Top 10 hardest languages to learn

世界上最难学的十种语言

Many languages have been claimed to be the toughest one to learn. Here follow ten candidates for the title of "hardest language to learn," as released by the United Nations Educational Scientific and

Cultural Organization. This list of 10 candidates includes an explanation as of why they made this list. Read it and find out whether these languages are worth their "tough as nails" reputation.

数种语言自称为世上最难学的语言之一。下面就是竞争“最难学语言”的十门候选语，该名单由联合国教科文组织发放。其中包括了入选排序的理由。阅读该资料，看看这些语言是否真的像其名声那样让人却步。 Top 10: French

第十名：法语

As an official language in 29 countries, French is a challenging language. However, it can be seen as both easy and hard, depending on the learner's native language. French is a Roman language. If the learner's grasp of other Roman languages such as Italian, Portuguese and Spanish is strong, French will be a very quick and enjoyable new language to acquire.Otherwise, for those coming from a completely different language family, learning French would be considerably more difficult. Its pronunciation follows very strict rules based on the spelling, which is often based more on history than phonology. 作为29个国家的官方语言，法语具有足够的挑战性。然而，根据学习者不同的母语，它却可简单也可困难。如果学习者良好地掌握了罗马语系的其他语言，如意大利语、葡萄牙语或西班牙语，那么法语就会成为一门快速入门又能轻松掌握的语言。然而，对那些来自完全不搭边的语言家庭的人，学法语就非常艰难了。法语的发音严格遵循其拼写规则，相较于音韵学，它更多的是基于历史。

Top 9: Danish

第九名：丹麦语

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by some 6 million people.The sound system of Danish is in many ways unusual among the world's languages, which makes it one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, as the spoken language usually does not sound anything like its written version.

丹麦语出自北日耳曼语系，使用者约600万人。丹麦语的发音系统广泛，不同于世界上的其他语言，因为它拼读的方式完全有别于书写方式，这就使其成为了全球最难学的语言之一。

Top 8: Norwegian

第八名：挪威语

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway,where it is the official language. It is among the world's languages that's the most difficult to learn how to speak well. No officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian is in place and most Norwegians speak their own dialect at any given time.

出自被日耳曼语系的挪威语在挪威使用较广，也是其官方语言。挪威语的口语是世界上最难学好的。它没有官方认证的标准口语，在任何特定的时间挪威人都会说他们的方言。

Top 7: German

第七名：德语

As one of the world's major languages, German holds the largest number of native speakers within the European Union. It is a language which contains several standard dialects, both in its spoken and

written forms. As an inflected language with three grammatical genders, it has a large number of words deriving from the same root.

作为世界上的主要语言之一，德语是欧盟使用者人数最庞大的语言。这门语言涵盖了多种标准方言，无论是口语还是书面上。作为拥有三种语法范畴的有影响力的语言，德语大量的词汇都出自于同一根源。 Top 6: Finnish

第六名：芬兰语

As a language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland,Finnish is hard to learn for its

extremely complicated grammar and"endless derivative suffixes." Finnish employ sex tensive modifiers to verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives and numerals, depending on their roles in the sentence.

作为芬兰使用人数最多的语言，芬兰语因其极复杂的语法和“无止境的衍生后缀”而成了难学语言。 Top 5: Japanese

第五名：日语

Japanese is an East Asian language spoken primarily in Japan. According to documents,Chinese had a considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese.Since 1945, it has borrowed a

large number of words from English, especially vocabulary relating to technology. One major reason which makes the language so hard to learn is that the written code is different from the spoken code. In addition, Japanese has an extensive grammatical system to express politeness and formalities

日语是东亚语之一，主要使用地为日本。根据记录，中文对旧式日语的词汇和音韵有极其重要的影响。自从19xx年起，日语就从英语中引入了大量词汇，特别是科技领域。使日语难学的主要原因就是其书写顺序和拼读顺序不一致。此外，因其礼貌性和正式性，日语还具有相当广泛的语法系统。

Top 4: Icelandic

第四名：冰岛语

Icelandic, a North Germanic language, is the main language of Iceland.Icelandic is hard to learn

because of its archaic vocabulary and complex grammar. Icelandic retains many grammatical features of other ancient Germanic languages, and modern Icelandic is still a heavily inflected language.

