We Do Language

Did you know that there are 1.4 Billion English speakers worldwide? That's more than Chinese's 1.1 Billion.

However, despite English being considered to be the most widespread language, only 31 out of 112 countries on the Education First English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) achieved a score of Very High or High in 2021.

Singapore is also the first non-European country to top the list, coming in 4th.

https://www.statista.com/chart/26344/english-proficiency-levels-by-nation-according-to-ef-epi/

Languages with either a complex tone (4 or more tones), or complex consonant clusters, tend to be slower while languages with no tone, or a very simple tone system (e.g., a 1 tone vs no tone contrast like most dialects of Japanese) and primarily CV (consonant-vowel) syllable structure tend to be faster.

List of The 7 Fastest Spoken Languages in The World. List of The 7 Fastest Spoken Languages in The World. As native speakers, we all have assumptions about the particular speed of languages other than our own. And most of the time, our assumptions are correct. Empirically speaking, linguists measure the speed of languages by how many syllables are ar...

The tower of Babel story from the Bible. Humans tried to build a tower high enough to reach God. Then God, to punish them for their blasphemy, made them speak different languages. Since they couldn't communicate, they abandoned the plan and scattered all around the world.

Language is fun

“The old man was fluent in five languages, but the one he chose to speak now was one that virtually no one else in the world could understand.

“Awiri nuhã,” Aritana Yawalapiti, 71, said in the language of the Yawalapiti, an Indigenous tribe in the Amazon rainforest. “Take care of the people. Take care of the land. Take care of the forest.”

Tapi Yawalapiti, Aritana’s son, has sworn he will not let their language disappear.”

‘There are no words’: As coronavirus kills Indigenous elders, endangered languages face extinction Tribal leaders and linguists from Brazil to India to Australia race to record dying languages.

Bertha Catholique archived 3,500 stories, translating them from Chipewyan to English.

'I'm leaving a legacy': 1st translator completes stories for Indigenous archives project | CBC News Three years and countless hours of audio material later, Bertha Catholique is the first of 17 people to finish translating stories in her language for the CBC’s Indigenous languages archives project.

Most Spoken Languages of 2020.
How many do you speak?

生不带来，死不带去。

生不帶來，死不帶去。

shēng bú dài lái，sǐ bú dài qù 。

At birth we bring nothing; at death we take nothing.

MEXT Scholarship 2021 Applications are open!
https://www.za.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/MEXT_Scholarship.html