tongo): Taki Taki (Sranan Tongo) ✧ SRN ✧ An English/Dutch/Portuguese/West African Creole spoken in Suriname. The second verse of Suriname’s national anthem is sung in Taki Taki.

19 Tinmun 2019  ▭

Talinga (Lubwisi): Talinga (Lubwisi) ✧ TLJ ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, 99,000 speakers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (where they call it Talinga) and Uganda (where they call it Lubwisi)

19 Kwekumi 2019

Tamahaq: Tamahaq ✧ THV ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Berber, Northern Tuareg language spoken in Algeria, western Libya, and Northern Niger. Three dialects, 77,000 speakers.

19 tober 2019

Tamambo (Malo): Tamambo (Malo) ✧ MLA ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Southern Oceanic, West Santo, 4000 speakers on Vanuatu’s Malo Island and Espiritu Santo. Plural pronouns specify inclusive or exclusive of the person being spoken to.

19 el vorivori 2019

Tamil: Tamil ✧ TAM ✧ Dravidian family, India. Split off from Malayalam 9th century CE. Pronouns offer several levels of politeness.

19 [aghḍ^hōb^hər] 2019  ▭

Tanacross: Tanacross ✧ TCB ✧ Athabaskan language with approx. 30 speakers (middle Tanana River, Alaska). Earliest written records of it date from 1839.

19 nén’ tenh k’et “On the frozen ground” 2019  ▭

Tangsa [Hakhun][Premodern]: Tangsa [Hakhun][Premodern] ✧ NST ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Brahmaputran, Konyak. Its Hakhun dialect, shown here, is spoken by 10,000 in India’s Arunachal Pradesh (Changlang and Tirap Districts) and Assam and in the adjacent Sagaing Division of Myanmar.

19 Zeca Da [ʒeʔcá dá] 2019

Tasawaq (Ingelshi): Tasawaq (Ingelshi) ✧ TWQ ✧ Tentatively assigned to Nilo-Saharan, Songhay, though heavily influenced by Berber languages. 8000 speakers, Niger.

19 oktoobur 2019

Tatar [Central or Kazan]: Tatar [Central or Kazan] ✧ TAT ✧ Turkic, spoken in Tatarstan. Has used Arabic, Roman, & Cyrillic alphabets. Tatar is on the decline, being supplanted by Russian despite Tatarstan’s constitution guaranteeing equal status of both languages.

19 öktäber 2019  ▭

Telugu: Telugu ✧ TEL ✧ Dravidian family, Andhra Pradesh, the fourth most heavily spoken language in India. Like most if not all Brahmi-derived scripts, Telugu’s reads left-to-right. Oldest exclusively Telugu text, 575 CE.

19 [əkʈōbər] 2019  ▭

Tem [Kotokoli]: Tem [Kotokoli] ✧ KDH ✧ Niger-Congo family, Gur, Gurunsi, 340,000 speakers in Togo, Ghana, and Benin. Tonal, vowel length is contrastive (the long version shown by doubling the letter).

19 salam-zɛɛmʊ́ʊ 2019

Temne: Temne ✧ TEM ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu language spoken in Sierra Leone, four tones. Uses a modified Roman alphabet with the additional characters Ʌ, Ɛ, Ə, Ŋ, Ɔ, along with Gb and Th which are both treated as single letters.

19 Múfḁr 2019

Teso (Ateso): Teso (Ateso) ✧ TEO ✧ Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Kenya, Uganda by 1. 6 million. Not conventionally tonal, but has contrastive syllable stress. (So does Englsh sometimes: combine as a verb, combine as a noun.)

19 Otibar “Month grass cutting for thatch” 2019

Tetum (Tetun): Tetum (Tetun) ✧ TET ✧ Malayo-Polynesian language with Portuguese influences, East Timor, 500,000 speakers. As of 2002, Tetum and Portuguese have been the the sole official languages of East Timor.

19 outubru 2019

Thadou: Thadou ✧ TCZ ✧ An endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken by 230,000 in Manipur and Assam in northeast India and in Myanmar. There are about a dozen mutually intelligible dialects.

19 ellha 2019

Thai: Thai ✧ THA ✧ Now assigned to the Kra-Dai family, previously considered Sino-Tibetan. Through Buddhism, Thai inherited lots of Indo-European Sanskrit and Pali. Its script is an abugida, i.e., halfway between an alphabet and a syllabary.

๑๙ ตุลาคม [tùlaakhom] “Balance” ๒๐๑๙  ▭

Tibetan [Standard or Lhasa]: Tibetan [Standard or Lhasa] ✧ BOD ✧ Sino-Tibetan, agglutinative, bitonal, three speech registers: Phal-skad (informal), Zhe-sa (polite/respectful), Chos-skad (religious, as it appears in scriptures).