冰岛语，北日耳曼语族语言，也是冰岛主要语言。冰岛语因其古老的词汇和复杂的语法而难学。它具有古德语的多种语法特征，现代的冰岛语仍然是门有影响力的语言。

Top 3: Arabic

第三名：阿拉伯语

Arabic, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic language family, includes both the literary language and varieties of Arabic spoken across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.The language has a complex and unusual method in constructing words from a basic root.For instance, nouns in Literary Arabic have three grammatical cases, three numbers, two genders and three "states."

阿拉伯语，属于亚非语系语言家族，它包括中东、北非和非洲之角的文学语言和阿拉伯口语类。该语言根据词根，通过复杂且特别的方式构词。比如，在阿拉伯文学用语中，有三种语法格，三种数字，两种性别和三种“时态。”

Top 2: Greek

第二名：希腊语

As an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, the Greek language features the longest and most documented history. It is spoken mainly across Greece and Cyprus. Along its history, its syllabic structure has remained constant. It has a mixed syllable structure,allowing for relatively complex combinations of sounds. In addition,Greek possesses an extensive set of productive derivational affixes and a rich inflectional system.

混合的音节结构，也让发音组合变得相对复杂。此外，希腊语拥有一体化的生产派生词缀和丰富的曲折词缀系统。

Top 1: Chinese

第一名：中文

Chinese forms one of the branches of the Sino-Tibetan language family and over one billion people can name it as their native language. The relationship between the spoken and written Chinese language is rather complex. Its written form has no clues as to how it is actually pronounced. The tone system also is a pain because there are many homo phones in Chinese only distinguishable by the four tones. Even this is often not enough unless the actual context and exact phrase are identified.

中文是汉藏语系的一个分支，乃10多亿人的母语。中文拼读和书写间的关联甚是复杂。仅看字体根本无法知道如何发其音。语音系统也是一大障碍，因为中文有太多的同音字，又仅靠四个声调来区分。然这远远是不够的，除非实际的上下文和相应的短语已经足够明确。

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? n. 候选人，候补者；应试者 grasp [ɡrɑ:sp, ɡr?sp] n. 抓住；理解；控制vt. 抓住；领会vi. 抓 acquire [?'kwai?] vt. 获得；取得；学到；捕获 phonology [f?u'n?l?d?i] n. 音系学；音韵学；语音体系 dialect ['dai?lekt] n. 方言，土话；同源语；行话；个人用语特征adj. 方言的 extensive [ik'stensiv]

adj. 广泛的；大量的；广阔的

 

第二篇：寻找世界上最难学的语言

《经济学人》专题：寻找世界上最难学的语言

一些探讨英语语言的书籍常对英语的难度和独特风格大为赞叹。美国方言学家理查德·莱德尔在《疯狂英语》一书中问到：“为什么你的鼻子会跑（流涕），而你的脚却会闻呢（脚臭）？”比尔·布莱森在《母语：英语及其来龙去脉》中说：“对不够谨慎的外国人来说，英语充满了陷阱??想象一下，作为外国人，硬要理解为什么英语里‘撒谎’用‘tell A lie’，‘说真话’却用‘tell THE truth’，这多难啊。”

其实，如果我们用事实稍加质疑，就会发现这种观点是站不住脚的。在很多语言中，“说谎”都用“a”，而“讲真话”则用“the”。部分原因在于谎话有很多，而真相往往只有一个。认为自己的母语复杂而神秘是很自然的。但英语其实很简单：基本没有动词变位，名词变复数很容易（大多数情况下只用加字母“s”），而且无需记忆词性。

讲英语的人在学其他语言的时候，都同意这点。西班牙语的动词现在时有六种形态，过去时、未完成时、将来时、条件句、虚拟句以及另外两种过去时虚拟式也各自有六种形态，加起来一共是48种。德语有三种词性，而且似乎毫无规律可言。马克·吐温就曾提出疑问：“为什么妙龄女郎没有性别，而萝卜却有。”（M?dchen是中性词，Steckrübe是阴性。）

英语的拼写或许是最特殊的。虽然法语与英语也有得一拼，法语有十三种拼写组合发“o”音：o, ot, ots, os, ocs, au, aux, aud, auds, eau, eaux, ho还有 ?。有语言家说，英语“Ghoti”一词甚至可以读作“fish”：因为gh在“cough”中念“f”，o在“women”中念“i”，ti在“motion”中念"sh"。但是，拼写并不能完全决定一门语言的复杂程度；英语是门比较简单的语言，只是拼写很奇怪。

