Language Families
Languages which have developed from one original languages form a language family, just like a human family. Of several major language families in the world, the largest and most well known is the Indo-European, which includes English, French, German and Russian. Languages belonging to the same language family often share basic vocabulary and common grammatical features. It is not rare however, for loan words and grammatical features to be transmitted through contacts between languages of different origins.

Local Language
A language usually comprises several variations such as local and social dialects. Recently more people have become interested in their own dialects, regarding them as part of their identity.

Origin of Written Scripts
Letters began as pictographs, because they were easy to write (or draw). Later, these pictographs were developed into highly abstract symbols, and some further started to signify only sounds. The ultimate purpose of letters is to form and represent words. These phonetic letters enabled transcription of any words, including abstract or grammatical expressions that were difficult to represent by pictographs. Phonetic letters developed in two ways: as phonograms (alphabet) and as syllabograms.

Expansion of Multilingual Societies
There are at least 5,000 languages spoken in the world. Some languages, such as English and Spanish, are spoken by hundreds of millions of people in different countries, while others are only spoken by dozens. In some countries, tens or hundreds of languages are in use. Only a few countries have one single language. Particularly in recent years, multilingual societies are emerging around the world, because languages move across countries and regions, along with increasing numbers of migrating peoples.