Nightly Quiz….

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Posted By: Dan Cohen

Safari

So we are having dinner tonight and Elana, my NPR and talk radio-junkie wife, gives us one of the tidbits she learned while listening to NPR today. The question-

“How many different languages are in use in the world at this moment.”

I made my guess and my father-in-law thought I was way too high. (“You’re nuts.” were his exact works.) Well I wasn’t that far off.

So I ask you… How many languages (not dialects but LANGUAGES) are in use today world wide?

Don’t be lame and cheat by Googling it.

JUST GUESS…

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About the Author

Dan Cohen
Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.

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4 Comments on "Nightly Quiz…."

  1. swisspotluck | August 11, 2011 at 6:47 pm |

    I ought to have some idea as I got a degree in Linguistics. But I have no clue. Actually, if you ask me anything about linguistics I pretty much have no clue. I guess off the top of my head without Googling would be 1237. Now I have to go Google and find out how many there are.

  2. Douglas Moran | August 11, 2011 at 7:21 pm |

    I thought it was around 700, but I think it depends on how you define a “language”. For example, do Cantonese and Shanghaiese count as different languages, or just one? But it’s up in the hundreds, for sure. Makes you wonder.

  3. erinlindsey524 | August 12, 2011 at 12:35 am |

    maybe a couple thousand. But I might be guessing too high.

  4. David Min | August 12, 2011 at 11:35 pm |

    1237 seems so specific!

    I would guess around 1000.

Comments are closed.