The languages of the world are so full of dimension and differences that sometimes learning about them takes more than just reading from left to right. Using resources like books to learn about languages in the traditional way might have come across as helpful at first, but realizing their limited potential might be getting you down. If you really want to show what you know when it comes to the languages of the world, you might want to consider something a little bit more, well, perpendicular. That’s why we’ve created this language crossword as the perfect way to stunt with your linguistic smarts.
So what are you waiting for? This puzzle features stats and facts about the languages of the world so you can test yourself on how much of a language lunatic you really are. If you know what some of the most popular languages around the globe are or you’ve practiced some superficial expressions in a whole slew of world tongues, you’re off to a great start with this language crossword!
If you’re stuck, skip to the end to see the clues linked to other articles and videos that can provide hints to the answers. Happy puzzling!
Language Crossword Clues (And Some Hints)
Across
4 — a major world “macrolanguage” that actually comprises about 30 varieties of the same tongue mostly in the Middle East and North Africa
9 — the most spoken indigenous language of North America today, with about 2 million speakers in Mexico
10 — also called Euskara, a well-known language isolate in northern Spain spoken by about 700,000 people
11 — the language created in the late 1800s as an international auxiliary language that is spoken by at least 2 million people today
12 — in English, the phrase that’s translated as “Buon compleanno!” in Italian or “Feliz aniversário!” in Portuguese
14 — the most spoken language in Europe, with about 120 million native speakers on the continent
17 — a term for a person who speaks multiple languages, usually four or more
18 — the language family that includes Polish, Russian, Croatian and Serbian, among others
19 — often considered the “universal” language, the tongue spoken to some degree by about 1.5 billion people around the world
20 — the second most natively spoken language in the world
21 — the continent that’s home to roughly one-third of the world’s languages
Down
1 — in English, the word that’s translated as “Gratulerer!” in Norwegian or “Félicitacions!” in French
2 — in English, the family member who’s called “babushka” in Russian or “abuela” in Spanish
3 — in English, the word that’s translated as “Wilkommen!” in German or “Välkommen” in Swedish
5 — the language family that includes Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian, among others
6 — the sixth most spoken language in Europe, with about 69 million native speakers on the continent
7 — the second most studied language and sixth most spoken in the world
8 — the word describing the set of sounds making up any given spoken language and the study of how those sounds come together
13 — the fifth most spoken language in the United States, with about 1.6 million native speakers in the country
15 — the most spoken indigenous language of South America today, with about 8 million speakers in the Andean region
16 — the number of official languages of South Africa