What are the World's Weirdest Languages?
By: Ayesha Israr Posted on Thu, 05-08-2021
Language is a unique feature that makes humans different from the rest of the creatures. More than 8 billion people are living on this planet. There are over 7000 languages that are spoken in the world with over 2400 at risk of dying out. Although there is a variety of languages, yet some languages are very common among people. For example, 1.31 billion people follow the Chinese language and English followers are 360 million. Likewise, there are some languages about which you might not have heard. That is the dilemma about languages like humans. Some exist and live and some exist but are not alive. As language is the key to communication, some weird languages present in the world need to be discussed. These languages are unique in their structure and may sound weird among all the languages.
Let's have a look at some weird languages that prevail in the world:
1.Mixtec (Chalcatongo)
One of the top weirdest languages is Chalcatongo. Around 6000 people are following Chalcatongo in the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Puebla people who live in the state of California, also speak Mixtec. Mixtec is a Nahuatl word that means ‘cloud.’ ‘World of the rain’ is the native meaning for the language. During the Post-classic era in Mesoamerican history, the Mixtecs developed their own customized logographic writing system. This language contains a complex set of regional dialects which were already present at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Mixteca area.
2.Choctaw
Another weird language on the list is Choctaw and its speakers are Native American. The writings are based on the English version of the Roman alphabet. In the Choctaw language, three dialects are present. Such as Native Choctaw, Mississippi Choctaw, and Choctaw of the Mississippi band. It has morphologically complicated verbs, word arrangement, and order. Today, there are over 10,000 Choctaw people and they are mostly located in Oklahoma.
3.Kutenai
People of Montana, Idaho in the US, and British Columbia of Canada follow this language. The other name of Kutenai is an isolated language. It is also known as Ksanka, Kootenay, and Kootenai. Its language contains enriched consonants and a small inventory of vowels and allophones. The majority of Kutenai speakers are 50 years or older. In 1894, it was documented by Philippo Canestrelli for the first time who happened to publish a grammar of the language. Ktunaxa people from Canada have been acting to revitalize their language for many years. Besides working on dictionaries, they have collected old words, recordings, stories, and songs. USA and Canadian institutions are offering this language to revisit its culture and language.
4.Tuyuca
In Brazil and Columbia, around 1000 people speak the Tuyuca language. It is one of the strangest and hardest languages to learn. It boasts more than 100 genders for words. Tuyuca refers to an agglutinating language that means many morphemes collect to make a long word. This long word works for a sentence. Due to this, The Economist magazine referred to the Tuyuca language as the “hardest language” in the world. For example, in the English language the sentence “I do not know how to write” seems like this, but in the Tuyuca language, it would be written as hóabãsiriga.
5.Piraha
Another weird language is Piraha which is present among the regional people of Brazil. This regional language lacks number and color terms. For example, in describing the color they won’t say that it is purple or red. Rather, they would say that it is dark or light. In terms of numbers, they would say as many or few. Apart from that, this language contains only ten-twelve sounds even, sometimes, people communicate through whistling and humming to make language simple. Undoubtedly, Piraha is quite complicated and weird in all manner.
6.Archi
What makes Archi one of the weirdest languages of the world is when its speakers are around only 900 people who are located in 8 villages. Archi speakers are present in Russia. When there are fewer in numbers, it also makes it a unique language. In this language, you can find nearly 1.5 million multiple conjugations. For instance, when we use an action verb in different tenses. But that same verb in the Archi language can be used in 1.5 million various ways.
7.Siblo Gomera
Have you ever thought of communicating with your fellows via whistles? Have you ever imagined that whistling can turn into language? If not, then gladly we have whistles-based language also. Siblo Gomera is a language that is composed of whistles. These whistles have multiple tones, styles, and patches. People with cupping of hands make this an effective language. In the past, this technique was created for a genuine purpose. La Gomers is surrounded by valleys and ravines and this technique proved useful to whistle messages for up to 1-2 miles. It belongs to the people found on the coast of Spain. Presently, its demonstration catches great attraction, making it unique and a weird language to learn.
8. Xhosa
In the weirdest language pipeline, Xhosa of South Africa is no more behind. 8.2 million people speak Xhosa as their first language in South Africa. It is also the second language of the western, eastern, and northern cape. The other name of Xhosa is isiXhosa. It is a tonal language with fifteen clicks that works as consonants merged into the language. English and African languages influence it. As language is the key to communication. And the world is facing the 21st century. This world has become globalized in terms of cultures, business, and finance. So, in order to live in this multilingual world, there is a need to overcome the language barrier. For this, the localization industry is expanding and providing translation services. In this perspective, MarsTranslation offers translation services from one language to another. This platform is also providing Xhosa translation services with the help of its advanced translation management system and native translators. Now, anyone can have a chance to understand each other's culture and language.
Wrapping Up:
There is no denying the fact that not all languages have the same style, tone, and dialect. It varies from region to region. Some languages are too common among people like English and Chinese, some are used as international languages like English, some languages have died long before like Latin, and some are unique and weird like Siblo, Mexitec. Above is the list of some weird languages of the world. These are weird not in the sense that they have fewer speakers, in fact, these languages sound complicated to understand. But, every cloud has a silver lining. MarsTranslation is one of the suitable platforms that can provide language translation services in order to live peacefully in this multicultural and multi-linguistic world.
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