The world’s toughest languages: Top 10 ranked

44 cases, 6,000 verb forms, and 180 words for snow! We talk about the champion languages. At the moment, there are about 7,000 dialects in the world, and it is only relatively possible to choose more difficult languages among them. A language is a sign system, and there are many criteria for evaluating it. Besides, when determining complexity, everyone starts from their native language in one way or another.

We tried to be objective and collected the ten most difficult languages in the world. Not all of them have the status of the official language of the country, but each contains its own unique features.

8 most difficult languages to learn in the world

1. Chippewa language: about 6,000 verb forms

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, one of the most difficult languages is the Chippewa Indian language. There are about 6000 verb forms in it. At the same time, you know at least two words from this language: totem and wigwam. And if you’ve read “The Song of Hiawatha,” which was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, maybe even more. In his work, the writer used myths, toponyms, and individual words of these people.

2. Chinese language: more than 85,000 characters

Which language is the most difficult? Many will say that Chinese is the official language of the People’s Republic of China. In China, it is known as putonghua. Unlike Europeans, who learn dozens of letters, Chinese people memorize hundreds of hieroglyphs. There are 85,568 of them in the Zhonghua Zihai dictionary. Moreover, one hieroglyph can have several meanings, often directly opposite. Take the word 口 kǒu (kou) — it has more than ten meanings, including “mouth”, “mouth of the river”, “port”, “blade”, “taste of food”, “technique of speech”, “entrance”, “exit”. How is it possible to remember everything? Difficult.

Another problem faced by those who wish to learn a language is phonetics. It includes four tones, and if you choose the wrong one, the meaning of a word or phrase will be distorted. Visit. A F R I N I K . C O M . For the full article. For example, 好酷 hǎo kù
— “very cool,” 好苦 hǎo kǔ “very bitter”, 嚎哭 háo kū — “cry loudly, to wail”.

3. Tabasaran language: more than 44 cases

The language of the Lezgian branch of the Nakh-Dagestan language family holds the world record for the number of cases. They are distinguished from 44 in the Tabasaran language. Scientists cannot agree on an exact figure. However, linguist Dmitry Kachkov calls into question the record listed in the Guinness Book of Records. Firstly, according to him, there is a tendency towards simplification in the modern language. Secondly, there are more cases in the Dido (Caesar) language.

The final figure is also controversial, but, for example, linguists Maria Polinskaya and Bernard Comrie identify six main cases and 56 case forms. Anyway, Tabasaran, which is spoken in Southern Dagestan, got to the top of the most difficult languages in the world for a reason. By the way, do you know that there is no Dagestani language, just as there is no Dagestani nationality? There are more than 40 languages in this multinational Russian region: Dargish, Avar, and Lezgian. And Tabasaransky is just one of them.

4. Haida language: about 70 prefixes

Previously, it was believed that the Haida language belonged to the Na-Dene language group, but not so long ago, it was recognized as isolated. And they were listed in the Guinness Book of Records for the fact that there are about 70 prefixes in it, that is, prefixes.

The language is currently on the verge of extinction, with fewer than 100 people speaking it in Canada and Alaska. To help its revival, the film The Edge of the Knife was shot in the Canadian province of British Columbia in 2017. The peculiarity of the film is that the characters speak the Haida language.

5. Russian language: what is written does not match what is read

Of the common languages, Russian is the most difficult for many. Unlike those listed, it has the status of the official language of the country. Non—reproducible sounds, accents that change the meaning of a word, and declensions are just some of the problems faced by foreigners who decide to study it. What is this one passage worth? “No, probably not” — agree, refuse, doubt … And all this in one sentence. For foreigners, understanding Russians is a nightmare.

There are others. For example, in English, there are no special endings by which words can be attributed to the masculine, neuter, or feminine gender, but in Russian, there are. How can you not get confused? In 2023, the Empathy Charitable Foundation conducted a survey among school teachers about the most difficult aspects of the Russian language. According to the survey results, 40% of teachers named spelling as the most difficult section of the Russian language.

6. Sami (Lapps) language: about 180 words for snow

The Sami live in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and northern Russia and are considered the northernmost indigenous people of Europe, which is reflected in the language. There are about 180 words for snow and ice in Sami. For example, vahca means “fresh and loose”, cahki means “dense and hard”, skava means “fallen in a thin layer and frozen”, guoldu means “a snow cloud rising from the ground in conditions of severe frost and lack of wind”.

Representatives of the people of different countries differ so much from each other that they speak different dialects and may not understand each other. Some researchers even believe that these are not dialects, but separate Sami languages; these languages are simply related. One way or another, it’s really not easy to sort languages by complexity.

7. Nivkh language: more than 20 forms of quantitative numerals

The Nivkh language, spoken in the north of Sakhalin Island among the Nivkh people, is considered isolated by scientists and is disputed about its origin. According to Japanese researchers Kazuhiko Yamaguchi and Katsunobu Izutsu, he is the ancestor of the Japanese. At the same time, the Russian linguist Sergey Nikolaev found in it similarities with the Algonquian and Wakash languages, which are common among the natives of North America. There are other versions.

The language is distinguished by a unique system of numerals. To calculate, you need to understand whether these objects are animate, and if so, what gender they are, and if not, what shape they are. There are 26 classes of numerals in total. Ordinal numbers are missing. For example, “khy nik” means “one axe”, “tap nyan” means “one butterfly”, “lask nyan” means “one medium-sized bull”.

8. Tuyuk language: more than 50 grammatical generalizations

Another difficult language is Tuyuka, which is spoken by the eponymous people living in Brazil and Colombia. According to various estimates, there are from 50 to 140 grammatical genders in the language, against our three. Inanimate nouns even have a gender, meaning “bark that is loosely attached to a tree.”

Verbs also have their own complexity. Tuyuk refers to factual languages, that is, each phrase is supplemented with a verb fragment that shows how the speaker knows about what happened. That is, if you decide to say in the Tuyuk language that two monkeys have just fought, the other person will immediately understand whether you saw it or assume it.