Can You Identify These 15 Languages Just By Looking At Them?

By: J.P. Naomi
Estimated Completion Time
3 min
Can You Identify These 15 Languages Just By Looking At Them?
Image: Shutterstock

About This Quiz

The Ethnologue catalog of world languages currently lists 6,909 languages! Think you have what it takes to identify just 50 of them? Take this quiz now to put your skills to the test!
Spanish
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Korean
Japanese
Spanish
Spanish is the official language of 20 countries around the world. There are an estimated 470 million Spanish-speakers worldwide as of 2016.
Thai

Advertisement

Arabic 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Nepali
Italian
Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic is the official language of 28 states around the world. There are more than 300 million native speakers worldwide.
French

Advertisement

French
n/a
Which language do you see here?
French
French is the official language of the following countries: Belgium, Benin, Burkina, Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central, African, Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte, d'Ivoire, Democratic, Republic, of, the, Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial, Guinea, France, Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Monaco, Niger, Republic, of, the, Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo, and Vanuatu.
Russian
Punjabi
Tagalog

Advertisement

Russian
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Russian
Russian is the official language of four countries. They include: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Turkish
Vietnamese
Spanish

Advertisement

Mandarin
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Somali
Turkish
Greek
Mandarin
Mandarin is the official language of China. It is also spoken in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Advertisement

Greek
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Korean
Greek
Greek is the official language of Greece. It is also an official language of Cyprus, alongside Turkish.
Bengali
Cantonese

Advertisement

Italian
n/a
Which language do you see here?
German
Armenian
Italian
Italian is the native language to the following countries: Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Croatia, and Slovenia.
Hebrew

Advertisement

Thai
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Portuguese
French
Thai
Thai is the official language of Thailand. Other native speakers live in Lanna, Isan, Southern Thai, Northern Khmer, and Lao.
Hmong

Advertisement

Korean
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Haitian Creole
Korean
The capital and largest city of South Korea is Seoul. Seoul is home to more than half of the country's total population!
Malay
Greek

Advertisement

Armenian
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Armenian
Armenian is the official language of the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh. It is part of the Indo-European language family.
German
Japanese
Thai

Advertisement

Japanesse
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Spanish
Japanese
Japanese is the official language of Japan. The word Japanese is "Nihongo" in Japanese.
Polish
Khmer

Advertisement

Portuguese
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Hebrew
Burmese
Portuguese
Portuguese is spoken in the following countries: Portugal, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea,Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Macau, São Tomé and Principe, and East Timor.
Cantonese

Advertisement

Turkish
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Cantonese
Turkish
Turkish is the official language of Turkey. It is also spoken in the following countries: Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Northern Cyprus, Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Mandarin
Japanese

Advertisement

German
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Hindi
Italian
German
German is the official language of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland. It is also the official language of various municipalities and communes of Italy, Poland and Brazil.
Laotian

Advertisement

Hebrew
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Arabic
Korean
Hebrew
Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel. There are an estimated 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide.
Portuguese

Advertisement

French 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Polish
French
There are an estimated 150 million native French speakers throughout the world. Add in French-as-a-second-language speakers for a total of 274 million French speakers!
Lithuanian
Mandarin

Advertisement

Mandarin 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Russian
Mandarin
There are an estimated 960 million Mandarin native speakers across the world. There are up to 10 different dialects as well!
Spanish
Tagalog

Advertisement

spanish 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Spanish
Spanish is the official language of Puerto Rico as well we the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Nepali
Somali
Thai

Advertisement

Italian 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Hebrew
Turkish
French
Italian
There are an estimated 85 million native Italian speakers throughout the world. Italian is considered a Romance language.

Advertisement

Korean 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Armenian
Arabic
Korean
There are an estimated 77 million Korean native speakers in the world. Its standard forms are Munhwaŏ (North Korea) and Pyojuneo (South Korea).
Hindi

Advertisement

Japanesse 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
German
Japanese
The Japanese language is a member of the Japonic language family. Many debate over the notion that it is related to other language groups such as the Altaic, Ainu and Austroasiatic.
French
Portuguese

Advertisement

Turkish 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Turkish
Turkish is an Altaic language. Therefore it is much different from Indo-European languages. It has similarities to Mongolian and Kazakh.
Albanian
Greek
Hebrew

Advertisement

Hebrew 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Armenian
Hebrew
The Hebrew language is regulated by the Academy of Hebrew Language. The Academy of Hebrew Language was established by the Israeli government in 1953.
Hmong
Polish

Advertisement

Arabic 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Polish
Somali
Arabic
The Arabic language is defined as a Central Semitic language that first emerged in the Iron Age northwestern Arabia. It is now the most common language of the Arab world.
Korean

