There are over 6,000 languages spoken in the world today, and most are probably languages you've never heard of. As time moves on, that number will continue to decrease. Yes, many languages are dying, or “going extinct” if that terminology suits you better. The good news? There are so many languages you’ve never heard of. And there are a million reasons to learn a new language. Learning a new language can help you establish deep relationships with new people. It can give you more job opportunities. And it does lots of awesome things to your brain! Sure, you could learn a popular language like Spanish or French. But you could also choose to learn one of the other 6,000 languages that you’ve never heard of. Why would you ever want to learn a language that you've never heard of? Limiting yourself to only the mainstream languages is like saying you’re only interested in traveling to the mainstream destinations. Want to travel to that small island that nobody knows of? Naw, I only go to Paris and New York City. Want to see this awesome waterfall off the beaten track? No thanks, I’ll stick to UNESCO sites.There’s an ENTIRE world out there of interesting people and places. And there’s an entire collection of languages that you can explore. If you want to be unique and different, take a look at these five languages you’ve never heard of and see if any of them pique your interest.

Esperanto

Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone in the world could communicate with one universal language? That’s what Dr. Ludwig L. Zamenhof was thinking when he created Esperanto, a spoken Latin language, in 1887. While it didn’t entirely blow up in the same way emojis have, it is spoken by thousands of people all over the world today. But the biggest reason you should learn Esperanto is not because it will help you communicate with everyone. It’s because it will help you learn whatever Romance language you actually care about. Why? Because it is ridiculously easy. Esperanto has no word genders, no conjugation, no confusing phonetics, and no random rule exceptions. Furthermore, the vocabulary is super easy to learn. Yes is “jes.” Help is “helpon.” Stop is “haltu.” It’s pretty simple and it’s similar to the Romance languages.That makes Esperanto the perfect stepping stone to push you forward on your journey to learn a language you've never heard of. If you’re trying to learn Spanish, French, Italian, German, Czech, or pretty much any other language, learning Esperanto first will help. Not only will it teach you some root words that are found in more complex languages, it will make you feel more confident about learning a language. And that can make a world of difference.  

Xhosa

Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa, and it is super fun because it is a clicking language. Yes, that’s right - clicks. There are three clicks in Xhosa - written as c, x, and q. Basically, the difference is the part of your mouth where the click originates.The c click is behind your top front teeth (like if you were “tsk tsk”- ing a naughty child), the x is the side back of your mouth (like if you were winking and clicking at a cutie at the bar), and the q is the roof of your mouth (like the normal popping sound you can make with your mouth). It can be a bit challenging to master the clicks, but once you do, you will have a blast speaking and clicking. You can start by practicing the language name!

Pidgin

Pidgin is a spoken language that originated in the 19th century when indentured laborers from China, Portugal, Japan, and many other nations were brought to Hawaii to work. All of the workers spoke different languages, but since they were working alongside each other, they needed to figure out a way to communicate with each other. Their solution was to blend a little bit of all the languages they spoke in efforts to communicate in a way that everybody could understand.Because nobody spoke the same language, they needed to simplify their speech as much as possible. The result is Pidgin - a fun, easy, Tarzan-like language. It's pronounced the same as the animal, pigeon, but it's far less complex than a flying creature. For example, “da car red” means “the car is red.” Super easy, right?? There’s no way to speak Pidgin incorrectly. Since there are no rules, it’s impossible to break them! All you have to do to speak Pidgin is to try. Or, as a Ghanaian would say, “you dey force.”

Vietnamese

Okay, you’ve probably heard of Vietnamese, but have you ever thought of learning it? There are over 90 million Vietnamese people in the world, and learning this language will allow you to communicate with all of them.I’ve been based in Ho Chi Minh city for the past few years, and learning Vietnamese has enhanced my life substantially. I get cheaper prices at the market, I can joke with all my Uber drivers and waitresses (and order my coffee exactly how I like it), and I even found myself a beautiful Vietnamese girlfriend (not guaranteed if you learn Vietnamese!). Plus, learning Vietnamese is fun! It’s a tonal language, which means it’s challenging but super entertaining. Each sentence is like a song, and conversations are like karaoke!

Love

“Wait, what? You’re telling me that love is a language? I thought it was an emotion!” No, my dear reader, it is indeed a language. In fact, it’s the most important language that nobody is teaching. Basically, there are five different love languages that the typical human “speaks.” A person’s love language is the way they prefer to give and receive love. It’s the way they express their feelings to the people they care about. The five languages are physical touch, words of affirmation, gifts, quality time, and acts of service.It is important to learn about love languages because if you are trying to express your appreciation with a hug to somebody that wants a sincere compliment, you two will misunderstand each other as much as if you were actually speaking another language! It’s frustrating when you feel like somebody doesn’t care about you. But what if you just don’t understand their love language?Taking the time to learn about your love language, and the love languages of the people around you, will make all of your relationships much stronger. And who doesn’t want better relationships?

Learn Something New

With over 6,000 languages in the world, you definitely have a lot of options to choose from. But instead of immediately investing in the normal languages, challenge yourself to learn something a bit more unique, like languages you've never heard of. Challenge yourself to seek out a language you’ve never heard of. Step outside the norm, and do something different. I promise it will be worth it.What language are you currently learning? Think there’s a language that we’ve never heard of? Let us know in the comments!