༡༩ ta¹³wa¹³tɕu¹³pa⁵³ ༢༠༡༩  ▭

Tibetan [Dégé]: Tibetan [Dégé] ✧ BOD ✧ The Tibetan dialect spoken in China’s Sichuan Province. The character ɳ in these Tibetan transcriptions represents an n sound with the tongue curled backwards.

༡༩ da¹³wa⁵³tɕu⁵³pa⁵³ ༢༠༡༩

Tibetan [Written]: Tibetan [Written] ✧ BOD ✧ Written Tibetan quite famously diverges from its spoken form. Writing conventions had fossilized while the speech evolved over many centuries, such that the oral version of a word can be entirely different from the written.

༡༩ zla ba btɕu pa ༢༠༡༩

Ticuna: Ticuna ✧ TCA ✧ Possibly a language isolate, spoken by 50,000 in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. Six vowels (A, E, I, O, U and Ü), nine tones, glottal stops indicated by X.

19 [October unknown] 2019

Tigrinya: Tigrinya ✧ TIR ✧ Afro-Asiatic, South Semitic. Ethiopia & Eritrea, 9 million speakers, related to Blin (q.v.). Like English and unlike many of its close relatives, Tigrinya uses phrasal verbs.

19 ጥቅምቲ [tekemtee] 2019  ▭

Timbisha [Panamint]: Timbisha [Panamint] ✧ PAR ✧ Uto-Aztecan family, native to California’s Owens and Death Valleys and parts of Nevada, 20 speakers. Name refers to rock paint.

19 süümoonom müattsi 2019

Tiriyó (Trio): Tiriyó (Trio) ✧ TRI ✧ Cariban family, Taranoan, spoken by 2100 in Brazil’s Pará State and in Suriname’s Sipaliwini District. Its two dialects are referred to as H Tiriyó and K Tiriyó. Heavy Dutch influences.

19 akëtopëpo 2019

Tiwa [Southern]: Tiwa [Southern] ✧ TIX ✧ A language from the Tanoan family spoken by 1600 at Isleta Pueblo and Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico; and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, Texas. Its sound inventory is relatively large: 26 consonants and six vowels with contrastive nasal versions.

19 Octobri 2019

Tlingit: Tlingit ✧ TLI ✧ Na-Dené family, USA Pacific northwest, nearly extinct

19 Dís Tlein 2019  ▭

Tobian: Tobian ✧ TOX ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Micronesian, Trukic, critically endangered, native to Palau’s states of Hatohobei, Koror, and Sonsorol. 150 native speakers, nowadays mostly in Koror.

19 haseihetihori maham 2019  ▭

Tocharian B (West or Kuchean) *: Tocharian B (West or Kuchean) * ✧ TXB ✧ Tocharian was a branch of Indo-European, extinct since the ninth century, spoken in China’s Tarim Basin. There are three members known: A (Agnean), B, and C (Kroränian). This is B, taken from the work of linguist Douglas Q. Adams.

XVIIII ñunte meñe MMXVIIII  ▭

Tofalar (Tofa or Karagas): Tofalar (Tofa or Karagas) ✧ KIM ✧ Moribund, mildly tonal Turkic language closely related to Tuvan (q.v.) with approx. 90 speakers in the Irkutsk region. Uses an augmented Cyrillic alphabet of 42 characters.

19 күзәәр ай [кyzǣr ay] 2019  ▭

Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin): Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin) ✧ TPI ✧ English-based creole with 120,000 fluent speakers and another 4 million with L 2 proficiency, the lingua franca of Papua New Guinea. Beyond its English substrate it borrows from local Malayo-Polynesian languages and German.

19 numba ten mun 2019  ▭

Tokelauan [Traditional]: Tokelauan [Traditional] ✧ TKL ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, approx. 4300 speakers in American Samoa (on Tokelau and Swains Island) and New Zealand. Tokelauan and Tuvaluan are mutually intelligible.

19 Kaununu 2019

Tolowa (Siletz Dee-ni): Tolowa (Siletz Dee-ni) ✧ TOL ✧ Na-Dené, Pacific Coast Athabaskan, natively extinct. Linguist Loren Bommelyn teaches Tolowa in Crescent City, CA. It features ejectives, contrastive vowel length and nasality.

19 Nee-san num-nii-man’s 2019

Tonga (Nyasa) [Traditional]: Tonga (Nyasa) [Traditional] ✧ TOG ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu, Botatwe (according to some) language spoken by 170,000 in The Republic of Malawi. Tonal. Not to be confused with Malayo-Polynesian Tongan below.

