9 Newest Languages in the World

Newest languages: A child sits learning and and studying with flags behind them

Two weeks ago, we covered the oldest languages in the world. Today, we will find which are the newest languages in the world, which are the youngest languages that are still used today!

Most of these languages are novelty languages, or are severely endangered languages at the least.

This subject often comes with a lot of arguments. People often define the term “newest language” in different ways, which often leads to this topic being quite heated.

9. Afrikaans (340 years)

Afrikaans is considered to be the newest national language. When South Africa became independent in May 1910, Afrikaans as well as ten other languages, became South Africa’s national language.

Afrikaans began when the Dutch first settled in South Africa (the Boers). Over time, the language evolved separately from European Dutch. Afrikaans began to drop letters off the end of Dutch words and simplify them and their spellings.

Afrikaans began to adopt its own words, sometimes borrowed from other languages (the native Bantu languages, but also languages like French and English.) Other times, these words were completely made-up.

Afrikaans became a separate language from Dutch around 340 years ago (roughly 1680) after the Dutch first settled South Africa in 1600.

Today, Afrikaans is spoken by 17.5 million people. Afrikaans currently has 7.2 million native speakers and 10.3 million people speak Afrikaans as a second language. Afrikaans is considered to be one of the easiest languages.

8. Esperanto (133 years)

Esperanto is perhaps the most famous language on this list. Esperanto was designed to be the world’s primary language of commerce. It was designed to be the only Lingua Franca we would ever need.

In 1887, Polish linguist L. L. Zamenhof devised a language that would take parts of many major European languages. This language would have borrow both grammar and vocabulary from Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages.

Zamenhof designed the language to be as easy to understand for the masses as possible. He did this so that everyone would prefer to learn this language, over French, Spanish and English that were used at the time.

Today, Esperanto is spoken by 2 million people. Whilst no internationally recognized country has Esperanto as its official language, Esperanto does have it own native speakers.

Several high-profile celebrities and businesspeople speak Esperanto. People including George Soros, Pope John Paul II and J. R. R. Tolkien all speak Esperanto and have done so publicly.

7. Lingala (120 years)

Lingala is perhaps one of the newest languages on the planet. In 1900, Lingala didn’t exist. Nobody could speak Lingala, nobody recognized it as a language and no one wanted to learn it.

Before the invention of the Congo Free State, there was a group of Bantu tribes around the Congo River. These tribes needed to band together in order to fight the Belgians.

These tribes combined their language, and named their language after themselves in their language. They named themselves ‘river people’ as what defined them was the river they depended on for survival.

As such, they called themselves the ‘Bangala’. To the Belgians and the other foreign explorers, this sounded a lot like “Langala” and then “Lingala” to the Belgians and other explorers. Thus, they became known as the Lingala.

Lingala is spoken by 40 million people. Lingala is spoken by 15 million native speakers and 25 million non-native speakers. Most of these people are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo.

There are also a minority of Langala speakers in Angola and in certain parts of the Central African Republic.

6. Ido (113 years)

Following in the steps of Esperanto, Ido too is a construct language. Ido is derived from Reformed Esperanto. Just as with Esperanto, Ido is one of the newest languages on the planet.

Reformed Esperanto came into existence in 1894, after L. L. Zamenhof (the founder of Esperanto) heard the complaints about various parts of Esperanto. As a result, he developed Reformed Esperanto which would address them.

Zamenhof soon began to teach this variant of Esperanto just as he had the previous variant before.

Over time, Reformed Esperanto began to develop away from the Standard Esperanto. This eventually developed into its own language, which was renamed as Ido.

Today, Ido has around 500 speakers. Currently, none of these are native speakers. There are several website and online forums that are solely in Ido. They’re usually used in order to help people practice their Ido skills.

5. Albanian (108 years)

Albanian is perhaps a surprise on this list. Albanian isn’t one of the newest languages in the way that Ido or Esperanto is. Albanian has been spoken by ethnic Albanian for centuries.

