- Number languages nearly extinct  ---> 516

- Country with the most languages spoken  ---> Papua New Guinea has 820 living languages.

- First language ever written  ---> Sumerian or Egyptian (about 3200 BC)

- Oldest written language still in existence ---> Chinese or Greek (about 1500 BC)

- Language with the most words  ---> English, approx. 250,000 distinct words

- Language with the fewest words  ---> Taki Taki * (also called Sranan), 340 words

- Languages have existed since 100.000 years B.C.

- Language with the largest alphabet  ---> Khmer* (74 letters)

- Language with the shortest alphabet  --->  Rotokas* (12 letters).

- The language with the fewest sounds (phonemes)  --->  Rotokas (11 phonemes)

- The language with the most sounds (phonemes)  ---> !Xóõ* (112 phonemes).

- Language with the fewest consonant sounds  --->  Rotokas (6 consonants)

- Language with the most consonant sounds  --->   Ubyx* (81 consonants).

- Language with the fewest vowel sounds  ---> Ubyx (2 vowels)

- Language with the most vowel sounds  ---> !Xóõ (31 vowels)

- The most widely published language  --->  English

- Language with the fewest irregular verbs  ---> Esperanto (none)

- Language which has won the most Oscars  ---> Italian (12 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film)

- The most translated document   ---> Universal Declaration Of Human Rights

- The most common consonant sounds in the world's languages  ---> /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/

-Longest word in the English language  ---> pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)

- English is the language spoken by the greatest number of non-native speakers.

* Taki Taki is an English-based Creole spoken by 120,000 in the South American country of Suriname.
* Austro-Asiatic language, is the official language of Cambodia, where approx.12 million people speak it. Minority speakers live in a handful of other countries.
* Approx. 4300 people speak this East Papuan language. They live primarily in the Bougainville Province of Papua New Guinea.
* Approx. 4200 speak !Xóõ, the vast majority of whom live in the African country of Botswana.
* This language of the North Causasian Language family, once spoken in the Haci Osman village near Istanbul, has been extinct since 1992. Among living languages, !Xóõ has the most consonants (77).
* written by the United Nations in 1948, has been translated into 321 languages and dialects.