The Languages of the Human Tongue

The human tongue may taste bitter, sweet, sour, salty, and what's known as umami (savory).

However, did you know that there are actually more than 7000 living languages in the world spoken by the various human tongues? Linguists estimate that over the course of human history, there have been as many as 31,000 distinct languages.

Interestingly, a significant number of these have faded away, and just 23 languages today account for more than half of the world's population's tongue use.

The most commonly spoken language is Mandarin Chinese, with about 918 million native speakers.

The language of tech and the internet, English, comes third with 379 million speakers.

Fascinatingly, 50% of the world's languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people and are expected to be extinct by the end of the century.

Protecting linguistic diversity is indeed a Herculean task for humanity..