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Random Language Generator

127 real languages, all of them in the table below. Press the button for one at random — you get the family it belongs to, where it is mainly spoken and the writing system it uses.

Press the button for a language.

no repeats until the list is used up

127 languages in this list.

All 127 languages on this list

Language	Family	Mainly spoken in	Written in
Mandarin Chinese	Sino-Tibetan	China, Taiwan, Singapore	Chinese characters
Cantonese	Sino-Tibetan	Southern China, Hong Kong, Macau	Chinese characters
Wu (Shanghainese)	Sino-Tibetan	Shanghai and the lower Yangtze	Chinese characters
Hokkien	Sino-Tibetan	Fujian, Taiwan, Southeast Asia	Chinese characters
Tibetan	Sino-Tibetan	Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan	Tibetan
Burmese	Sino-Tibetan	Myanmar	Burmese
Spanish	Indo-European, Romance	Spain and most of Latin America	Latin
Portuguese	Indo-European, Romance	Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique	Latin
French	Indo-European, Romance	France, Canada, much of West Africa	Latin
Italian	Indo-European, Romance	Italy, Switzerland, San Marino	Latin
Romanian	Indo-European, Romance	Romania and Moldova	Latin
Catalan	Indo-European, Romance	Catalonia, Valencia, Andorra	Latin
Galician	Indo-European, Romance	Northwestern Spain	Latin
Occitan	Indo-European, Romance	Southern France	Latin
English	Indo-European, Germanic	Britain, North America, Australia and far beyond	Latin
German	Indo-European, Germanic	Germany, Austria, Switzerland	Latin
Dutch	Indo-European, Germanic	The Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname	Latin
Afrikaans	Indo-European, Germanic	South Africa and Namibia	Latin
Swedish	Indo-European, Germanic	Sweden and parts of Finland	Latin
Danish	Indo-European, Germanic	Denmark	Latin
Norwegian	Indo-European, Germanic	Norway	Latin
Icelandic	Indo-European, Germanic	Iceland	Latin
Yiddish	Indo-European, Germanic	Jewish communities worldwide	Hebrew
Russian	Indo-European, Slavic	Russia and much of Central Asia	Cyrillic
Ukrainian	Indo-European, Slavic	Ukraine	Cyrillic
Belarusian	Indo-European, Slavic	Belarus	Cyrillic
Polish	Indo-European, Slavic	Poland	Latin
Czech	Indo-European, Slavic	Czechia	Latin
Slovak	Indo-European, Slavic	Slovakia	Latin
Serbian	Indo-European, Slavic	Serbia and Bosnia	Cyrillic and Latin
Croatian	Indo-European, Slavic	Croatia and Bosnia	Latin
Bosnian	Indo-European, Slavic	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Latin
Slovene	Indo-European, Slavic	Slovenia	Latin
Bulgarian	Indo-European, Slavic	Bulgaria	Cyrillic
Macedonian	Indo-European, Slavic	North Macedonia	Cyrillic
Hindi	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Northern India	Devanagari
Urdu	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Pakistan and northern India	Perso-Arabic
Bengali	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Bangladesh and West Bengal	Bengali
Punjabi	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Punjab, in both India and Pakistan	Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi
Marathi	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Maharashtra, India	Devanagari
Gujarati	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Gujarat, India	Gujarati
Odia	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Odisha, India	Odia
Assamese	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Assam, India	Assamese
Sinhala	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Sri Lanka	Sinhala
Nepali	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Nepal and parts of India	Devanagari
Sanskrit	Indo-European, Indo-Aryan	Liturgical and scholarly use in India	Devanagari
Persian	Indo-European, Iranian	Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan	Perso-Arabic
Pashto	Indo-European, Iranian	Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan	Perso-Arabic
Kurdish	Indo-European, Iranian	Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria	Latin and Arabic
Greek	Indo-European	Greece and Cyprus	Greek
Albanian	Indo-European	Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia	Latin
Armenian	Indo-European	Armenia	Armenian
Lithuanian	Indo-European, Baltic	Lithuania	Latin
Latvian	Indo-European, Baltic	Latvia	Latin
Irish	Indo-European, Celtic	Ireland	Latin
Welsh	Indo-European, Celtic	Wales	Latin
Scottish Gaelic	Indo-European, Celtic	The Scottish Highlands and Islands	Latin
Breton	Indo-European, Celtic	Brittany, France	Latin
Arabic	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic	North Africa and the Middle East	Arabic
Hebrew	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic	Israel	Hebrew
Amharic	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic	Ethiopia	Ge'ez
Tigrinya	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic	Eritrea and northern Ethiopia	Ge'ez
Maltese	Afro-Asiatic, Semitic	Malta	Latin
Somali	Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic	Somalia and the Horn of Africa	Latin
Oromo	Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic	Ethiopia and Kenya	Latin
Hausa	Afro-Asiatic, Chadic	Northern Nigeria and Niger	Latin and Arabic
Berber (Tamazight)	Afro-Asiatic	Morocco and Algeria	Tifinagh and Latin
Swahili	Niger-Congo, Bantu	Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, DR Congo	Latin
Zulu	Niger-Congo, Bantu	South Africa	Latin
Xhosa	Niger-Congo, Bantu	South Africa	Latin
Shona	Niger-Congo, Bantu	Zimbabwe	Latin
Kinyarwanda	Niger-Congo, Bantu	Rwanda	Latin
Lingala	Niger-Congo, Bantu	DR Congo and the Republic of the Congo	Latin
Yoruba	Niger-Congo	Southwestern Nigeria and Benin	Latin
Igbo	Niger-Congo	Southeastern Nigeria	Latin
Fula	Niger-Congo	Across the Sahel	Latin and Arabic
Wolof	Niger-Congo	Senegal and Gambia	Latin
Akan (Twi)	Niger-Congo	Ghana	Latin
Japanese	Japonic	Japan	Kanji with kana
Korean	Koreanic	The Korean peninsula	Hangul
Turkish	Turkic	Turkey and Cyprus	Latin
Azerbaijani	Turkic	Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran	Latin and Perso-Arabic
Kazakh	Turkic	Kazakhstan	Cyrillic and Latin
Uzbek	Turkic	Uzbekistan	Latin and Cyrillic
Turkmen	Turkic	Turkmenistan	Latin
Kyrgyz	Turkic	Kyrgyzstan	Cyrillic
Uyghur	Turkic	Xinjiang, China	Perso-Arabic
Mongolian	Mongolic	Mongolia and Inner Mongolia	Cyrillic and Mongolian script
Finnish	Uralic	Finland	Latin
Estonian	Uralic	Estonia	Latin
Hungarian	Uralic	Hungary and neighbouring regions	Latin
Sami	Uralic	Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland	Latin
Vietnamese	Austroasiatic	Vietnam	Latin with tone marks
Khmer	Austroasiatic	Cambodia	Khmer
Thai	Kra-Dai	Thailand	Thai
Lao	Kra-Dai	Laos	Lao
Indonesian	Austronesian	Indonesia	Latin
Malay	Austronesian	Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore	Latin
Javanese	Austronesian	Java, Indonesia	Latin and Javanese
Tagalog (Filipino)	Austronesian	The Philippines	Latin
Cebuano	Austronesian	The central Philippines	Latin
Malagasy	Austronesian	Madagascar	Latin
Maori	Austronesian	New Zealand	Latin
Samoan	Austronesian	Samoa	Latin
Fijian	Austronesian	Fiji	Latin
Hawaiian	Austronesian	Hawaii	Latin
Tamil	Dravidian	Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka	Tamil
Telugu	Dravidian	Andhra Pradesh and Telangana	Telugu
Kannada	Dravidian	Karnataka, India	Kannada
Malayalam	Dravidian	Kerala, India	Malayalam
Georgian	Kartvelian	Georgia	Georgian
Basque	Isolate	The Basque Country, Spain and France	Latin
Quechua	Quechuan	The Andes	Latin
Aymara	Aymaran	Bolivia and Peru	Latin
Guarani	Tupian	Paraguay	Latin
Nahuatl	Uto-Aztecan	Central Mexico	Latin
Navajo	Na-Dene	The southwestern United States	Latin
Cherokee	Iroquoian	Oklahoma and North Carolina	Cherokee syllabary
Inuktitut	Eskimo-Aleut	Northern Canada	Syllabics and Latin
Greenlandic	Eskimo-Aleut	Greenland	Latin
Haitian Creole	French-based creole	Haiti	Latin
Tok Pisin	English-based creole	Papua New Guinea	Latin
Jamaican Patois	English-based creole	Jamaica	Latin
Papiamento	Iberian-based creole	Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire	Latin
Esperanto	Constructed	Speakers worldwide, no home country	Latin
American Sign Language	Sign language	The United States and Canada	No written form in general use
British Sign Language	Sign language	The United Kingdom	No written form in general use