19 Kakumbi kaniini 2019

Tongan: Tongan ✧ TON ✧ Malayo-Polynesian. Only one vowel per syllable, no blended consonants. Kingdom of Tonga, 187,000 speakers. Not to be confused with the Bantu language Tonga above.

19 ’Okatopa 2019  ▭

Trique [Copala]: Trique [Copala] ✧ TRC ✧ Oto-Manguean family, Mixtecan branch, spoken in San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, Mexico and by migrants in San Quintín Valley, Baja California. There are 26,000 speakers of Trique in general, 15,000 of the Copala dialect.

19 yavii sarió -or- yavii rosarió “Month of the rosary” 2019

Trique [Chicahuaxtla]: Trique [Chicahuaxtla] ✧ TRC ✧ Dialect of Trique heard in San Andrés Chicahuaxtla, Oaxaca, Mexico. 6000 speakers.

19 túrée 2019

Tsafiki (Tsachila or Colorado): Tsafiki (Tsachila or Colorado) ✧ COF ✧ Barbacoan family, spoken by 2300 ethnic Tsachilas in Ecuador. Natively Tsafiki only had concise terms for the numbers 1 through 5; for higher numbers it has since borrowed from Spanish.

19 sino paba pe 2019

Tsez (Dido): Tsez (Dido) ✧ DDO ✧ Northeast Caucasian, endangered, 15,000 speakers in Southern Dagestan. Heavy influences from Russian, Avar, Arabic, Georgian, and Turkic languages. Rich consonant inventory but like others of its family lacks an f sound.

19 актийабер [aktiyaber] 2019  ▭

Tshangla (Sharchop): Tshangla (Sharchop) ✧ TSJ ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Bodish, spoken by 170,000 in Bhutan’s Trashigang district, Tibet, and Arunachal Pradesh in India. Derives much of its vocabulary from Classical Tibetan; both evolved from a common ancestor.

19 dawa tɕᴜpa -or- laŋda 2019  ▭

Tsimshian [Coast]: Tsimshian [Coast] ✧ TSI ✧ Indigenous language spoken by around 240 in British Columbia and Alaska. Possibly an isolate.

19 Ha’ lila’x sig’aboox “Time to harvest cockles” 2019

Tsonga: Tsonga ✧ TSO ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu, 12 million native speakers. Uses whistling sounds and a single click.

19 Nhlangula 2019  ▭

Tswana (Setswana): Tswana (Setswana) ✧ TSN ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu; official in Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa. Like Gourmantché (q.v.), Tswana nouns divide into classes and each takes a prefix corresponding to that class, providing a clue to its meaning.

19 Phalane 2019

Tuareg [Tamasheq]: Tuareg [Tamasheq] ✧ TAQ ✧ Afro-Asiatic, Berber, traditionally of the Kel Adrar people, a dialect/subset of Tuareg spoken by half a million in Mali. Complex “avoidance” behavior in communication.

19 [tuber] 2019  ▭

Tujia [Southern]: Tujia [Southern] ✧ TJS ✧ Sino-Tibetan, but unclassified within that family due to its extensive borrowing from neighboring languages. Tonal, spoken by 70,000 in China’s northwest Hunan Province.

19 si²¹ jye²¹ 2019

Tumbuka: Tumbuka ✧ TUM ✧ Niger-Congo, Bantu. Speakers in Malawi, Zambia, & Tanzania. One and half a million speakers.

19 Okutobala 2019

Tunica: Tunica ✧ TUN ✧ Language isolate native to central Louisiana, extinct since the 1948 death of Mr. Sesostrie Youchigant, who worked with linguist Mary Haas, but now spoken as an acquired language by 32 people through the efforts of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe. Tonal.

19 Tahch’awɛra 2019  ▭

Turkish [Standard]: Turkish [Standard] ✧ TUR ✧ From the Altaic family. Earliest inscriptions, eighth century CE, found in Mongolia. Turkish’s distinctive undotted I (lower case, ı) signals a schwa sound (IPA ə) as in a̱bout.

19 ekim -or- avara 2019  ▭

Turkish [Meskhetian]: Turkish [Meskhetian] ✧ TUR ✧ Dialect spoken by the Meskheti disapora throughout Russia. Before Stalin’s expulsions, the Meskhetian homeland centered in southwest Georgia adjacent to the Turkish border.

19 шарап айы [šarap ayə] 2019

Turkish [Ottoman]: Turkish [Ottoman] ✧ TUR ✧ Turkish of the Ottoman Empire before 20th century reforms. Ottoman Turkish borrowed over 80% of its vocabulary from Arabic and Persian; Atatürk’s 1928 reforms restored the native Turkish.

