Languages

This page covers questions about languages themselves.

Alphabets

Letters in the Hebrew alphabet		22
Letters in the Greek alphabet (classical and modern)		24
Characters in the Arabic alphabet		28
Letters in the modern Russian alphabet		33

Russian script (after the saint who devised it in the 9th century)		Cyrillic
The ancient writing system of the Celts – particularly in Ireland (at least 1,500 years old)		Ogham

Languages

In this section, every answer is either a language or a dialect, or a group of languages.

The second most widely spoken Semitic language, after Arabic (with an estimated 17 million speakers, compared to Arabic's 300 million); the "working" language of Ethiopia (according to Britannica), and one of its two main languages (along with Oromo), spoken principally in the central highlands		Amharic
Official language of Morocco		Arabic
Language believed to have been spoken by Jesus in everyday life		Aramaic
Language spoken in north-western Spain and south-western France – thought to be unrelated to any other language – also the name of an item of clothing!		Basque
Standard form of Spanish spoken in Spain		Castilian
Official language of Andorra		Catalan
Goidelic and Brythonic: the two groups of		Celtic languages
Word for a "natural language" (i.e. one that has developed from the simplifying and mixing of different languages): used for one of the two official languages of Haiti, where it's the native language of a majority of the population		Creole
Official language of Surinam (uniquely in South America); Afrikaans is derived from		Dutch
Official language of Mauritius and Guyana		English
Invented by Dr. Lud Zamenhof		Esperanto
The official language of Iran: modern Persian, written in Arabic script		Farsi
A mixture of French and English, regarded with humour in Britain but in France as an unwanted intrusion of English words into the French language		Franglais
George I and his ministers conversed in		French
Official language of Haiti		French
Group of Germanic languages, spoken by about half a million people in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. Said to be the closest living languages to English, after Scots		Frisian
Namibia's official language is English, but it also has thirteen recognised "national languages", including (European language)		German
Franz Kafka was Czechoslovakian, but he wrote in
Official and commonest language of India, spoken by about a third of the population; written in the Devanagari script		Hindi
Erse		Irish gaelic
Scottish lowland dialect in which Burns wrote		Lallans
Common root of the Romance languages		Latin
The Magna Carta was written in
Language spoken in Hungary		Magyar
Proprietary name for a language programme integrating speech, manual signs, and graphic symbols, developed to help people for whom communication is very difficult, esp. those with learning disabilities		Makaton
Official languages of Madagascar: French (also English since 2007), and		Malagasy
Standard form of the Chinese language, spoken by 70% of the mainland population		Mandarin
The language of the Aztecs – still spoken by approx. 1.5 million people in Mexico		Nahuatl
Bokmål is the preferred written standard for 85% to 90% of the population of		Norway
Spoken in parts of France, Spain and Italy; a.k.a. la langue d'Oc in France, and equivalents in the other countries		Occitan
Language of the Afghans proper – one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari (a variety of Persian)		Pashto
Archetypical cant slang, used by the British gay community: originated in the 19th century, revived around 1960 by its use in the BBC radio comedy programme Round the Horne		Polari
The sole official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea–Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Prí­ncipe (as well as the European country in which it originated)		Portuguese
Brazil is the only South American country whose official language is
The native people of the Andean regions of South America – including the Inca and their descendants – and their language		Quechua (ketch–wa)
The group of languages derived from Latin		Romance (or Romanic)
Spoken in the Swiss canton of Graubunden: the least widely–spoken of the four official languages of Switzerland (after French, German and Italian)		Romansch
Gypsy language		Romany
Now used only for religious purposes, but believed to be the oldest surviving language of India; all present–day Indo–European languages are derived from		Sanskrit
Name used "in the linguistic community" for the "mixed language" spoken by Irish travellers in Ireland, Great Britain and the United States		Shelta
Official languages of Sri Lanka		Sinhalese
		Tamil
Group of Indo–European languages that includes Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and the Serbo–Croatian sub–group		Slavic (Slavonic)
Informal term used for the Australian version of the English language		Strine
Bantu language, used as a lingua franca in East Africa and parts of West Africa		Swahili
Official languages of Pakistan: English and		Urdu
The Chubut region of Argentine Patagonia is unusual in having a significant population (descended from nineteenth–century immigrants) that speaks		Welsh
German dialect, written in the Hebrew alphabet, commonly spoken and written in Orthodox Jewish communities around the world		Yiddish

Other

Secret language used by a particular group of people, to prevent others from understanding their conversations – French for "slang"		Argot
Aranda or Arunta is the most important language of		Australian aborigines
Word used in Irish gaelic for any primarily Irish–speaking region		Gaeltacht
Llanito is a vernacular dialect spoken in		Gibraltar
The only South American country whose official language is English		Guyana
Edda is the ancient language of		Iceland
Imaginary line in Pembrokeshire, between the Welsh–speaking North and English–speaking South		Landsker
Term that means a common tongue used by people with different native tongues		Lingua franca
Said to have 250 languages, including Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo; official language English		Nigeria
Country whose official language is based on the native language known as Tagalog		The Philippines
System for transcribing Chinese names, devised in the 1950s, adopted by ISO as an international standard in 1982, subsequently replacing Wade–Giles – gives Mao Zedong, Beijing, etc.		Pinyin
Penultimate letter of the Greek alphabet		Psi
Term used to describe the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English – often abbreviated to RP		Received Pronunciation
System for transcribing Chinese names, devised in the late 19th century and generally used until superseded by pinyin – gives Mao Tse–tung, Peking, etc.		Wade–Giles
French–speaking population of Belgium		Walloons

© Haydn Thompson 2017–24