Oral tradition, language families, scripts, belief and knowledge of nature.
Linguists count about 7,000 living languages. A large share are spoken by indigenous peoples, and many are endangered.
An isolate cannot be linked to any other language. Basque and Burushaski are examples.
Papua New Guinea has more than 800 languages. Mountains and forests kept communities apart, and each developed its own speech.
They belong to the Munda branch of the Austroasiatic family, which also includes Khasi, Khmer and Vietnamese.
A language survives by being passed to children. When that stops, the language is endangered, however many adults still speak it.
Kōhanga reo means 'language nest'. Fluent elders care for small children in Māori, so that children grow up speaking it.
Griots are hereditary bards who memorise and perform the histories of families and kingdoms, such as the epic of Sunjata.
A songline follows the path of an ancestral being. Each verse is tied to a place, so the song works as a map and a store of knowledge.
The quiz needs JavaScript. The answers: 1. About 7,000; 2. A language with no known relatives; 3. Papua New Guinea; 4. Austroasiatic; 5. Children are no longer learning it at home; 6. Language nests: preschools run entirely in the Māori language; 7. Hereditary keepers of oral history and praise songs; 8. A route across the land recorded as a sequence of songs.
Every Monday: seven peoples you may never have heard of, who they are and where they live.