Advertisement

Russian 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Russian
Russian is not only the official language of Russia, it is also the official language of more than 38 different territories around the world.
Italian
Malay
Nepali

Advertisement

Greek 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Greek
Greek is spoken by minorities in many countries across the world. These include: Macedonia, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Armenia, Romania, Hungary, Syria, the United States, and Australia.
Russian
Mandarin
Thai

Advertisement

Thai 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Vietnamese
Thai
There are an estimated 20 million native Thai speakers worldwide. There are about 44 million Thai-as-a-second-language speakers.
Portuguese
Arabic

Advertisement

Armenian 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Polish
Japanese
Armenian
The Armenian language is written using the Armenian alphabet. It was introduced in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots.
Cantonese

Advertisement

Portuguese 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Portuguese
There are an estimated 215 million native Portuguese speakers worldwide. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation may be referred to as "Lusophone" in English and Portuguese.
Hebrew
Bengali
French

Advertisement

German 2
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Greek
Hindi
German
There are an estimated 90 million native-German speakers worldwide.
Haitian Creole

Advertisement

hebrew 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Arabic
Hebrew
Premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities and universities around the world. Modern Hebrew is the more frequent spoken language.
Burmese
Italian

Advertisement

Turkish 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Hebrew
Turkish
Turkish is the 22nd-most-spoken language in the world. There are an estimated 63 million native Turkish speakers.
Hmong
Karen

Advertisement

Japanesse 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Japanese
There are an estimated 125 million native Japanese speakers throughout the world. It is the ninth most spoken language in the world.
Turkish
Spanish
Hindi

Advertisement

Korean 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Khmer
Punjabi
Nepali
Korean
Korean is the native language of South Korea, North Korea and China. Korean is also spoken in the United States, Japan and Russia.

Advertisement

Italian 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Arabic
Italian
Italian, alongside Sardinian, is considered to be the closest to Latin of all of the Romance languages. Sardinian is the primary indigenous Romance language spoken on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Malay
Spanish

Advertisement

Greek 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Greek
There are an estimated 13 million Greek language speakers throughout the world. There is the ancient dialect and the modern dialect.
Hebrew
Turkish
Spanish

Advertisement

Russian 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Greek
Polish
Thai
Russian
Russian is an East Slavic language. Written examples of the Old East Slavonic language have been found dating back to the 10th century and beyond!

Advertisement

arabic 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Vietnamese
Arabic
The Arabic script was developed in 356 AD. It is written from right to left in a cursive style and includes 28 letters.
Turkish
Portuguese

Advertisement

spanish 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Portuguese
Laotian
Spanish
Spanish is considered the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.
Romanian

Advertisement

French 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Nepali
Korean
Punjabi
French
French is a Romance lanuage of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire.

Advertisement

german 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Polish
Lithuanian
Tagalog
German
Languages that are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch. These include Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish.

Advertisement

Portuguese 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Greek
Portuguese
The Portuguese alphabet consists of consonants: r, s, x and z and the digraphs ch, lh, nh, and rr.
Burmese
Hindi

Advertisement

Armenian 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Armenian
There are an estimated 12 million native Armenian speakers worldwide. It is an official minority language of Cyprus, Hungary, Iraq, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
Japanese
Cantonese
Hebrew

Advertisement

Thai 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
French
Thai
The spoken Thai language is most close to Laotian. While the two languages are written with different scripts, they are linguistically similar.
Polish
Khmer

Advertisement

Greek 3
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Greek
The Greek language is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It has the longest documented history of any living Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records.
German
Hmong
Italian

Advertisement

Russian 4
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Turkish
Hebrew
Russian
The Russian alphabet uses letters from the Cyrillic script. Today's language consists of 33 letters.
Cantonese

Advertisement

French 4
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Bengali
Haitian Creole
Greek
French
French is spoken in France as well as several overseas regions and territories. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.

Advertisement

Armenian 4
n/a
Which language do you see here?
German
Armenian
Armenian, though not recognized as an official language, is spoken by large populations in Georgia, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and the United States.
Hindi
Punjabi

Advertisement

Italian 4
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Italian
The Republic of Italy has an estimated population of 60 million people. It is the fourth most populous country in the European Union.
Russian
Polish
Romanian

Advertisement

Thai 4
n/a
Which language do you see here?
Laotian
Nepali
Thai
The Kingdom of Thailand was formerly known as Siam. It is the 50th-largest country in the world with more than 69 million residents.
Turkish

Advertisement

You Got:
/50
Shutterstock