Field notes
Short articles that answer common questions about the world’s languages with counts from WALS. Each one opens with the answer and shows the table it rests on.
- Which word order is most common in the world's languages?
Subject-object-verb leads: 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic order. Counts for all six orders and how the regions differ.
- Does verb order predict prepositions and postpositions?
91% of object-before-verb languages in WALS use postpositions; 84% of object-after-verb languages use prepositions.
- How many of the world's languages are tonal?
Of the 527 languages WALS codes for tone, 220 use it (42%). Simple and complex systems, the regions where tone clusters, and its link to vowels.
- Which languages have the most grammatical cases?
In WALS, 24 of the 261 languages coded for case have ten or more cases; 100 have none. Where large case systems cluster and how they relate to word order.
- How many consonants and vowels do languages have?
Consonant and vowel inventory sizes in 563 languages coded in WALS: what is typical, where small and large systems cluster, and rare sounds.
- Do adjectives come before or after the noun?
In WALS, 879 of the 1,367 languages coded put the adjective after the noun and 373 before it. How the order splits by region and why verb order says little.
- Why do some languages say “tea” and others “chai”?
WALS codes the word for tea in 230 languages: 110 use forms of Chinese cha, 84 forms of Min Nan te. Maps of both and how trade routes shaped them.