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Languages - True or False?
Guess if the following statements regarding different languages of the world are true or false.
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Last updated: January 1, 2022
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| First submitted | July 1, 2021 |
| Times taken | 1,663 |
| Average score | 66.7% |
| Rating | 5.00 | Report this quiz | Report |
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1. Papua New Guinea has over 7,000 native languages, the largest number in the world
Although it is true that PNG has the greatest language diversity, it is 'only' around 800 languages; around 6,500 languages are spoken in the world.
True
False
2. In English, the word 'girl' used to mean just "child" regardless of the gender.
That was until the late 1400s, meaning young unmarried woman since about 1530
True
False
3. Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian are regional varieties of the same language, with a high level of mutual intelligibility.
Latvian and Lithuanian are both Baltic language, but are not intelligible. Estonian is an Uralic language, closer to Finnish or Hungarian.
True
False
4. Korean is a relatively new language, being almost indistinguishable from Japanese until the mid 1700s.
Old Korean dates back to at least year 600 AD.
True
False
5. German is the second most spoken language in at least one state of the US.
In North Dakota, German is more widely spoken than Spanish.
True
False
6. An average Chinese person will know around 30,000 Chinese characters when finishing high school.
Dictionaries may list up to 20,000, but an educated person would know around 8,000 with only 2,000-3,000 used in common language.
True
False
7. The word 'tsunami' isn't an actual Japanese word: it was invented during WWII by American soldiers and after that it was adopted into the general language.
It is Japanese and it means 'harbour wave'.
True
False
8. Although there are around 100 million of speakers of Swahili, native speakers are only around 20 million.
Swahili is considered a lingua franca in East and South Africa.
True
False
9. English has been the native language of all the US presidents so far.
Martin van Buren's first language was Dutch.
True
False
10. Kazakhstan is currently in the process of switching from cyrillic to latin alphabet.
Announced in 2017, the transition is expected to be finished by 2025.
True
False
11. Maltese language is derived from Arabic, being the only Semitic official language of the European Union.
True
False
12. The letter 'ñ', typically linked to Spanish, is also found in another languages such as Guarani, Quechua or Filipino.
True
False
13. Irish is the domestic language of around 70% of the population of the Republic of Ireland.
Studies show that around 40% of Irish people can actually speak it, but only a small % use it as their main domestic language,
True
False
14. In the 90s, a linguist tried to raise his son as the first native speaker of Klingon.
Dr d'Armond Speers failed as his son stopped speaking Klingon when he got older.
True
False
15. Vietnamese is a recognized minority language in the Czech Republic.
So are Greek, Slovak, Romani or Polish, among others.
True
False
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ld 'girl'"There is one answer that is probably incorrect, unfortunately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota#Languages
In 2010, German speakers outnumbered Spanish speakers in North Dakota by only about 150 people. Due to changing demographics, its almost certain there are more Spanish speakers now.