About Languages of the World Quiz
Canada has two official languages, English and French, and many Indigenous languages, from Cree, the most spoken, to Inuktitut, written in syllabics created in the 1840s. The Languages of the World Quiz starts at home and then travels the globe: where a language is spoken, how to say hello or thank you, which alphabet a language uses, which languages are related and where English words such as moose, skunk and raccoon came from. The questions are about settled facts, so you will not find shifting rankings of how many people speak each language, only counts that experts agree on.
How to play Languages of the World Quiz
- Press Start for the first of ten questions. The clock starts with it and stops at your last answer.
- Each question asks where a language is spoken, how to say a word, which alphabet it uses or where a word came from.
- Tap an answer, or press 1 to 4 (or A to D) on a keyboard. Answers are final: you see the right one and a one-line explanation, then press Next.
- Most correct answers ranks first, then the fastest time. Only a member’s first finished quiz of the day counts for the leaderboard.
Tips & strategy
- Look at the alphabet: Cyrillic, Arabic, Devanagari, Hangul and Greek letters each point to a small set of languages.
- Greetings travel with families of languages: the Romance languages share many words with French, which helps with Spanish and Italian.
- Borrowed words often keep a clue to their home, such as the “-oo” in kangaroo or the Algonquian roots of many North American animal names.
Languages of the World Quiz: questions and answers
Does the quiz cover Indigenous languages of Canada?
Yes, including Cree, Inuktitut, Mohawk and the syllabics used to write some of them, checked against Statistics Canada and language resources.
Do I need to know other languages to play?
No. Every question has four options and an explanation, so the quiz is a friendly way to pick up words and facts as you go.
How many questions does the Languages of the World Quiz have?
197 checked questions: 55 easy, 96 medium and 46 hard. Each day takes ten, easiest first, and a question doesn’t come back until its level has been used up.