19 тәшрини-әүвәл [tıšrini-ıüvıl] 2019

Turkmen 1 [Pre-Niyazov]: Turkmen 1 [Pre-Niyazov] ✧ TUK ✧ Altaic family, Turkic, Oghuz. Nine million speakers, largely intelligible with Azeri and Turkish. But unlike Turkish, Turkmen uses the th sounds, both voiced (IPA ð, spelled with a Z) and unvoiced (IPA θ, spelled with an S). Interestingly, it has no s sound.

19 oktýabr 2019  ▭

Turkmen 2 [Post-Niyazov]: Turkmen 2 [Post-Niyazov] ✧ TUK ✧ As decreed by dictator Saparmurat Niyazov (1940 –2006)

19 Garaşsyzlyk (Turkmenistan's Independence Day) 2019  ▭

Turkmen 3 [Post-Post-Niyazov]: Turkmen 3 [Post-Post-Niyazov] ✧ TUK ✧ Since 2008, back by popular demand!

19 oktýabr 2019  ▭

Tuscarora: Tuscarora ✧ TUS ✧ There were only three reported speakers of this Northern Iroquoian language in 2007, so it may well be extinct or nearly so. Nominally its range is the Six Nations Reserve in Southern Ontario and the Lewiston Tuscarora (“hemp people”) reserve in New York State.

19 rahθeʔkyehé∙θuʔ 2019

Tutchone [Northern]: Tutchone [Northern] ✧ TTM ✧ Na-Dené family, North Athabascan, about 350 native speakers of Tutchone as a whole. This northern subgroup: Yukon communities of Mayo, Pelly and Stewart Crossing, Carmacks, and Beaver Creek.

19 Män zra tadétän “Ponds freezing up month” 2019

Tutchone [Southern, Aishihik]: Tutchone [Southern, Aishihik] ✧ TCE ✧ Southern or Aishihik Tutchone is spoken in the Yukon communities of Aishihik, Burwash Landing, Champagne, Haines Junction, Kloo Lake, Klukshu, Lake Laberge, and Whitehorse.

19 Näntäna nzhā “Everything starting to freeze month” 2019  ▭

Tuvan: Tuvan ✧ TYV ✧ A Turkic language with Mongolian loans spoken by 280,000 in the Russian Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia. Nobel laureate Richard Feynman popularized Tuva and its language among western readers in his posthumously published book Tuva or Bust.

19 он ай [on ay] 2019  ▭

Tyap (Katab): Tyap (Katab) ✧ KCG ✧ Niger-Congo, West Plateau. 200,000 speakers, Nigeria. Natively it lacks both the h and unblended z sounds.

19 Zwat Swag 2019

Tzotzil: Tzotzil ✧ TZO ✧ Mayan family, Cholan-Tzeltalan branch, spoken by 400,000 in Chiapas, Mexico. The verb typically comes at the beginning of a sentence.

19 ʔoktuvre 2019  ▭

⌅

Uab Meto: Uab Meto ✧ AOZ ✧ Malayo-Polynesian family, unusual gender distinctions, spoken by 800,000 Atoni people in Indonesian West Timor. Not counting the glottal stop, it gets by with 10 consonants.

19 fun-bo’ 2019  ▭

Ubykh: Ubykh ✧ UBY ✧ Extinct Northwest Caucasian language notable for its staggering consonant inventory and many other complexities. Its last native speaker was Circassian exile Tevfik Esenç (1904 –1992) who worked extensively with linguists to document his language.

19 [October unknown] 2019  ▭

Udmurt (Votyak): Udmurt (Votyak) ✧ UDM ✧ Uralic family, related to Komi (q.v.). 500,000 speakers in the central Urals. Natively lacks an f sound, which it uses only for names and Russian loans.

19 коньывуон [kon’yvuon] 2019  ▭

Ukrainian: Ukrainian ✧ UKR ✧ Indo-European, East Slavic, Polish affinities. Unlike Russian, it employs the characters Ґ, Є, І, and Ї but not Ы or Ъ. It differs also in employing a vocative case, i.e., an inflection indicating the subject is being addressed.

19 жовтень [žovten’] “Yellow” 2019  ▭

Ukrainian [Premodern]: Ukrainian [Premodern] ✧ UKR ✧ Older Ukrainian

19 грязень [gryazen’] “Soil” -or- хмурень [χmuren’] “Cloudy” 2019

Unami [Lenape]: Unami [Lenape] ✧ UNM ✧ Nominally extinct Algonquian language of the New Jersey area Lenape people

19 Puksit Kishux “Broken Month” 2019

Upper Chinook [Clackamas]: Upper Chinook [Clackamas] ✧ WAC ✧ From the Chinookan family of northwest Oregon. Upper Chinook went extinct with the death of its last fluent speaker Gladys Thompson in 2012. There were about half a dozen dialects; this one was spoken along the Clackamas and Sandy Rivers.