对很多英语使用者来说，最“难学”的语言或许要数拉丁语了。拉丁语中，所有名词都有格的变化，即词尾要说明该词在句子中的作用（主语、直接宾语、所有格等等）。格一共有六种，动词与之相搭配有五种变化形式。这个语法系统还有很多的特殊情况。对很多学童来说，拉丁语是多年的课堂噩梦。但语法规则也赋予了拉丁语词序上的灵活性。如果主语词尾有主语标记，那么主语就不必须出现在句首。所以，许多旧时学者都倾慕拉丁语的威严高贵——更因自己掌握了拉丁语而自恋不已。会拉丁语（还有希腊语，因为希腊语也存在类似问题），曾长期被视作受过良好教育的人的标志。

但是，拉丁语和希腊语真的很难吗？这两门语言都属于印欧语系，是英语的近亲，和其他一些语言比起来，简直是小儿科。一门语言，距离英语及其亲戚语言越远，就越难学。我们评估其他语言对讲英语的人有多难学，这为我们认识世界范围内语言的差异提供了指南。

一词未学前，外国人就能因不同语言发音的差异而感到震撼。人们一听到法语的小舌音、摩擦音，或者德语（和苏格兰语）的喉音，就会对语言本身和语言的使用者产生各种想象。其实发音体系还有更富杂的内容。比如说，元音远远没有a, e, i, o, u和一些情况下的y这几个字母这么简单。在英语中，一个元音字母有超过五到六种发音（如a在father，fate，fat中发音不同）。欧洲语言中的元音区别更大；德语中有变音，法语、葡萄牙语和波兰语中则有鼻音。

还有更富有异域风情的元音，比如带声调的平上去入等等。汉语中最大的分支普通话有四种声调，所以英语中的“ma”在汉语中就有四种不同的发音，以及各不相同的意思。这与汉

语方言相比还算是简单的。广东话有六种声调，闽南话有七到八种。一个字的音调可以受到临近字音调的影响，这其中有着复杂的规则。

辅音要更复杂。一些辅音（以p，t，k，m和n为常见）存在于多数语言中。但辅音的种类繁多，可谓眼花缭乱，如外呼音（空气从鼻或口腔中呼出），吸气音（空气从鼻与口腔中呼入），外爆音（口气从口腔中排出的同时声门阻塞呼吸），咽音（咽部收缩），上颚音（舌抬向上颚）等等。很多语系的语言都存在难发的辅音。东亚地区的语言有带声调的元音，高加索东北部地区的语言以辅音复杂而闻名：尤比克语有78个辅音。与之形成对比的是南岛语族，它们可能是所有语系中发音最简单的。

或许最具异国风情的发音要数嗒嘴音了——它们是“与肺无关”的辅音，发音时无需来自肺部的气流。最有名的嗒嘴音语言使用于非洲南部。南非广为使用的科萨语就以嗒嘴音著名。科萨一词的首音就是嗒嘴音，它类似于讲英语的人唤马时发出的声音。

说到发声复杂，有一种语言格外突出。!Xó?语的使用者只有几千，多数位于博茨瓦纳，它有极多的特殊发音。元音包括简单音，咽音，刺耳音，气音，而且有四个声调。还有五种基本的点击音以及17种伴随音。!Xó?语权威专家Tony Traill为学习发音，喉部竟长出了一个肿块。深入研究显示，成年!Xó?语使用者都有这种肿块（儿童则尚未发育出肿块。）

除发声之外，还有语法问题。这一点上，一些欧洲语言要比拉丁语和希腊语等难的多。拉丁语六种格的变化与爱沙尼亚语的14种相比，真是小巫见大巫了。爱沙尼亚语包括内格，从格，近处格，还充斥着各种不规则现象和例外情况。与爱沙尼亚语同属芬兰—乌戈尔语族的其他亲戚语言也是如此。斯拉夫语系在描述过去发生的事物时，则要求使用者讲明动作是否已经完成。语言学家把这种现象称为“体”。英语中也有体，比如，“我走（I go）”和“我要走了（I am going）”间就有区别。用斯拉夫语表达“走”这个动词，有多种说法，取决于是步行，乘车、飞机、船还是什么其他的交通工具。看来对俄国人或波兰人来说，旅程本身果然比目的地还要重要啊。（译者注：俄语和波兰语属斯拉夫语系。）

