Ask most reference pages who lives in Sri Lanka and you get the same five-row table: Sinhalese 75%, Tamil 11%, and a few leftovers. Accurate, mostly. But the table hides…
Eritrea is one of the few countries on Earth with no official national language. Not by accident, and not because nobody got around to picking one. It’s written into the…
Ask “what do South Americans look like” and you’ll get a useless answer, because there isn’t one. A blond Argentine of Italian descent, a Quechua-speaking farmer in the Bolivian highlands,…
Kenya has two official languages: English and Kiswahili (Swahili). Kiswahili also holds a second title as the national language. That’s the short version, and it’s written into the constitution. But…
Table of Contents The Short Answer Spanish. Almost everyone in El Salvador speaks Spanish, and it’s the official language of the country. If you know Spanish — any Spanish —…
Table of Contents Algeria is the largest country in Africa by area, and its population reflects the layered history that comes with that territory. Desert empires, Roman provinces, Arab conquests,…
Table of Contents The Language Most Visitors Never Think About Jordan’s official language is Modern Standard Arabic, and nearly everyone you’ll meet speaks a version of Jordanian Arabic. That part’s…
The United States doesn’t have one English. It has dozens. And the differences between them go far beyond saying “y’all” or “you guys” — they reach into grammar, rhythm, vowel…
Table of Contents A Country of 193 Peoples, One Dominant Language {#a-country-of-193-peoples} Russia’s 2010 census recorded 193 distinct ethnic groups within its borders. Each of those groups has a linguistic…
Table of Contents TLDR: The Quick Breakdown {#tldr} Mongolia has around 3.4 million people and roughly 20 recognized ethnic groups. About 82% are Khalkha Mongols — the dominant group, the…