Language is the medium through which human beings connect and communicate with each other. We certainly cannot imagine a world where there isn’t a single language present or used for communication. The most important trait of a human being is his / her ability to speak with each other unlike animals which only uses sounds and expressions for communication. In order to speak with each other, people from various regions of the world use their own languages. Therefore, a language is an attribute which forms one of the main identities of a person to determine the society or race he / she belongs to. Let’s say for example, a person from Assam who speaks Assamese language is known as an Assamese. With English becoming the dominant medium of instruction, people use it for studying and communicating for professional purposes. Moreover, the status of English language has now become such that it is mandatory to be known by people all over the world in addition to their mother tongue or the primary language that they use for speaking in domestic circuits. However, learning a new language is a good idea as it opens up your chances of connecting with new people and feel more comfortable when you go to visit the place from where that language is born. It will also enhance your knowledge. The best thing about learning a new language is that it widens the scope of learning more about a culture further. Some of the easiest languages in the world which you have the best chance of mastering fast or learn –
Norwegian
We have listed Norwegian in the first place in the list of easiest language to learn as it is quite similar to English. This North Germanic language is a pitch accent language with two distinct pitch patterns. In simple words, there is more than one correct way to pronounce Norwegian words. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters. It is a descendant of the Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic people living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. Today, it is spoken by 5 million people but primarily in Norway. Let us take an example to show the near similarity of English and Norwegian languages. ‘Can you help me?’ translates to ‘Kan du hjelpe meg?’
Swedish
The main language of Sweden, Swedish is also a North Germanic language and is a descendant of the Old Norse. Besides being spoken by at least 10 million people, Swedish also enjoys a status as the co-official language of Finland as it is the second most widely spoken language there. It is also the fourteenth most spoken language in Europe. With such a huge list of honours accorded for the Swedish language, won’t it be an interesting language to learn? Like Norwegian, Swedish also has relatively simple grammar rules and similar word order to English. Swedish is a stress-timed language, where the time intervals between stressed syllables are equal. Swedish and English shares a large number of similar cognates like ‘grass’ and ‘gras’
Spanish
A language with a popularity almost like that of English, Spanish is spoken by nearly 500 million people. Besides being the world’s fourth most spoken language after English, it is also used as an official language by many leading organizations in America and Europe. As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. It only signifies that a few Spanish words have a near similarity with English as the latter’s words were also born out of Latin. Spanish and English shares a wide variety of cognates. Eg. – Correcto means ‘Correct’ and Pizza means Pizza. Spanish is classified by its rhythm as a syllable-timed language as each syllable has approximately the same duration regardless of stress.
Dutch
A West Germanic language, Dutch is said to be the closest relative of both German and English. With speakers totaling around 25 million, Dutch is mostly spoken in Netherlands. However, this language also enjoys an official status in Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. A really interesting characteristic of Dutch is that many words are spelled exactly the same as they are in English, more so than in almost any other language.
Portuguese
There is a term for a Portuguese speaking people or nation due to which it can certainly be said as one of the most influential languages in the world. The term is ‘Lusophone.’ With over 270 million speakers, Portuguese is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe while having co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. It is also the sixth most spoken language in the world. As Portuguese has a huge number of speakers and is a dominant language of the world, it is definitely a language worth learning.
Indonesian
You should definitely try to learn Indonesian because a number of Indian television stars enjoys a huge fan following in the country where this language is spoken i.e. Indonesia. The reason is a huge number of Indian TV shows are aired in Indonesia in the Indonesian language. As Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world with over 270 million inhabitants, Indonesian forms one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. The icing on the cake is that Indonesian is one of the few Asian languages that uses the Latin alphabet. Many Asian languages are difficult for English speakers to comprehend due to the unfamiliar characters in their writing systems, but not Indonesian. It is also a phonetic language, made up of words that are pronounced exactly the way they’re spelled.
Italian
A Romance language, Italian is a dominant language in the world today primarily because its influence is widespread in the areas of food, arts and luxury good markets. It is also known as the language of music due to its use in musical terminology and opera. As it is credited to be the most direct descendant of Latin, most Italian words are quite similar to that of its English counterparts. Italian language is spoken by over 60 million speakers and is an official language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino and Vatican City.
French
The two foreign languages that Indians are eager to learn nowadays include English and French. Your mind might be like- ‘It’s okay and English must be learnt thoroughly. But why French?’ This is not a surprising piece of information because French is an official language in 29 countries. This Romance language is spoken by over 300 million people in the world. According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l’Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, the total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050. So you should definitely sign up for a French class near you because you won’t regret at all for having spend that few bucks for learning the first language of France.
German
A language that is widely used for scientific purposes and has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology too is German. For this very reason, German is indeed a good language that you should definitely learn to know more about it. Another wonderful thing about German language is that it has a huge spectrum of dialects. Besides Germany, it is also widely spoken in Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol.
Swahili
If you’ve watched the Disney movie “The Lion King,” you’ll already be knowing some Swahili words such as “rafiki” (friend) and “simba” (lion). A Bantu language ( a South African language), Swahili is one of the official languages of the East African Community (EAC) countries, namely Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. A number of Swahili words are easy to pronounce and are also very similar to its English equivalent. Examples are penseli (pencil) and mashine (machine) polisi (police) and baiskeli (bicycle).
With YouTube and Google being the saviours of the world today, you can choose them to dive deep in the world of new languages and enhance your knowledge up a notch. These easiest language should definitely be learn by you. Always make it a point to learn some new and easy language once a year to know more about the people and places.
