DK - WOW! The Visual Encyclopedia of Everything

In traditional

written Spanish,

28 letters are used

In early Greek

writing, there are

no gaps between

individual words

Many Bengali

characters stand for a

combined consonant

and vowel sound

261

Latin is rarely spoken

today, but its alphabet

is the most widely used

across the globe

Written Russian uses

the Cyrillic alphabet, a

medieval system named

after its inventor, St Cyril

The global use of English

means that the language

is constantly growing,

with thousands of new

words entering the

language each year

(^5) Hindi The family of
languages spoken in northern
and central India is known as
Hindi. As well as 425 million
native speakers, there are
many Indians who use Hindi
as a second language.
(^6) Portuguese This Romance
language originated in
Portugal, but spread to parts
of South America in the 16th
and 17th centuries. Today, it
has 230 million speakers
worldwide.
(^7) Japanese Used by 130
million people, the Japanese
language can be adapted by
the speaker to show respect
to someone, according to
their age and social status.
(^8) Spanish Originating in
northern Spain, this romance
language has 577 million
speakers. It is widely spoken
in Central and Southern
America. Today, Mexico has
the most Spanish speakers.
(^9) Bengali Also known as
Bangla, this language is India’s
second most spoken language.
Bengali is also used in other
parts of southern Asia, with
230 million native speakers.
(^10) Greek This ancient
language has used the same
alphabet since the 9th century
bce. Today, about 13 million
speakers in Greece and Greek
communities worldwide keep
this language alive.
(^11) Latin The language of
the Roman empire, Latin
developed into the family of
Romance languages, as well
as lending its vocabulary to a
number of other languages.
(^12) Russian With 160 million
native speakers and many more
using it as a second language,
Russian is an important
language in Europe and
one of six official languages
of the United Nations.
(^13) English This widely
spoken language went global
through British colonization.
Today, there are 400 million
native speakers, and it is the
most used language on
the Internet.
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