Today there are thousands of languages in use — however, each is a derivation of a preceding tongue, or a “proto-language.” And each of those can be traced to an even earlier super-group language. When the world was younger, there were actually far fewer languages! Over time, we’ve split off from people who spoke a similar language and developed differently.

Yet, tracing a language back to its origins is far from easy — but for linguists, learning the history of a language reveals great insight into the history of our species.

Oftentimes, linguists are even able to reconstruct earlier languages with no prior written records; how cool is that? And to top it all off, learning how new languages form is just plain fun.

Check out the Ted Ed video below to learn more about how we got all of these languages in an entertaining way.

Be sure to share and spread your new-found knowledge with your friends, family, and other language-loving acquaintances.

Check it out!