19 watca’mal 2019  ▭

Upper Kuskokwim: Upper Kuskokwim ✧ KUU ✧ Athabaskan, only 40 speakers (Alaska). Features a voiceless n sound. Revival efforts currently underway through the efforts of The Dinakʼi Language Preservation and Revitalization Project.

19 nichuneno’o’ 2019

Upper Tanana [Tetlin]: Upper Tanana [Tetlin] ✧ TAU ✧ Athabaskan, akin to Tanacross (q.v.), fewer than 100 speakers of Upper Tanana generally. This is the dialect of Tetlin, Alaska. Vowel length is contrastive, and like Polish the language also features nasal versions: ą, ąą, į, įį, ọ, and ọọ.

19 Nįįchuun Saa 2019

Urhobo: Urhobo ✧ URH ✧ Niger-Congo, Edoid, spoken by half a million living near the Niger River or in boats on it. They worship ancestors and also the water spirit Ohworhu.

19 ẹhwé 2019  ▭

Uyghur: Uyghur ✧ UIG ✧ Turkic, loans from Persian, Russian, Chinese. Spoken in China’s Xinjiang region. Not to be confused with Western Yugur (q.v.), another Turkic language.

19 oninchi ay 2019  ▭

⌅

Vai: Vai ✧ VAI ✧ Niger-Congo family, Mande. Tonal, 75,000 speakers, Liberia. Its syllabary writing system was devised by Momolu Duwalu Bukele during the early 19th century, saying it came to him in a dream.

19 galo 2019  ▭

Venda: Venda ✧ VEN ✧ Niger-Congo family, Bantu branch. 800,000 speakers in South Africa (Limpopo Province) and Zimbabwe.

19 Tshimedzi 2019

Venetian: Venetian ✧ VEC ✧ Spoken in and around Venice and also in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul and the Mexican city of Chipilo in Puebla State. Features un-Italian sounds ç (like Greek θ) and, as also in Polish, ł (like English w).

19 otobre 2019  ▭

Veps: Veps ✧ VEP ✧ Finno-Ugric, approx. 6300 speakers mostly near the Gulf of Finland. It has 23 noun cases, the most of any Finnic language.

19 reduku 2019

Vietnamese (Annamese): Vietnamese (Annamese) ✧ VIE ✧ Austroasiatic family, at one time written with Chinese-derived script called Chữ nôm. Five tones, shown by diacritics (example: á, à, ã, ả, and ạ), plus neutral. Other diacritics — breves, horns, circumflexes — modify vowel sounds.

19 tháng mười 2019  ▭

Võro: Võro ✧ VRO ✧ Finno-Ugric, related to Veps (q.v.), 80,000 speakers in southern Estonia. Unlike Estonian but like Votic (q.v.), it still features vowel harmony. Its front vowels (y, ø, e, æ) and back vowels (u, o, ɤ, a) cannot coexist within the same word.

19 rehekuu 2019  ▭

Votic (Votian or Vote): Votic (Votian or Vote) ✧ VOT ✧ Uralic, Finnic, < 20 speakers in two villiages near Narva, Estonia. Like other Finnic languages such as Võro (q.v.), it uses vowel harmony, here classifying ä, e, ö, and ü as front and a, õ, o, and u as back.

19 okt’aabri 2019

⌅

Wa [Parauk]: Wa [Parauk] ✧ PRK ✧ Austroasiatic, Mon-Khmer, spoken by 820,000 hilltop-dwelling ethnic Wa in Thailand, Myanmar, southern China. Wa’s scripts have long been in a state of flux; shown here is Parauk Wa’s Yaong Soi dialect, expressed in IPA.

19 kʰiʔ kau 2019

Waama (Yoabu): Waama (Yoabu) ✧ WWA ✧ Niger-Congo, Gur, Oti-Volta, spoken by 50,000 in Benin. Closely related to Mbèlimè and Moba (qq.v.).

19 doori 2019

Wali {Ghana}: Wali {Ghana} ✧ WLX ✧ Niger-Congo family, Gur, Moré–Dagbani, 140,000 speakers centered around the city of Wa and nearby villages in Ghana’s Upper West Region. Not to be confused with Nilo-Saharan Wali spoken in Sudan. Like Finnic and Turkic languages, Wali exhibits vowel harmony.

19 ‘chiuri ‘pie daana 2019

Wallisian (East Uvean): Wallisian (East Uvean) ✧ WLS ✧ Polynesian, spoken by around 10,000 on Wallis Island of Wallis and Futuna. Akin to Rennell-Bellona and Tongan (qq.v.).

19 oketopeli 2019

Walloon: Walloon ✧ WLN ✧ Indo-European, Romance, Langue d’oïl, native to Belgium’s Wallonia region. Its writings date back to 1500s. Despite its traditional label as a French dialect, Walloon and French show little mutual intelligibility.

