Unit 4 · How People Live
The words people use tell a story about history, power, and place.
The world has thousands of languages. Some are spoken by more than a billion people, while others are spoken by only a few hundred. A language is not just words. It carries history, jokes, family stories, songs, and identity.
Many languages are related. English, Spanish, French, Russian, Hindi, and Persian are all part of the Indo-European language family. Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages. Mandarin is part of the Sino-Tibetan family.
English became globally powerful through the British Empire, American business, science, aviation, the internet, and entertainment. It is not the most spoken first language, but it is one of the most important second languages.
Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers. Spanish is spoken across Spain and much of Latin America. Hindi is one of India's major languages. Arabic connects countries across North Africa and the Middle East.
India, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea are incredibly multilingual. Papua New Guinea has hundreds of languages because mountains, forests, and isolated valleys kept communities apart for a long time.
When young people stop learning a language, it can disappear. This is called language extinction. Protecting languages helps protect culture and history.
Answer all ten, then see your stars. You can retake it as many times as you like.
A single fascinating fact from the lessons, in your inbox every week. No spam, ever.