Where a language is spoken is given as its main home, not its full reach — English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Portuguese are official somewhere on almost every continent. Scripts are the ones in ordinary current use; several languages have been written in others within living memory.

How this list was built

No speaker-number column. Every published figure for speakers disagrees with every other, because they count native speakers, second-language speakers and "can hold a conversation" differently, and all of them move. A page listing them looks authoritative and is quietly wrong. The family, the home and the script do not move.

Family, not continent. Grouping languages by where they are spoken hides the interesting part. Hungarian and Finnish are relatives surrounded by unrelated neighbours; Basque is related to nothing at all; Malagasy is spoken off the coast of Africa and belongs to a family from Southeast Asia. The family column is where the history is.

The big families are represented in proportion to their reach, not to Western familiarity. Indo-European is here in force because it genuinely spans Europe and South Asia, but so are Niger-Congo, Austronesian, Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Turkic and the language isolates. A list that is nine European languages and Japanese tells you about the list-maker.

Sign languages and creoles are languages, and are on the list. American Sign Language is not English on the hands; it is a distinct language with its own grammar. Haitian Creole, Tok Pisin and Papiamento are full languages with native speakers, not broken versions of the languages they drew vocabulary from.

Sources. Family classifications follow standard comparative linguistics. Where a classification is contested — Korean and Japanese as isolates or as members of wider families, the internal shape of Niger-Congo — the mainstream grouping is used.

Common questions

How many languages does this pick from?

127, across every major family plus isolates, creoles and two sign languages. There are roughly seven thousand living languages in the world; this list is a spread across them, not all of them.

What is a language isolate?

A language with no known relatives. Basque is the famous European case — it was there before Indo-European arrived and is related to nothing else alive. Korean is often classed as one too, though that is argued about.

Which language has the most speakers?

Mandarin Chinese by native speakers, English once second-language speakers are counted. The exact ordering depends entirely on how you count, which is why this page has no speaker column.

Can I use this to pick a language to learn?

It is a good way to widen the shortlist. The script column is worth reading first — learning a language in a script you cannot yet read is a real extra step, and knowing that in advance is half the battle.

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