19 di octôbe 2019  ▭

Waorani (Sabela or Auishiri): Waorani (Sabela or Auishiri) ✧ AUC ✧ Language isolate spoken by 2000 mostly Huaorani natives in Ecuador’s Napo, Orellana and Pastaza Provinces plus possibly some “uncontacted” people nearby

19 bobekatede 2019

Warao: Warao ✧ WBA ✧ This is an endangered language isolate spoken by 32,000 on Trinidad and along the northeast coast of South America in a thin strip ranging over Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. The 2015 Venezuelan film Gone with the River is in Warao.

19 waniku mojoreko 2019

Waray-Waray [Premodern]: Waray-Waray [Premodern] ✧ WAR ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, Central Visayan, 2. 6 million speakers. Philippines. Baybayin script shown.

19 / kuskos 2019  ▭

Wayuu (Goajiro): Wayuu (Goajiro) ✧ GUC ✧ Arawakan family, Northern, spoken by 305,000 in northwest Venezuela and northeast Colombia. Vowels can be short or long (a => aa, etc.), as can the consonants m, n, and t.

19 outuuwüre 2019

Welsh (Cymric): Welsh (Cymric) ✧ CYM ✧ Indo-European, Celtic, Brythonic. Over 700,000 speakers in Wales, England, Argentina, Canada, and the US — many of whom not named Jones. The F is voiced unless doubled; DD is the voiced th sound (IPA ð) in those.

19 Hydref “Rutting season” 2019  ▭

Winnebago (Ho-Chunk): Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) ✧ WIN ✧ Siouan family, related to Chiwere (q.v.), native to an area stretching from the Lake Michigan’s southwestern shore to east central Minnesota. As in some European languages like Polish and Lithuanian, nasalized vowels are contrastive and marked with ogoneks (a/ą, i/į, u/ų).

19 Caa mąą hinąǧo wiira -or- Caamą́ąhinąǧówii “Deer digging ground month” 2019  ▭

Woleaian: Woleaian ✧ WLE ✧ Malayo-Polynesian, spoken by 1700 in the Federated States of Micronesia. While the language uses foreign loans, Woleaians are otherwise serious about preserving their culture and enforce strict rules against wearing western clothing.

19 gaseigeli merame 2019

Wolof: Wolof ✧ WOL ✧ Niger-Congo language. Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania. The terms “okay” and “hep cat” may possibly have come from Wolof.

19 kori 2019  ▭

Wutun (Ngandehua): Wutun (Ngandehua) ✧ WUH ✧ A preliterate Chinese/Tibetan/Mongolic creole with 2000 speakers in the villages of Upper Wutun and Lower Wutun, Tongren County in China’s eastern Qinghai province.

19 she-yai 2019

Wymysorys (Wilamowicean/Vilamovian): Wymysorys (Wilamowicean/Vilamovian) ✧ WYM ✧ Germanic language with a few dozen mostly elderly speakers in Wilamowice, Poland. University of Warsaw graduate student Tymoteusz Król works to revive and promote the language.

19 oktober 2019  ▭

⌅

Xhosa: Xhosa ✧ XHO ✧ Niger-Congo, Southern Bantu, bitonal (though not shown in writing) with many unusual consonants including 18 clicks

19 eyeDwarha “Month of lily pad” 2019  ▭

Xincan [Jutiapa]: Xincan [Jutiapa] ✧ XIN ✧ Actually a family of natively extinct isolates, still spoken by a handfull in Guatamala as an acquired language. Lots of Mayan loans. The ʔ character signals a glottal stop.

19 pak'il ʔawa 2019

⌅

Yakut (Sakha): Yakut (Sakha) ✧ SAH ✧ Northern Turkic, grammatically genderless, spoken by 450,000 in the Sakha Republic in Northern Siberia

19 алтынньы [altɯnnɯ] 2019  ▭

Yanesha’ (Amuesha): Yanesha’ (Amuesha) ✧ AME ✧ Arawakan family. Spoken by approx. 7000 Yanesha’ in the Peruvian Amazon. Vowels are A, E, and O, each of which can be long, short, or glottalized. (U only occurs with QU, a Spanish holdover to signal a K sound.)

19 huorocteshem̃ 2019

Yangben (Central Yambasa): Yangben (Central Yambasa) ✧ YAV ✧ Niger-Congo family, Southern Bantoid, spoken by 17,000 in Cameroon. The children tend to learn French as their second language.

19 imɛŋ i putúk -or- oóli ú kátíɛ 2019

Yaqui (Hiaki): Yaqui (Hiaki) ✧ YAQ ✧ Uto-Aztecan family, 17,500 speakers in Sonora, Mexico; another 430 in Arizona. Seven noun cases. Special feature: an L in a word can be pronounced instead as an R to indicate disapproval of the subject.

