Quiz of the Day
Languages of the World
Saturday, 26 September 2026
The European Day of Languages is 26 Sep — a quiz on world languages, alphabets, loanwords and linguistic curiosities.
1. Which language has the most native speakers in the world?
- Mandarin Chinese
- English
- Spanish
- Hindi
Mandarin Chinese has by far the most native (first-language) speakers, numbering roughly 900 million to over a billion. English actually ranks higher when second-language speakers are counted, making it the most widely spoken language overall. Spanish and Hindi round out the top group of native-speaker languages.
2. On which date is the European Day of Languages celebrated each year?
- 10 December
- 21 February
- 26 September
- 1 May
The European Day of Languages has been celebrated on 26 September every year since 2001, an initiative of the Council of Europe. Its goal is to promote language learning and celebrate Europe's linguistic diversity. The 21st of February, by contrast, is International Mother Language Day, declared by UNESCO.
3. Which of these languages is written using the Cyrillic alphabet?
- Turkish
- Greek
- Russian
- Vietnamese
Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th–10th centuries and named after the missionary Saint Cyril. Turkish switched from Arabic to a Latin-based script in 1928, and Vietnamese uses a Latin alphabet with added diacritics. Greek, meanwhile, has its own ancient alphabet.
4. The English words 'sushi', 'karaoke', and 'tsunami' are all loanwords from which language?
- Mandarin
- Thai
- Korean
- Japanese
All three words entered English directly from Japanese. 'Karaoke' literally combines 'kara' (empty) and 'oke', a shortening of the English loanword 'orchestra'. 'Tsunami' means 'harbour wave', and its use spread worldwide especially after major seismic events.
5. The Rosetta Stone was the key to deciphering which ancient writing system?
- Cuneiform
- Mayan glyphs
- Egyptian hieroglyphs
- Linear B
The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, carries the same decree in three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and ancient Greek. Because scholars could read the Greek, it provided the crucial bridge for decoding hieroglyphs. Jean-François Champollion announced his breakthrough decipherment in 1822.
6. 'Hola', 'gracias', and 'amigo' are everyday words in which language?
- Portuguese
- Italian
- Spanish
- French
These are common Spanish words for 'hello', 'thank you', and 'friend'. Spanish is a Romance language descended from Latin and is an official language in 20 countries. It is the second-most spoken native language in the world after Mandarin Chinese.
7. Esperanto, created in the late 1880s, is best described as what kind of language?
- A constructed international language
- An ancient dead language
- A sign language
- A dialect of Latin
Esperanto was devised by L. L. Zamenhof, a Polish ophthalmologist, who published his first book on it in 1887 under the pen name 'Doktoro Esperanto' (meaning 'one who hopes'). He designed it to be an easy-to-learn, politically neutral second language to foster international understanding. Today it has an estimated tens of thousands to a few million speakers worldwide, including some native speakers.
8. Amharic, an official language of Ethiopia, is written in which type of script?
- Chinese characters
- The Arabic abjad
- The Latin alphabet
- An abugida (the Ge'ez script)
Amharic is written using the Ge'ez script, an abugida in which each character represents a consonant-plus-vowel syllable. It is one of the few indigenous writing systems still in widespread use in Africa. Amharic is the second-most spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic.
9. The English word 'algebra' derives from which language?
- Persian
- Latin
- Arabic
- Greek
'Algebra' comes from the Arabic 'al-jabr', meaning 'the reunion of broken parts', from the title of a 9th-century treatise by the mathematician al-Khwarizmi. His name is also the root of the word 'algorithm'. Many mathematical and scientific terms in English, such as 'algorithm', 'cipher', and 'zenith', have Arabic origins.
10. According to Guinness World Records, which language has the largest alphabet, with 74 characters?
- Georgian
- Russian
- Khmer
- Greek
Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, holds the record for the largest alphabet with 74 letters, though some are no longer in common use. It is an abugida derived from ancient Brahmic scripts of India. By comparison, English uses just 26 letters and Russian's Cyrillic 33.
11. What makes Basque (Euskara), spoken in parts of Spain and France, unusual among European languages?
- It is a language isolate
- It is written in Cyrillic
- It descends from Latin
- It is a Celtic language
Basque is a language isolate, meaning it has no known relationship to any other living language, including its Indo-European neighbours like Spanish and French. Linguists believe it may descend from a language spoken in the region before the arrival of Indo-European tongues. It is the oldest surviving language in Western Europe.
12. Mandarin, Cantonese, and Tibetan all belong to which language family?
- Sino-Tibetan
- Uralic
- Dravidian
- Austronesian
The Sino-Tibetan family includes the Chinese languages (Mandarin, Cantonese and others) as well as Tibetan and Burmese, and is one of the largest language families by number of speakers. Many of its languages are tonal, meaning pitch changes the meaning of a word. Mandarin alone makes it the family with the most native speakers on Earth.
13. The Korean alphabet, Hangul, was created in the 15th century under which king?
- King Gojong
- King Yeongjo
- King Sejong the Great
- King Taejo
Hangul was promulgated in 1446 under King Sejong the Great of the Joseon dynasty, who wanted a script that ordinary people could learn easily. Its letters were deliberately designed so that consonant shapes reflect the position of the tongue and lips. It is often praised by linguists as one of the most scientifically designed writing systems.
14. Which country is the most linguistically diverse on Earth, home to over 800 living languages?
- Indonesia
- Papua New Guinea
- Nigeria
- India
Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the world, with more than 800 distinct living languages, accounting for over a tenth of all languages on the planet. Its rugged terrain historically isolated communities, allowing separate languages to flourish. Tok Pisin, an English-based creole, serves as one of the main languages that ties the nation together.
15. The word 'robot', first popularised by a 1920 play, comes from which language?
- Polish
- Russian
- Czech
- German
The word 'robot' was introduced in Karel Čapek's 1920 Czech play 'R.U.R.' (Rossum's Universal Robots), and Karel credited his brother Josef with suggesting it. It derives from the Czech word 'robota', meaning forced labour or drudgery. The play depicts artificial workers who eventually rise up against their human creators.