Last week, we looked at the weirdest languages to have ever been spoken, from the perspective of an English speaker. This got me thinking: what are the coolest languages you can speak?
Whilst there are several different ways of defining “cool”, for the purposes of this article, we are defining “cool” as either nice to listen to or, as having some unique quality that makes it so much cooler than other languages!
15. Sanskrit
Sanskrit is generally considered the world’s oldest spoken language. However, many will point out the fact that the language has been slowly dying for the past 800 years. With not that many people speaking it today.
Nevertheless, if you’ve ever been fortunate to listen, you’ll definitely understand that it is one of the coolest languages to listen to!
As with many other cool languages, Sanskrit is historically relevant. It was one of the first written languages, and was used as the language of several major world religions, including Buddhism.
Plus, it influenced languages like French and Latin, which had their own impacts on history.
Then there’s also the fact that the language has 1.3 billion words. No other language, past or present, has that many words. You can physically never learn every single word. How cool!
14. Russian
Russian is famous for its poetry. Primarily, the works of people like Pushkin, Shalamov and Tyutchev among others. This is because of how easily the language rhymes, seeming almost effortless.
Many Russians were taught these poems at school, with many remembering them to this day, sometimes off by heart in both English and Russian. Trust me, if you think they’re good in English, imagine how good they sound in Russian!
On the surface of it, Russian seems rather daunting, with the Cyrillic alphabet script putting off most would-be speakers. However, once you learn the rather easy Cyrillic script, Russian is easy.
When you can read, write and speak it, the language seems pretty cool. After all, millions of people around the world speak it, yet few learn it (in comparison to other languages) which is pretty cool.
13. Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew is the language of the Torah, and in many ways is reminiscent of how modern English speakers view the language in the Bible today. However, we are talking about modern Hebrew.
What makes Hebrew cool is that before 1945, the language was pretty much extinct. Outside of the Rabbi speaking Biblical Hebrew at the synagogue, no one spoke Hebrew, instead, they spoke languages like Yiddish.
If you speak other languages, especially other Semitic languages such as Arabic, you’ll that whilst they’re two completely different languages, there are incredibly subtle similarities between the two languages.
Hebrew also writes right to left, which is unlike most other languages. Even despite European intervention, Hebrew has remained an RTL language. Plus, it is the only language that uses the insanely cool Hebrew alphabet!
12. Arabic
Speaking of Arabic, as with Hebrew, it is one of the oldest and coolest languages ever to be spoken! It is the official language of 23 different countries, and is the “official” language of Islam.
As with Hebrew, Arabic is an RTL language, which can be difficult for non-speakers to understand at first. Nevertheless, once you conquer this, and understand Arabic’s mostly basic grammar, it is fairly easy to learn.
If you’ve ever seen Arabic written down, you’ve probably noticed that it’s seemingly always written in a cursive style. When writing it, it seems more like you’re finishing a piece of art, that writing a language!
Then there’s also the fact that in most countries and major cities around the world, there is a small Muslim minority. So even if you don’t live in a Muslim-majority country, you’ll still be able to use your Arabic!
11. German
Whilst many language learners have struggled to learn to German in the past, mostly due to its odd grammar. Nevertheless, the language is akin to a strange love child between English, Dutch and Russian.
As with many other languages, German has several distinct variants of the language. For the most part, these are spoken by countries that border Germany, whilst there is a small German speaking community in Namibia.
Unlike most other dialects, there is relatively little difference in how they are spoken and written. The largest difference is Swiss German, which incorporates a lot of French vocabulary.
Then there’s the fact of German’s compound words. Even in everyday life, it’s not uncommon to see/hear a twenty, or even thirty-character-long word.
Then there’s words like Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft (“Association of subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services) that are insanely long!
10. Persian
For centuries, Persian has been the language of grace in the Middle East. Whilst the “commoners” spoke Arabic or various other languages, the royalty and nobility spoke Persian, either as a first or second language.
Whilst it may take a while to learn how to write in the Persian script, it is fairly easy to get your head around. Once you’ve learned it, the language is fairly easy to pronounce, with ever sound being pronounced.
The language is packed full of idioms, with the language having one of the highest numbers of idiomatic phrases of any languages. This helps Persian literature be some of the richest in existence!
Many non-speakers would also agree that Persian is one of the coolest languages ever. Unlike the aforementioned Arabic, the language isn’t very artistic, but is very easy to look at, and doesn’t have different “accents”.
9. Basque
Basque is a language that few outside of France and Spain have heard of. For those who have, it is famous for being the main language of the Basque region of Spain, which has its own issues, namely with its violent separatist movement.
Regardless of this, the Basque language is one of the coolest languages I have ever learned! Anyone who’s ever heard it spoken can probably relate, as it sounds odd, yet oddly satisfying as well!
When learning Basque, you’ll probably learn that it is what most linguists call a language isolate. This means that no other language, living or dead, is related to it. Whilst there are several theories as to Basque’s origins, there is absolutely nothing concrete as of yet.
If you’ve ever seen Basque written down, you’ll agree that it is certainly… weird.
Once you begin to learn Basque grammar, you’ll find that everything we have in English grammar is seemingly the opposite in Basque, for apparently no rhyme or reason. This makes it rather cool in my opinion!
8. Swedish
When thinking of the world’s coolest languages, you probably don’t think of Swedish. Nevertheless, the language is a part of the Germanic language family, English and Swedish have a lot in common.
