WHY ? is our effort to answerall the questions every trivial kid call for . Do you have a interrogative sentence ? Send it towhy@mentalfloss.com .

Did you know there are about 7000 lyric in the world today ? That ’s a lot ! Scientists who study languages are calledlinguists(LIN - gwists ) . They do n’t cognise just when people began inventing Holy Scripture alternatively of just using a few sound or consistence movements , like many animals do . But they know that humanmigration(my - grayish - shun ) , move from one spot to another , played a big role in gain so many voice communication .

Over M of yr , humans split up off into group that migrate in different directions . As that happened , one speech could turn into many . People had to larn to live in very different places : hot deserts , freezing mountains , sticky rainforests . Each place had different kinds of conditions , plants , and animals . Having raw Scripture to blab out about these raw things help citizenry conform ( change ) to their new home and hold up ( live ) . After a while , new words and ways of living helped lead to completely new languages .

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Once a group of people settled in a place , they were often isolated ( aside ) from other grouping . When people did n’t mix much , their words did n’t either . On the other hand , people did sometimes get wind and adopt some words from other groups . For good example , citizenry speak different languages might contact to trade , or were force to bequeath home plate and move closer to another radical because of war . Over long menstruum of time , then , both things — isolation and a small mix — helped create so many languages .

Languages are related , just like family members are . Learn more in thisvideofrom TED - Ed . Watch with a adult who can help you with some of the fully grown words !

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