#29: LOL: Lots of Languages
The world has a lot more languages than most people realize. When they consider the world’s languages, people tend to think of just the major ones, but there are, in fact, thousands of them out there. Many of them, however, are spoken by only a small number of people in an isolated area.
To see the truth, you only have to look at Papua New Guinea, an island nation north of Australia. Because of the island’s rugged terrain, many living populations are isolated, causing their languages to diverge and evolve and eventually become entirely different languages. 820 languages is pretty impressive for a place with a population of 9 million.