欧洲以外的情况就更复杂了。比如说词性吧。马克吐温关于德语词性的笑话说明，在大多数语言中，词性与物理性别的关系不大。其实，“词性（gender）”一词与“类别（genre）”有关，它仅仅指出于语法目的将名词归类。语言学家用“名词类（noun classes）”代替词性，来描述事物的形状、大小或是否有生命，但类别的划分规则往往并不明确。语言学家Goerge Lakoff曾令人难忘地把迪尔巴尔语（使用于澳大利亚东北部）的一个名词类描述为“包括女人，火和危险物”。有些语言的词性划分很个性化，因此很难学。秘鲁的波拉语有超过350种名词类。

用粘着法构词的语言把多个语义点汇集在单个词汇中，这在外国人看来很有魅力。语言学家把一个语义单位称作一个词素，如“tree（树）”，或“un-（前缀“否”）”。一些语言将词素结合在一起。英语趣词“antidisestablishmentarianism（反对政教分离主义）”中有七个语素（"anti", "dis", "establish", "-ment"名词性后缀, "-ari"，"-an"和"-ism"）。这在英语中很不寻常，但在土耳其语等语言中却相当普遍。土耳其人创造了如“?ekoslovakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmissiniz?”这样奇异的短语，意思是“你是不是不能被我们变成捷克斯洛伐克人的那种人？”语言学家Ilker Aytürk举过一个更贴近生活的例子：“Evlerindemis?esine rahattilar”。如果你请的客人把家里弄得一团糟，那你就可以用这两个

词：“他们太无所顾忌了，好像在自己家似的”。

Yes we (but not you) can

是的，我们（不包括你）可以

格，词性和粘着法构词代表了是欧洲复杂的语言现象。但对讲英语的人来说，真正难学的语言会让他们思考从没意识到的问题。比如说“我们”。在所罗门群岛的瓜依沃语中，“我们”有两种形式：“我和你”，以及“我和他人（不包括你）”。瓜依沃语中不光有单数和复数，还有双数和若干的概念。英语中用“我们”一词走遍天下，瓜依沃语就得分“我们两个”，“我们几个”和“我们很多人”。这三个词各有两种形式，一种包含性的（“我们，包括你在内”），一种排除性的。不难想象，在一些交际场合中，如果不得不挑明这种区别，那会多么尴尬啊。

新几内亚的Berik语中也存在这种英语人士从未考虑过的、包含着特殊信息的词汇。动词通常必须加后缀，来说明事情在一天中发生的时间；如Telbener的意思是“（他）在晚上喝酒”。当动词后接宾语时，动词词尾则要说明宾语的大小：kitobana，意思是“在日光下把三件大型物体给予某人”。一些动词词尾甚至要说明发生的动作与讲话人的位置关系：gwerantena，意思是“把一件大型物体放在了附近的低地上”。班图语系中的Chindali语也有类似的特征。人们不能简单地说某事发生过，而是必须加动词后缀，来说明事情到底是刚刚发生的，是今天早些时候发生的，是昨天发生的，还是前天发生的。将来时也是一个道理。

所有种类的语言在大脑中的运作方式是否大致相同呢？语言学家们对此有着激烈的争论。诺姆·乔姆斯基等人认为相同，也有人认为不同。后者的观点是由20世纪初的美国语言学家本杰明·李·沃尔夫提出的，他争论说，不同的语言会改变或束缚大脑的思考方式。

沃尔夫主义曾长期遭到批评，但近些年却又重新流行了起来。比如说，来自斯坦福大学的雷拉·波洛狄特斯基指出，澳大利亚北部的Kuuk Thaayorre土著民族语言中没有“左”和“右”这两个词，只有“北”和“东南”这种表示绝对方向的词。（比如：“你西南方的那条腿上有一只蚂蚁”。）波洛狄特斯基女士说，任何一个Kuuk Thaayorre族儿童都能轻而易举地指认出东南方在哪里，但是，如果你让一屋子的斯坦福教授迅速指出东南方在哪里，结果不会比瞎蒙的强多少。Kuuk Thayoorre人见面的标准问候语是：“你要去哪儿？”回答则类似于“去东北偏北，不远不近的地方”。波洛狄特斯基女士说，由于西方人分不清东西南北，他们连个招呼都打不了。普适主义者则反驳说，新沃尔夫主义者找到的都是些琐碎的语言特征，流于表面，这不足以证明语言确实会对思维产生束缚。

讲了这么多，那么世上最难的语言究竟是哪个呢？《经济学人》杂志在慎重权衡之后，认为最难的是东亚马逊地区的图卡诺安语。图卡诺安语的发音系统包括简单的辅音和几个鼻化元音，并不像尤比克语和!Xó?语那么难。但是它与土耳其语一样，严重依赖粘着法构词，所以一个词就有复杂的意思，如hóab?siriga，意思是“我不知道怎样写字”。它还和瓜依沃语一样，有两个“我们”，一个包含性的，一个排除性的。图卡诺语系及其近亲戚语言的名词类（词性）大约共有50到140种。有的名词类很少见，如“不紧密附着在树上的树皮类”，这个词类可以扩展，如“宽松裤”和“劈裂了的湿胶合板”等词都属于这类。

图卡诺语有一个最吸引人的特征，它足以让任何一个新闻工作者不寒而栗。图卡诺语的动词后缀要求说话人说明自己是怎么知道某事的。比如，Diga ape-wi意思是：“这个男孩玩过足

球（我知道，因为我亲眼看到了）”。diga ape-hiyi的意思则是：“这个男孩玩过足球（我是猜的）”。说英语时，这种信息可讲可不讲，但是说图卡诺语时，这是动词后不得不加的词尾。这样的语言会迫使说话人三思，他们自称了解的那些事情，到底是从哪里知道的。

语言学家想知道，语言究竟是怎样在大脑中运作的。而图卡诺语的实据性等就是他们的研究材料。在全世界六千中语言中，只有几百种被全面研究过，因此，语言学家门还会找到更多的研究材料。他们将发现新的难学的语言。如今，很多语言的使用者只有寥寥数百人。会说图卡诺语的人不到一千个。尤比克语则在19xx年时消亡了。现存的语言中，约一半将在一个世纪内消亡。语言学家们正在加紧步伐，学习世界上各种最奇怪的语言，在它们被现代化与全球化的浪潮湮灭之前，做出最大的努力。

In search of the world’s hardest language

A CERTAIN genre of books about English extols the language’s supposed difficulty and idiosyncrasy. “Crazy English”, by an American folk-linguist, Richard Lederer, asks “how is it that your nose can run and your feet can smell?”. Bill Bryson’s “Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way” says that “English is full of booby traps for the unwary foreigner…Imagine being a foreigner and having to learn that in English one tells a lie but the truth.”

Such books are usually harmless, if slightly fact-challenged. You tell “a” lie but “the” truth in many languages, partly because many lies exist but truth is rather more definite. It may be natural to think that your own tongue is complex and mysterious. But English is pretty simple: verbs hardly conjugate; nouns pluralise easily (just add “s”, mostly) and there are no genders to remember.

English-speakers appreciate this when they try to learn other languages. A Spanish verb has six present-tense forms, and six each in the preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, subjunctive and two different past subjunctives, for a total of 48 forms. German has three genders, seemingly so random that Mark Twain wondered why “a young lady has no sex, but a turnip has”. (M?dchen is neuter, whereas Steckrübe is feminine.)

English spelling may be the most idiosyncratic, although French gives it a run for the money with 13 ways to spell the sound “o”: o, ot, ots, os, ocs, au, aux, aud, auds, eau, eaux, ho and ?. “Ghoti,” as wordsmiths have noted, could be pronounced “fish”: gh as in “cough”, o as in “women” and ti as in “motion”. But spelling is ancillary to a language’s real complexity; English is a relatively simple language, absurdly spelled.

Perhaps the “hardest” language studied by many Anglophones is Latin. In it, all nouns are marked for case, an ending that tells what function the word has in a sentence (subject, direct object, possessive and so on). There are six cases, and five different patterns for declining verbs into them. This system, and its many exceptions, made for years of classroom torture for many children. But it also gives Latin a flexibility of word order. If the subject is marked as a subject with an ending, it need not come at the beginning of a sentence. This ability made many scholars of bygone days admire Latin’s majesty—and admire themselves for mastering it. Knowing Latin (and Greek, which presents similar problems) was long the sign of an educated person.

Yet are Latin and Greek truly hard? These two genetic cousins of English, in the Indo-European language family, are child’s play compared with some. Languages tend to get “harder” the farther one moves from English and its relatives. Assessing how languages are tricky for English-speakers gives a guide to how the world’s languages differ overall.

Even before learning a word, the foreigner is struck by how differently languages can sound. The uvular r’s of French and the fricative, glottal ch’s of German (and Scots) are essential to one’s imagination of these languages and their speakers. But sound systems get a lot more difficult than that. Vowels, for example, go far beyond a, e, i, o and u, and sometimes y. Those represent more than five or six sounds in English (consider the a’s in father, fate and fat.) And vowels of European languages vary more widely; think of the umlauted ones of German, or the nasal ones of French, Portuguese and Polish.

Yet much more exotic vowels exist, for example that carry tones: pitch that rises, falls, dips, stays low or high, and so on. Mandarin, the biggest language in the Chinese family, has four tones, so that what sounds just like “ma” in English has four distinct sounds, and meanings. That is relatively simple compared with other Chinese varieties. Cantonese has six tones, and Min Chinese dialects seven or eight. One tone can also affect neighbouring tones’ pronunciation through a series of complex rules.

Consonants are more complex. Some (p, t, k, m and n are common) appear in most languages, but consonants can come in a blizzard of varieties known as egressive (air coming from the nose or mouth), ingressive (air coming back in the nose and mouth), ejective (air expelled from the mouth while the breath is blocked by the glottis), pharyngealised (the pharynx constricted), palatised (the tongue raised toward the palate) and more. And languages with hard-to-pronounce consonants cluster in families. Languages in East Asia tend to have tonal vowels, those of the north-eastern Caucasus are known for consonantal complexity: Ubykh has 78 consonant sounds. Austronesian languages, by contrast, may have the simplest sounds of any language family.

Perhaps the most exotic sounds are clicks—technically “non-pulmonic” consonants that do not use the airstream from the lungs for their articulation. The best-known click languages are in southern Africa. Xhosa, widely spoken in South Africa, is known for its clicks. The first sound of the language’s name is similar to the click that English-speakers use to urge on a horse.

For sound complexity, one language stands out. !Xó?, spoken by just a few thousand, mostly in Botswana, has a blistering array of unusual sounds. Its vowels include plain, pharyngealised, strident and breathy, and they carry four tones. It has five basic clicks and 17 accompanying ones. The leading expert on the !Xó?, Tony Traill, developed a lump on his larynx from learning to make their sounds. Further research showed that adult !Xó?-speakers had the same lump (children had not developed it yet).

Beyond sound comes the problem of grammar. On this score, some European languages are far harder than are, say, Latin or Greek. Latin’s six cases cower in comparison with Estonian’s 14,

which include inessive, elative, adessive, abessive, and the system is riddled with irregularities and exceptions. Estonian’s cousins in the Finno-Ugric language group do much the same. Slavic languages force speakers, when talking about the past, to say whether an action was completed or not. Linguists call this “aspect”, and English has it too, for example in the distinction between “I go” and “I am going.” And to say “go” requires different Slavic verbs for going by foot, car, plane, boat or other conveyance. For Russians or Poles, the journey does matter more than the destination.

Beyond Europe things grow more complicated. Take gender. Twain’s joke about German gender shows that in most languages it often has little to do with physical sex. “Gender” is related to “genre”, and means merely a group of nouns lumped together for grammatical purposes. Linguists talk instead of “noun classes”, which may have to do with shape or size, or whether the noun is animate, but often rules are hard to see. George Lakoff, a linguist, memorably described a noun class of Dyirbal (spoken in north-eastern Australia) as including “women, fire and dangerous things”. To the extent that genders are idiosyncratic, they are hard to learn. Bora, spoken in Peru, has more than 350 of them.

