Top Languages

The world’s most popular languages, by number of native speakers:

  1. Chinese, 937 million
  2. English, 335 million
  3. Spanish, 332 million
  4. Hindi/Urdu, 291 million
  5. Arabic, 193 million
  6. Bengali, 189 million
  7. Malay/Indonesian, 176 million
  8. Portuguese, 170 million
  9. Russian, 165 million
  10. Japanese, 125 million

“The great thing about human language,” wrote Lewis Thomas, “is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.”

| Language

Latin Proverbs

Latin proverbs:

  • Audi alteram partem – “Hear the other side.”
  • Credo quia absurdum – “I believe it because it is absurd.”
  • Errare humanum est; perseverare diabolicum – “To err is human; to repeat error is of the devil.”
  • Ex nihilo nihil fit – “Nothing comes from nothing.”
  • Festina lente – “Make haste slowly.”
  • Gutta cavat lapidem – “Constant dropping wears the stone.”
  • Mundus vult decipi – “The world wants to be deceived.”
  • Natura non contristur – “Nature isn’t sentimental.”
  • Quem di diligunt, adulescens moritur – “Whom the gods love dies young.”
  • Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor – “I see the better way and approve it, but I follow the worse way.”

The motto of the Addams Family is Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc — “We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.”

| Language