This document provides brief introductions to 26 different languages from A to Z. Each entry includes 1-3 facts about the language such as number of speakers, origins, or unique linguistic features. The goal is to expose readers to the diversity of human languages around the world in a concise, easy-to-digest alphabetized format.

1. © 2014, Justine Warunek-Lane

2. A is for American Sign Language
• There are about 500,000 people who use American Sign
Language in the world.
• ASL was developed in America by two men named
Gaulladet and Clerc. They based it off French Sign
Language.
• Signed languages have grammar, an alphabet, an a huge
vocabulary, just like spoken languages.
Watch some kids and teachers
sing a song in ASL!

3. B is for Bengali
• Bengali is one of the most common languages in the
world, with over 250 million speakers. Most of these
speakers live in
Bangladesh.
See 50 in Bengali with the
Bangladeshi Sesame Street
characters!

4. C is for Cree
• Cree is a language spoken by the indigenous Cree people
of Canada. More people speak Cree than any other
indigenous language in Canada.
Listen to the
traditional Cree
sunrise song

5. D is for Dutch
• People speak Dutch in
the Netherlands, in
Belgium, and in some
Caribbean islands like
Aruba.
Count to 10 in Dutch!

6. E is for Esperanto
• Esperanto is an invented language. It takes good parts
from other languages and combines them together. There
are no people whose only native language is Esperanto.
The Esperanto Flag
L.L.
Zamenhof is
the inventor
of
Esperanto.
Listen to a story in
Esperanto

7. F is for Finnish
• Finnish is the national language of Finland, with more
than 5 million native speakers.
• This language is related to Norwegian and Estonian.
My name is…

8. G is for Greek
• Greek is spoken in
Greece, by about 12
million speakers.
• English gained many
words from Ancient
Greek.
• In Greek, the word for
“Greek” is:
ελληνικά
See the Greek
alphabet

9. H is for Hawaiian
• Hawaiian is the language of the native people of
the state of Hawaii.
• Hawaiian only has 13 letters in its alphabet.
Learn the Hawaiian
alphabet song!

10. I is for Icelandic
• Icelandic is a
European language
spoken by about
350,000 in Iceland.
• Iceland celebrates its
national Icelandic
Language Day every
year on November 16. Learn how to say
the days of the
week in Icelandic

11. J is for Javanese
• Almost 100 million people speak Javanese in
Indonesia and around the world.
• People speak Javanese differently depending on
how formal the situation is.
• This is the word “Java” written
in Javanese:
Greetings in Javanese

12. K is for Korean
• Korean is spoken in North Korea and South Korea, by
about 80 million people.
• It is also on of the official languages of neighboring
China.
The Polliwog
Song

13. L is for Latin
• Latin was spoken by the Romans. You can still
learn Latin today, but there are no native
speakers of it.
• Many English words come from Latin roots.
This is one of the most popular Latin
phrases still used today.
“Do you Want
to Build a
Snowman?”

14. M is for Macedonian
• Macedonian is spoken
by about 2 million
people in many
countries.
• It uses the Cyrillic
alphabet, like the
Russian language.
Watch a
Macedonian dance
group!

15. N is for Nahuatl
• Nahuatl is the language of the indigenous Aztec people of
what is now Mexico.
• It is considered an endangered language, because there
are fewer and fewer native speakers of Nahuatl.
• The name of the language is pronounced as “Nah-wah-
tul”.
Count to 20 in
Nahuatl

16. O is for Ojibwe
• Ojibwe is the fourth
most spoken
indigenous language in
America.
• There are many
French words in
Ojibwe, because of the
Native Americans’
interactions with
French colonists.
Basic
Ojibwe
words

17. P is for Polish
• Polish is the official language of Poland. It belongs to the
Slavic family, so it is related to Russian.
• There are 40 million speakers of Polish in the world.
Listen to a
Polish nursery
rhyme

18. Q is for Quechua
• Quechua is the native language of the Inca people, from
Peru in South America.
• The language is also called Runa Simi, or “the people’s
language.”
Listen to a traditional
Quechuan folk song!

19. R is for Romanian
• Romanian is spoken by about 24 million people as a first
language.
• It belongs to the Romance language family, so it is
actually related to Spanish, French and Italian.
Romanian Fairy Tale

20. S is for Somali
• Somali is one of the official languages of The Republic of
Somalia in Africa.
• It is also a major language in Djibouti and Ethiopia.
Learn to count to
10 in Somali!

21. T is for Turkish
• The first evidence of
the Turkish language
showed up over 1,200
years ago!
• About 70 million
people speak this
language all over
Southwestern Asia.
“Rosa Goes to the City”, a story in Turkish

22. U is for Urdu
• Urdu is the national
language of Pakistan.
• There are about 70
million speakers.
• People who speak
Urdu can usually also
understand the Hindi
language.
This is the flag of Pakistan.
Learn the Urdu
alphabet!

23. V is for Vietnamese
• Vietnamese is the official language of Vietnam in Asia.
• The language originally used Chinese characters for its writing
system, but now uses the Latin alphabet with special symbols
added above and below the letters.
Watch
children sing a
traditional
Vietnamese
kids song.

24. W is for Welsh
• Welsh is one of the native Celtic languages of the British
Isles. Most of the speakers live in Wales.
• In Welsh, the name of the language is Cymraeg.
Watch a commercial
for yogurt in English
an in Welsh

25. X is for Xhosa
• Xhosa is the language of
the Bantu people in
Africa.
• Xhosa is a “click”
language. Part of its
language includes
sounds like kissing
noises and tongue
clucks.
Listen to “The Eensy
Weensy Spider” in
Xhosa

26. Y is for Yiddish
• There are people who
speak Yiddish all over
the world. Their
heritage is Jewish.
• Yiddish uses the
Hebrew alphabet.
• This is the word
“Yiddish” in Yiddish:
‫יידיש‬ What are some
common
conversational
sayings in Yiddish?

27. Z is for Zulu
• Zulu is spoken by over 10 million people in South Africa.
• It belongs to the Bantu family of languages.
Learn how to say
some Zulu
phrases!