Language to discover
Draw a random language with where it is spoken - from Spanish to Tok Pisin.
Runs locally in your browser. Nothing you generate is ever sent to a server.
Press "Generate Language" to see a result here.
Region
Press Generate and a language comes up with the region where it is mainly spoken. The list mixes the languages everyone can name with ones they cannot, which is where the interest usually is.
It would be easy to add a figure to each language and it would be misleading. Sources disagree substantially depending on whether they count native speakers, second-language speakers, or related dialects as one language or several - and the answers move every year. A confident-looking number would suggest a precision that does not exist, so the region is given instead.
Most people choose from a handful of languages they have already heard of, usually the ones taught at their school. Drawing at random widens that in a way a list never quite does, because you have to consider what came up rather than skipping past it. The practical questions - who you would speak it with, what material exists - come after, and they are easier once a candidate is in front of you.
Welsh, Navajo, Quechua, Inuktitut and Tok Pisin are all in the list. Some have far fewer speakers than the major world languages, and several are the subject of active revival efforts. As a research topic or a curiosity, they are usually more rewarding than another look at the obvious choices.
Difficulty depends almost entirely on how far a language sits from the one you already have. For an English speaker, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Afrikaans are closest, sharing vocabulary and grammar patterns. Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese come next. Languages with different writing systems and unrelated grammar - Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, Korean - take several times longer, which is worth knowing before rather than after.
Welsh, Irish, Maori and Hawaiian all came close to disappearing and are now taught, broadcast and used again through deliberate effort. They are among the more interesting draws here precisely because their story is recent and ongoing. Navajo, Quechua and Inuktitut are still spoken as first languages by communities today, which is a different situation again and worth reading about on its own terms.
Knowing where a language is spoken tells you something usable - who you could speak it with, where you would travel, what media exists. A speaker count tells you almost nothing by comparison, and the numbers are contested anyway. That is why every result here names a region instead.
The list is filtered to the region you chose, then a language is drawn using your browser's cryptographic random source with rejection sampling, so nothing is favoured. Batches without repeats use a Fisher-Yates shuffle driven by the same source.
Press Generate and one comes up with where it is mainly spoken.
Yes. The filter covers Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania.
As a starting point. Most people pick from the same five, and a random draw is a quick way to hear about the rest before deciding.
Because they are contested and they change. Different sources count native speakers, second-language speakers and dialects differently, so a single number would be misleadingly precise.
Yes. Welsh, Navajo, Quechua, Inuktitut and Tok Pisin sit alongside the widely spoken ones, because they are often the more interesting draw.
Yes. Each language is drawn with your browser's cryptographic random source, so every one in the chosen region has an equal chance.
Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Afrikaans are the closest to English in vocabulary and grammar. The Romance languages come next, and languages with different writing systems take considerably longer.
Yes. Welsh, Irish, Maori, Hawaiian, Navajo, Quechua and Inuktitut are all in the list, and several of them are the subject of active revival work today.