Most common language isolate
Who
Korean
What
78,000,000 people
Where
Not Applicable ()

A language isolate is a language that has no traceable historical relationships to any other language. The world’s most common language isolate by a long way is Korean, spoken by an estimated 78 million people. In second place is Basque, with 666,000 speakers, and third is Mapudungun (spoken by the Mapuche people of South America), who number approximately 300,000. English is not a language isolate, but traces its roots to early Germanic tongues.

Some linguists have suggested that Korean can be linked to the Altaic languages, the family from which many modern Asian tongues are thought to derive. However, the vast majority agree that this connection does not exist and that Korean really is the world’s most common language isolate.