These are modern facts of the languages you need to know.
1. 52 per cent of people in the world can speak more than one language.
2. 62 per cent of UK citizens cannot speak any language other than English.
3. There are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages spoken in the world today.
4. More than 130 Native American languages are endangered. Marie Wilcox, aged 82, is the last fluent speaker of the Wukchumni language.
5. Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, which is more than any other country. South Africa comes second with 11.
6. Lithuanian is the modern language most closely resembling ancient Sanskrit.
7. The Oxford English Dictionary contains 59 words with “to kiss” or “a kiss” in their definition.
8. The EU has 24 official languages; the UN has only six: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.
9. Among the words and phrases listed by Erskine May in 1844 as unparliamentary language were blackguard, cad, dog, guttersnipe, rat and swine.
10. There are 19 'A's in a Malaysian Scrabble set, the most of any single letter in any language.
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