19 wojmammet 2019  ▭

Yawa: Yawa ✧ YVA ✧ A language from the West Papuan family (perhaps), spoken by 10,000 at Yapen Island’s Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesia.

19 oktoberije 2019

Yi(Nuosu): Yi(Nuosu) ✧ III ✧ Tibeto-Burman language spoken by ethnic Yi in China and southeast Asia

19 [cima] 2019  ▭

Yi (Nuosu) [Northern Shengza, Xide]: Yi (Nuosu) [Northern Shengza, Xide] ✧ III ✧ A dialect of Yi spoken by the Shuitian people of Sichuan’s Liangshan Prefecture

19 thɯ²¹ lɯ²¹ ɬɯ⁴⁴ “Rabbit month” 2019

Yiddish (Judaeo-German): Yiddish (Judaeo-German) ✧ YID ✧ Arose from Old High German (q.v.) during the ninth century. It uses Hebrew script adapted to indicate vowels explicitly. Approx. 3 million speakers worldwide.

19 אקטאבער [oktober] 2019  ▭

Yoruba: Yoruba ✧ YOR ✧ Niger-Congo family, spoken in Nigeria and Benin. Heavy Arabic influences. Yoruba also sees liturgical use in Santaría and other Afro-American religions in the Americas and the Caribbean.

19 Oṣù Ọ^̀wàrà -or- Oṣu Kẹwa 2019  ▭

Yuchi: Yuchi ✧ YUC ✧ Native American language of unknown ancestry, virtually extinct, Oklahoma

19 Tsotohostane “Corn ripening” 2019

Yugur, Western {China}: Yugur, Western {China} ✧ YBE ✧ Turkic, Yenissei Turkic branch, 4600 speakers in China’s Sunan Yugur Autonomous County. Not to be confused with Uyghur (q.v.), another Turkic language, nor with Eastern Yugur, which isn’t Turkic but Mongolic.

19 onïnçï ay 2019

Yukaghir [Tundra]: Yukaghir [Tundra] ✧ YKG ✧ A moribund two-language family, spoken by a few dozen in the Russian Far East

19 лэвэймэ ладьин мольҕал [leveime lad’in mol’ɣal] 2019  ▭

Yupik [Central Siberian]: Yupik [Central Siberian] ✧ ESS ✧ Eskimo-Aleut family, Bering Strait area, about 1200 speakers — most of them on the US side. In its modified Cyrillic script, the letter Ђ/ђ represents a gh sound (IPA ɣ), like the German ch in Bach but voiced.

19 Naayvaghvik / нaaйвaђвик 2019  ▭

Yup’ik [Chevak Cup’ik]: Yup’ik [Chevak Cup’ik] ✧ ??? ✧ A seriously endangered Yupi’k sub-dialect of Hooper Bay, Alaska. Only a few speakers, critically threatened. Genderless. The apostrophe indicates a geminated (longer) p sound.

19 Ipukaqun 2019

Yup’ik [Mid-Alaskan]: Yup’ik [Mid-Alaskan] ✧ ESU ✧ Another Yup’ik dialect

19 Qaaritaarvik 2019

⌅

Zapotec, Isthmus (Juchitán Zapotec): Zapotec, Isthmus (Juchitán Zapotec) ✧ ZAI ✧ Oto-Manguean, Central Zapotec, 85,000 speakers in Tehuantepec and Juchitán in Mexico’s State of Oaxaca. Rich inventory of vowels that come in plain, creaky, and checked — i.e., cut off at the end with a glottal stop.

19 beu' Rosario “Virgin of the Rosary month” 2019

Zapotec, Western Tlacolula Valley [Teotitlán del Valle]: Zapotec, Western Tlacolula Valley [Teotitlán del Valle] ✧ ZAB ✧ Documented in 2014 by linguist Brook Danielle Lillehaugen. Of WTV Zapotec’s six dialects, this one is the most divergent. Some 100 elderly speakers remain, in the village of Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, southern Mexico.

19 octubr 2019  ▭

Zarma (Dyerma): Zarma (Dyerma) ✧ DJE ✧ Nilo-Saharan family, Songhay group, spoken by 3. 6 million in southwest Niger. Adds Ɲ (N with left hook) and Ŋ (eng) to its alphabet. It uses the letter V for loans, but many of its speakers stumble over it.

19 me feri 2019  ▭

Zaza(Zazaki or Dimli): Zaza(Zazaki or Dimli) ✧ ZZA ✧ Indo-European, Indo-Iranian; 2 to 4 million speakers, mostly in Turkey. This is the dialect a Zaza group is proposing as a spoken and literary standard.

19 tışrino verên 2019  ▭

Zaza (Zazaki or Dimli) [Northern]: Zaza (Zazaki or Dimli) [Northern] ✧ KIU ✧ This is the Northern or Zazakiyê Zımey dialect of Zaza, spoken in Turkey’s Erzincan, Erzurum, Gumushane, Kayseri, Mus, Sivas, and Tunceli provinces.

19 paizia wertêne 2019

Zhuang: Zhuang ✧ ZHA ✧ Kra-Dai family, six tones, spoken in China’s Guangxi region. It has 16 chief dialects of widely varying interintelligibility. Previously written with a combination of Roman and Cyrillic, Zhuang now uses pure Roman.

19 nin cwbx -or- 10 nyied 2019

Zou (Zo) [India]: Zou (Zo) [India] ✧ ZOM ✧ Sino-Tibetan, Kuki-Chin, spoken by 82,000 in Myanmar, India, and by the Bom people in Bangladesh. This is the particular Zou spoken in India.

19 nóupí hà 2019

Zou (Zomi) [Chin Hills]: Zou (Zomi) [Chin Hills] ✧ ZOM ✧ This is the Zou spoken in those areas other than India.

19 khodòu hlà -or- tòn hlà -or- vúlpi hlà 2019  ▭

Zulu: Zulu ✧ ZUL ✧ Bantu language widely spoken in Southern Africa. Uses 15 different clicks, written as single letters, digraphs, and trigraphs.

19 uMfumfu 2019

Zuni: Zuni ✧ ZUN ✧ Language isolate spoken by 9500 descendents of the ancient Anasazi Civilization in New Mexico. An unusual Zuni trait is that it manages to get along without third person pronouns (he, she, it, they).

19 li’dekwakkwya lana “Big wind” 2019

⌅

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Illustration: The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, mid-15th century French Gothic illuminations produced in the Low Countries. Months captioned in two common vernaculars of that time and place, Medieval Picard and Old Dutch.

Notes

1. They didn't, though, not to mention the fact Pope Gregory wouldn’t enter the picture for several more centuries. Etruscans marked dates pretty much like the Romans did; i.e., so many days leading up to the nones or ides, or preceding the start of the next month. The very word “ides,” as a matter of fact, likely derives from an Etruscan term for “divide.”

2. In a number of cases, especially with indigenous languages, the month-to-month correspondence between their own systems — all originally lunar — and the modern Gregorian one was less than definitive but at least strongly implied in the listings I’ve used as sources. This is a self-correcting situation anyway, since as time goes by more and more of them switch from lunar to solar and map themselves to it formally for the sake of modern convenience. Of course the month names of many languages bear no such correspondence, so aside from the special cases for Gaulish and my tweaked version of Tocharian you won’t see them displayed here.

3. Our source for the Gaulish system is the Coligny calendar dating from the 2nd century ce, discovered in France in 1897. Tocharian inherited its calendar from the Chinese system whose year began approximately in mid-February by our reckoning.

⌅⌅

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↓ الأحدب المتناقص

Special thanks:

Douglas Q. Adams (Tocharian B)
I Wayan Arka (Ronggo)
Lorraine Allen and John Ritter (Tutchone varieties)
Ansuharijaz (Frankish and Proto-Germanic reconstructions)
Mira Bergelson, Andrej A. Kibrik, Wayne Leman, and Marina Raskladkina (Ninilchik Russian)
Barbara Webster Black and Friends of Tobi (Tobian)
Roger Blench and Bitrus Kaze of the University of Cambridge (Many African languages)
Krishna Boro of the University of Oregon Deptartment of Linguistics (Hakhun Tangsa)
William Bright and Susan Gehr (Karuk)
Can Dai Quang (Cham)
Bernard Comrie of UC Santa Barbara and Timur Maisak (Bagvalal)
I Love Languages! Youtube author (Many sample videos I’ve linked to)
Eliza Jones, James Kari, Mildred Buck, plus others of the Alaska Native Language Center
František Kratochvíl and Benediktus Delpada (Abui)
Paul Lewis (Akha)
Lin Ying-Chin, Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, Taipei (Tibetan, Pumi, Qiangic languages)
Ma Seng Mai of Payap University (Wa)
Patsou’s Des Mots et des Langues
Peace Corps language handbooks
Gertjan Postma (Brazilian Pomeranian)
Le Projet Babel (Vosgien Lorrain)
Antoninu Rubattu (Sardinian dialects)
Apay Tang (Truku dialect of Seediq)
Tomedes — Smart Human Translation (Homshetsi)
Suzanne Weryackwe of Arizona State University (Havasupai-Hualapai)
Qinglian Zhao (Naxi)
… and literally hundreds of other sources

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