WHY DO WE HAVE SO MANY LANGUAGES ?

You see how words evolve and meanings too change as they move through generations. Go see the meaning of word Gay in 1600s if you have a doubt.

Did you know Papua New Guinea holds the record of 851 spoken languages ? In Indonesia, its 719 languages and in Nigeria, its 525. If you add all 3 of that , you are looking at a whopping 29% of the world’s 7111 languages. But Russia, 1403 times larger in size , has only 105 indigenous languages. This has been a trend that many linguists noticed , the countries in the tropical regions tent to have more languages than other.

In Papua New Guinea , as a result of the varied landscapes : tropical rainforests, coastal lowlands, swamps and many rivers it would have been difficult for populations to travel around and several groups ended up living in isolation, and have done so for so long, that they developed their own languages that are very different from each other.

In regions where vegetation is more dense, it becomes tricky to communicate from a distance. This affects specifically consonants, in particular the letters p, t and k, that have higher frequencies than vowels, which is why languages in these regions develop in different ways than in other parts of the world. The languages from colder regions does have a different characteristics to it . You see the pattern ?

Ok too much of info , just tell me how are new languages formed ?

A new language is formed when a group of people stop talking in their ancestral language due to a number of reason : something as simple as moving to a new place and starting a trade with a speaker of another language and trying to adapt to the new language for the better trade.

Imagine such an iteration happening due to number of reasons : natural calamity , war , collapse of a kingdom or even suppression of language , which we will speak about shortly. This is when , you can admit we've got 2 languages where there used to be 1.

Repeat this process through 1000s of years, a continuously changing language against the backdrop of the great migrations, conquests, and explorations of human history, and it gives way to the array of languages that we know today.

Do languages die ?

They die once speakers stop speaking them. However the majority don’t simply stop speaking their native language. It’s said easily than done.

For many years, the u. s., Canada, & Australia forced kids from Indigenous cultures to stay in residential schools and had to speak English.

Adults didn’t let them speak youngsters once they spoke their native languages. This traumatised the kids. That trauma still affects Indigenous peoples nowadays, and many indigenous languages and hence leading to extinction of few languages.

Sometimes, languages shift or evolve rather than going extinct.. How many of us can speak Latin today ? A handful. However that doesn’t mean it’s extinct. Scientists use it to call plants and animals. The language is common in religions, particularly Catholicism. In fact, Latin is that the official language of Vatican city..

Latin isn’t extinct. however why isn’t it usually spoken anymore ? Latin was the language of the Roman Empire. It spread way and wide. Then, in 476 CE, the empire fell. rather than going extinct, Latin evolved. In a way, the language remains alive nowadays. It became the Romance languages—Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian.