Learning to speak or write a new language can be fun but it is not always easy. So, it goes without saying that some are easier to learn than others. However, if you’re just getting started with linguistics you may want to begin with something easy. Fortunately, our top 10 of the hardest languages should give you some idea as to what can be expected when trying to learn them.
No. 10. Tagalog
Tagalog is spoken by a quarter of the people in the Philippines. Its known for being extremely hard to learn owing to its strange grammar and sentence structure.
No. 9. Navajo
Spoken in the southwestern part of America, it is only spoken by around 170,000 people. It has similarities to Latin and Germanic so it can be challenging to learn for a person who does not have any references to similar languages. Navajo uses Latin alphabets, though attempts to write it were only made in the 1930s.
No. 8. Slovenian
It belongs to the South Slavic group of languages spoken by 2.5 million people in the world. Though most of the speakers live in Slovenia. The language leverages both the Lower and Upper Carniolan dialects.
No. 7. Afrikaans
Primarily a West Germanic language, it is spoken by residents of South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. It is an offshoot of various Dutch dialects making it a Dutch daughter language.
No. 6. Basque
Spoken in the Basque Country which spans through the northeastern part of Spain as well as the southwestern region of France. It is spoken by 27% of the population in the Basque territories and is notorious for being hard to learn even by native Spanish speakers.
No. 5. Welsh
Part of the Brythonic branch of mainly Celtic languages it spoken through Wales. It was also referred to as Cymic, Cambric, and British tongue. The number of Welsh speakers has been on the decline owing to its difficulty.
No. 4. Albanian
An Indo-European language it is spoken by residents of Albania, Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Kosovo. It is a centuries-old language and was first spoken by the original communities of Montenegro, Greece, and Italy. Though the difficult part of learning this language happens to be its unique vocabulary.
No. 3. Thai
It is also referred to as Central Thai or Siamese; it is the national language of Thailand. The vast majority of the words in the language has been taken from Sanskrit, Pali, and old Khmer. The language is known to have a pretty complex writing style.
No. 2. Arabic
Modern Arabic is a descendant of old or classical Arabic which was spoken during the 6th century. The twist though is that the Arabic you learn in class will help with reading and writing. Though speaking it with natives can be difficult since the pronunciation varies from one region to the next.
No. 1. Chinese
Chinese language takes on many forms that are very different from each other. While it is spoken by a fifth of the world’s population, it is one of the hardest languages to learn.