Languages of the World

Question: Which of these is the main language of Iran?

Answer: The main language of Iran is Farsi, or Persian.

Question: Which of these is not a Romance language?

Answer: French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish are called Romance languages. They are all derived from Latin. Russian is a Slavic language.

Question: Which of these words does not come from the Aztec language?

Answer: Many Aztec words, such as chocolate, tomato, ocelot, coyote, and avocado, have become part of the English language. Potato, however, is from the Carib language.

Question: The last letter of the Greek alphabet is:

Answer: The last letter of the Greek alphabet is omega. The name means "large o," with omicron being the "small o."

Question: What is the language spoken in Bhutan called?

Answer: Dzongkha, or Bhutanese, is spoken by about 130,000 people in Bhutan, Nepal, and India.

Question: From which language does the motto of the United States come?

Answer: The motto of the United States, e pluribus unum, which means "from many, one," comes from Latin.

Question: Which of these languages is not widely spoken in China?

Answer: Navajo is a language spoken by an American Indian people of the U.S. Southwest.

Question: What language does a Cajun speak?

Answer: A Cajun is a French-speaking American, originally from Canada. Most Cajuns live in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

Question: From what language do French and Spanish come?

Answer: French, Spanish, and other languages developed from Latin during the Middle Ages.

Question: How many languages did the Indians of pre-Columbian South America speak?

Answer: South American Indians spoke more than 500 languages, and the peoples of Middle America had at least an additional 80 languages.