The World's Strangest Languages

The Chalcatongo Mixtec language, spoken by 6,000 people in Oaxaca, Mexico, is...statisticallythe weirdest language in the world, according toStanford-trained linguist Tyler SchnoebelenVictor Mair sums this up well on the University of Pennsylvania’sLanguage LogIn this context, ‘weird’ means roughly ‘has linguistic features that are unlike those of most other languages.’

Schnoebelen analyzed 2,676 world languages using theWorld Atlas of Language StructuresHe saw which languages shared 192 different language features and which ones did not. Using this, the Chalcatongo Mixtec language is as unusual as any language on this planet.

The weirdest thing about Chalcatongo Mixtec is it has no way to show yes or no questions. The question “Is this weird?” and the statement “This is weird” are the same. Monica Ann Macauley writes inA Grammar of Chalcatongo MixtecThere is no marking of the interrogative status [of yes/no questions] by question particle, intonation, tone, or other method.

Schnoebelen says Chalcatongo Mixtec is the only language in the world with this trait.

Linguist Dr. Dan Everett claims the Pirahã people of Amazonian Brazil have a language that lacks recursion, color terms, and number terms—they are unique in this way. Some fellow linguists call his claims “a fraud, an attention-seeker or worse,” according totheNew York Times.

His claims about recursion—embedding phrases within phrases—got the most attention because they contradict Noam Chomsky’s claims thatalllanguages feature recursion. His claims about the Pirahã’s lack of numbers have more support; at least three research teams published papers backing that claim.

How can people manage without number terms or color terms (if that is true)? Instead of color terms,Everett claims, they use the equivalent of “light” and “dark.” For numbers, they keep it simple, using their version of “few” and “many” (plus terms that mean “big,” “group,” “small,” “much,” etc.).

TheTimes, paraphrasing Everett, says their culture is not simple-minded. Instead, it stresses “concrete matters in the here and now” and lacks “creation myths and traditions of art making.”

In 2009,The Economistcalled the Tuyuca language of the eastern Amazon the “hardest language” in the world for two reasons. First, it is an agglutinating language, meaning that atonof morphemes—single meaning units—snaps together into a long word to do the “work” of an entire sentence. To useThe Economist’s cheeky example: in English, we would say “I do not know how to write.” In the agglutinating language of Turkish, for instance, that is just"hóabãsiriga.

Agglutination alone does not make a language difficult or strange. Tuyuca adds the challenge of being an evidential language, like the Matses language of Peru. Speakers and writers must fact-check as they go, acting like the finickiest lawyers.New York Times MagazineA piece on the topic.

Tuyuca verbs demand a sense ofThe speaker knows something.You cannot just say, “The boy played soccer,” becauseThe Economistnotes. You must say, for example, “The boy played soccer (I know because I saw him)” (diga ape-wi) or “The boy played soccer (I assume”, ()” (diga ape-hiyi.”

The !Xóõor Taa language of Botswana is one of several clicking languages in southern Africa. These sound strange to outsiders. What sets !Xóõ apart is theA blistering array of unusual sounds.that makes it one of the most complex spoken languages globally.

Tony Traill, the top non-Botswanan expert on !Xóõ, developed a lump on his larynx trying to master the “five basic clicks and 17 accompanying ones” and the four vowel types (each with four tones). He later found adult !Xóõ-speakers all get the same lump.

The RotokasThe Rotokas language of Papua New Guinea has perhaps the smallest modern alphabet in the world. It contains: A E G I K O P R S T U V. It is like a Scrabble hand!

How does this look in practice? Here is a sample sentence: “Osireitoarei avukava iava ururupavira toupasiveira.” (“The old woman's eyes are shut.”) The language is also strange; it avoids nasal consonant sounds, except when a native speaker imitates a foreigner’s attempt to speak Rotokas.

Guugu Yimithirris an Australian aboriginal language that gave the world the word “kangaroo.” What makes it strange is substituting geographic coordinates for egocentric ones. Native speakers use cardinal directions—north, south, east, and west—instead of referencing “in front of” or “behind” themselves.

Guy Deutscher observes in a fascinating New York Times MagazineAn article on Guugu Yimithirr states, “you need to know where the cardinal directions are at each and every moment of your waking life.”

Silbo Gomero is a whistling language used since the 15th century on La Gomera, a small Spanish Canary Island near Northwest Africa. It uses a whistled “cover” of Spanish; the normal language becomes “two whistled vowels and four consonants.

Silbo Gomera sounds strange, but it serves a real purpose. La Gomera has deep ravines and wide valleys, perfect for carrying whistled messages up to two miles. North African natives first used the whistling language. European settlers picked it up and used it. Today, tourists see Silbo Gomera demonstrations, and local schools teach it.

The Archi language of Dagestan, Russia has a strange linguistic claim to fame.1,502,839 possible forms can come from a single verb root.You get these forms from one verb root.Archi has over a thousand times more forms than the number of people who speak it.Only a few of these verb forms appear in daily talk. Still, the possibility exists, which is odd.

English adds endings to verbs to make words like "walk," "walks," "walked," and "walking." Archi takes a verb like "walk" and makes a new word from every verb form, skipping auxiliaries or modals (like -s, -ed, and -ing endings).

Variables like tense, mood, evidentiality (how the speaker knows things), and many others affect the verb forms.Many factors influence the language.Many factors affect the language.More factors determine the verb forms.For something simple like "walk," the number of verb forms exceeds one and a half million.

The Riau dialect of Indonesia is perhaps the most economical language globally.Linguist John McWhorter says this.Take the phrase "Ayam makan," for example.Ayam eats.Literally, it is “chicken eat.” McWhorter observes it means “the chicken is eating,” “chickens are eating,” “a chicken is eating,” “the chicken is eating,” “the chicken will be eating,” “the chicken eats,” “the chicken has eaten,” “someone is eating the chicken,” “someone is eating for the chicken,” “someone is eating with the chicken,” “the chicken that is eating,” “where the chicken is eating,” and “when the chicken is eating.” Context matters!

The Aymara language...AymaraThe language isn’tthatsuperficially speaking: more than 3.5 million Aymara people speak it in the Andes of South America, and it is an official language of Bolivia. Underneath, there is a strange linguistic quirk.This quirk is pretty mind-blowing.Instead of saying the future is ahead, they say it is behind. "In Aymara, the basic word for front (nayra, 'eye/front/sight') is also a basic expression meaning past, and the basic word for back (qhipa, 'back/behind') is a basic expression for future meaning."nayra'eye/front/sight'qhipa'back/behind'

The Aymara gesture behind them when talking about the future and in front when discussing the past. The future is unseen and not in front of them. The past already happened, so it is right in front of us.right in front of us.This way of thinking—known is in front, unknown is in back.This concept is...seemingly unique to the Aymara.