If you’ve ever heard a native Swede speak Swedish, the way they speak it, is rather rhythmic. This is due to the Swedish language having pitch accent, which allows their language to sound more like a poem than a language!
Plus, if you learn Swedish, it will make your IKEA shops far more exciting! When you’re walking around IKEA, all the brand names are in Swedish, a language you’ll be able to read and understand fully!
Most people wrongly assume that Swedish only spoken in Sweden. However, it is a language that transcends borders beyond just IKEA displays. It is also spoken in the linguistically harsh countries of Finland and Norway.
7. Hawaiian
Pretty much everyone knows the word “Aloha” in Hawaiian, regardless of whether they speak the language or not. After all, it’s pretty famous for meaning both “Hello” and “Goodbye”.
The language is packed full of incredibly rich and diverse words, with both native and European influences.
This helps it when it comes to native Hawaiian songs. Where many other languages have adopted English in place of their ancestral tongue, the Hawaiians have kept their native tongue for singing.
Plus, if you remember Magnum PI, you’ll probably remember that there was a lot of Hawaiian in it. It just gives you an edge over other people who watch he show as you’ll understand it all!
6. French
When it comes to the coolest languages on the planet, French is the one that pretty much everyone thinks of. And this is for good reason: it is absolutely amazing to speak, to listen to and to read!
To most people, spoken French sounds incredibly sophisticated and makes the speaker look incredibly well educated. That is, assuming they do it right anyway. People definitely turn their heads, when they hear French!
French is also an incredibly important language historically speaking. For centuries, it served as the Lingua Franca between much of the world (and especially Europe) until only very recently.
Plus, a variant of French, Norman French, slowly merged with Anglo-Saxon to form what we now call modern English. This is why English has so much romance language vocabulary (such as “romance”, “language” and “vocabulary”)!
5. Japanese
Similarly to Basque, most scholars classify Japanese as a language isolate, although, many have tried to draw it into dead language families in the past. As with Basque, it is one of the coolest languages to speak!
Written Japanese doesn’t really look like a language at all, but rather like a piece of art. As with other East Asian languages, the Japanese alphabet is based on what seem like pictures, with each “picture” being a word or sound.
Upon learning Japanese, you’ll learn that these “pictures” can be placed into one of four different categories: hiragana, katakana, kanji and romaji. When you start speaking it, it sounds awesome!
Then there’s also the fact that the West has been hooked on Japanese-made products. Many pieces of technology we use on a daily basis were developed in Japan. Then there’s things like anime and manga too.
4. Dutch
Dutch is part of the Germanic language family, meaning that it is close to both English and German from a linguistic point of view. This point alone is enough to make it one of the coolest languages in the world!
Due to issues in the Netherlands throughout the centuries, many Dutch people have taken to the seas in the hopes of finding new oportunities. Mainly, this was in the US, which has influenced several different things.
This includes place names and words in general. Words like bamboo, maelstrom and iceberg are English words descended from Dutch. Many more English words just resemble their Dutch counterparts!
If you’ve ever seen Dutch written down, you’ve probably been tempted to laugh at it. After all, the double (or sometimes even triple!) vowels make reading the language quite peculiar!
3. Finnish
Finnish is perhaps one of the coolest languages ever spoken, mostly because of how unique it is. Most languages have several different tones, but it’s the certain words you use that give the entire sentence meaning, not how you say it.
However, when it comes to Finnish, there are only 50,000 actively used words (compared to around 500,000 in English). However, depending on how you say each word, it could have up to ten different meanings!
This makes the language incredibly beautiful to hear, but does make it one of the hardest languages to learn. Whilst its spoken grammar is undeniably hard, the language has no pronouns, which makes things easier and sometimes very odd!
Finnish also roll every “r” sound, which can make some words sound incredibly melodic, whilst it makes others incredibly weird. Just take a minute to listen to the language, you’ll thank me later!
2. Latin
Ok, if you try to speak Latin in the streets, most people will probably look at you and wonder what you’re babbling on about. For those who speak Latin, they’ll probably laugh at you, and think you’re rather weird.
Many will say that Latin is a completely useless language to learn, as absolutely no one speaks it anymore. However, this isn’t strictly true. Today, Latin is all around us, regardless of what country you live in.
Regardless of what you do for a living and what country you live in, you have probably come into contact with Latin today. If you’re a doctor, many medicines have their names in Latin, if you’re a scientist, elements have their name origins in Latin.
Whilst these may seem like cherry-picked examples, they are not. The names of many places are derived from Latin, both in the New and Old Worlds. Plus, many words in English come from Latin anyway!
1. Swahili
To most Westerners, Swahili is a joke language, mostly thanks to phrases like “It may as well be written in Swahili“. Jokes aside, the actual language is one of the coolest languages ever spoken, yet Westerners simply don’t learn it.
As with many other African languages, Swahili is a clicking language, similar to the more famous Xhosa. Whilst Xhosa has a lot of clicking, Swahili has comparably low amounts of clicking sounds.
Whilst speakers of other African “clicking” languages may think Swahili is weird for not having as many clicking sounds, it gives Swahili an extra advantage: it sounds so cool!
This is because over time, Swahili has absorbed many French, English and German words, which gives it an air of familiarity. At the same time, it is strange, primarily with its clicks, creating a powerful combo.
Which are the coolest languages in your opinion? Tell me in the comments!