This naturally begs the question, how is Albanian one of the newest languages? Albanian only became a recognized language in 1912, when Albania became independent.

Although it had been officially called a minority language when Albania was apart of the Ottoman Empire, there were many strings attached to it. Albanian was often considered to be a dialect of Serbian (or even German!) under Ottoman rule.

However, the unsuccessful uprisings in 1910 and 1911, forced the Ottomans to recognize the language as official and separate from Serbian and German (despite the fact that neither languages are similar!)

Currently, 7.6 million people speak Albanian, mostly in Albania and Kosovo. However, small groups of Albanian speakers are also present in the UK, US, Serbia, Montenegro and Romania.

4. Sona (85 years)

Sona too is perhaps one of the newest languages on the planet. Sona was constructed to be what Esperanto couldn’t be. Sona was designed to be the language that the whole world used. The global Lingua Franca for everything.

Sona was designed by Kenneth Searight in 1935. Searight constructed a language that he believe could become the international auxiliary language- the global Lingua Franca almost.

His book, which he released in 1935, detailed all of the words and grammar of Sona. Sona is constructed based on English, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese and Japanese.

Sona was constructed to counteract the Eurocentrism of Esperanto and Ido, which were both made up of solely European languages.

Sona is currently spoken by roughly 100 people. Just as with other construct languages, no internationally recognized country speaks Sona as an official language.

Today, most Sona speakers are spread throughout the world, and use the internet to communicate in Sona.

3. Israeli Hebrew (72 years)

Israeli Hebrew is very similar to Albanian, in terms of its age. In fact, Hebrew is one of the oldest languages in the world, however, it is very different from the Hebrew that is spoken today.

The Hebrew spoken 2000 years ago, is almost unintelligible when compared to the Hebrew that is spoken today. Hebrew is famous for having gone extinct several times, but has always seen a revival over the years.

With these revivals has often come a remake in the language. Israeli Hebrew is the most recent revival of the Hebrew language, and has greatly modernized the language.

Biblical Hebrew had only 8000 words in the entire language, Israeli Hebrew, added almost 12,000 more words to the language. Israeli Hebrew borrowed many of these words from German, French and English.

Today, Israeli Hebrew is the most prevalent form of Hebrew. Today, 7 million speak Israeli Hebrew. Most of these people are Jewish, and live in Israel, however Jews elsewhere also speak Israeli Hebrew, as do a few non-Jews!

2. Guniyandi (38 years)

Guniyandi, sometimes written as Gooniyandi, is an Australian aboriginal language. Unlike many aboriginal languages, Guniyandi is actually one of the youngest and newest languages on the planet!

It was developed from Bunuba (another aboriginal language) but with great Kriol another aboriginal language) influences. This language was meant to become the language that the Bunuba, Kriol and other local tribes could use.

Originally, this was meant to be a sort of Lingua Franca- a language the tribes only used for trade and the like. However, it has since grown to becoming a language that will replace their native languages.

Just not in the way that English is replacing so many aboriginal and other native languages.

Guniyandi is currently spoken by only 100 people in the north of Western Australia, all of whom are under the age of 38. However, due to its age, it is already endangered and runs the risk of going extinct.

1. Light Warlpiri (35 years)

Light Warlpiri is an attempt to make one of the oldest languages into one of the newest languages!

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, linguists began to try to combine both the Traditional Warlpiri and Kriol languages, which were both at risk of going extinct.

As a result, linguists began to teach Warlpiri and Kriol children this hybrid language. However, the linguists began to realize that a late 20th and early 21st century society needed certain vocabulary in order to work.

This vocabulary existed in neither the Warlpiri and the Kriol language. As a result, Light Warlpiri needed to borrow vocabulary from Standard Australian English in order to do that.

Light Warlpiri is spoken by 350 people in the Northern Territory (central and central northern regions of Australia). The oldest native speaker of the language is only 34 years old as of the time of writing!

In fact, most of the people who speak Light Warlpiri are under the age of 40.

What is truly the youngest language in the world? Tell me in the comments below!