Agglutinating languages—that pack many bits of meaning into single words—are a source of fascination for those who do not speak them. Linguists call a single unit of meaning, whether “tree” or “un-”, a morpheme, and some languages bind them together obligatorily. The English curiosity “antidisestablishmentarianism” has seven morphemes (“anti”, “dis”, “establish”, “-ment”, “-ari""-an” and “-ism”). This is unusual in English, whereas it is common in languages such as Turkish. Turks coin fanciful phrases such as “?ekoslovakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmissiniz?”, meaning “Were you one of those people whom we could not make into a Czechoslovakian?” But Ilker Aytürk, a linguist, offers a real-life example: “Evlerindemis?esine rahattilar”. Assuming you have just had guests who made a mess, these two words mean “They were as carefree as if they were in their own house.”

Yes we (but not you) can

This proliferation of cases, genders and agglutination, however, represents a multiplication of phenomena that are known in European languages. A truly boggling language is one that requires English speakers to think about things they otherwise ignore entirely. Take “we”. In Kwaio, spoken in the Solomon Islands, “we” has two forms: “me and you” and “me and someone else (but not you)”. And Kwaio has not just singular and plural, but dual and paucal too. While English gets by with just “we”, Kwaio has “we two”, “we few” and “we many”. Each of these has two forms, one inclusive (“we including you”) and one exclusive. It is not hard to imagine social situations that would be more awkward if you were forced to make this distinction explicit.

Berik, a language of New Guinea, also requires words to encode information that no English speaker considers. Verbs have endings, often obligatory, that tell what time of day something happened; telbener means “*he+ drinks in the evening”. Where verbs take objects, an ending will tell their size: kitobana means “gives three large objects to a man in the sunlight.” Some verb-endings even say where the action of the verb takes place relative to the speaker: gwerantena means “to place a large object in a low place nearby”. Chindali, a Bantu language,

has a similar feature. One cannot say simply that something happened; the verb ending shows whether it happened just now, earlier today, yesterday or before yesterday. The future tense works in the same way.

A fierce debate exists in linguistics between those, such as Noam Chomsky, who think that all languages function roughly the same way in the brain and those who do not. The latter view was propounded by Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist of the early 20th century, who argued that different languages condition or constrain the mind’s habits of thought.

German has three genders. Mark Twain wondered why “a young lady has no sex, but a turnip has”Whorfianism has been criticised for years, but it has been making a comeback. Lera Boroditsky of Stanford University, for example, points to the Kuuk Thaayorre, aboriginals of northern Australia who have no words for “left” or “right”, using instead absolute directions such as “north” and “south-east” (as in “You have an ant on your south-west leg”). Ms Boroditsky says that any Kuuk Thaayorre child knows which way is south-east at any given time, whereas a roomful of Stanford professors, if asked to point south-east quickly, do little better than chance. The standard Kuuk Thayoorre greeting is “where are you going?”, with an answer being something like “north-north-east, in the middle distance.” Not knowing which direction is which, Ms Boroditsky notes, a Westerner could not get past “hello”. Universalists retort that such neo-Whorfians are finding trivial surface features of language: the claim that language truly constricts thinking is still not proven.

With all that in mind, which is the hardest language? On balance The Economist would go for Tuyuca, of the eastern Amazon. It has a sound system with simple consonants and a few nasal vowels, so is not as hard to speak as Ubykh or !Xó?. Like Turkish, it is heavily agglutinating, so that one word, hóab?siriga means “I do not know how to write.” Like Kwaio, it has two words for “we”, inclusive and exclusive. The noun classes (genders) in Tuyuca’s language family (including close relatives) have been estimated at between 50 and 140. Some are rare, such as “bark that does not cling closely to a tree”, which can be extended to things such as baggy trousers, or wet plywood that has begun to peel apart.

Most fascinating is a feature that would make any journalist tremble. Tuyuca requires verb-endings on statements to show how the speaker knows something. Diga ape-wi means that “the boy played soccer (I know because I saw him)”, while diga ape-hiyi means “the boy played soccer (I assume)”. English can provide such information, but for Tuyuca that is an obligatory ending on the verb. Evidential languages force speakers to think hard about how they learned what they say they know.

Linguists ask precisely how language works in the brain, and examples such as Tuyuca’s evidentiality are their raw material. More may be found, as only a few hundred of the world’s 6,000 languages have been extensively mapped, and new ways will appear for them to be difficult. Yet many are spoken by mere hundreds of people. Fewer than 1,000 people speak Tuyuca. Ubykh died in 1992. Half of today’s languages may be gone in a century. Linguists are racing to learn what they can before the forces of modernisation and globalisation quieten the strangest tongues.