Foreign Language Recognition

There are about 5000 languages spoken in the World today (estimates vary) and a variety of these languages can be heard on Shortwave radio broadcasts. Although few people can master large numbers of foreign languages, it is possible for anyone to recognise languages, without an in-depth knowledge of them, from their characteristics.

Language recognition is a great help in identifying shortwave radio stations and this working aid aims to help you identify languages commonly heard on the air by providing a wealth of information about them.

The following is a selection of language families that have been identified by linguists:

• Indo-European Europe, Central Asia and South Asia
• Afro-Asiatic North Africa and the Middle East
• Niger-Kordofanian sub-Saharan Africa
• Uralic Scandanavia and Central Europe
• Mongol Central Asia (sometimes classified as Altaic )
• Turkic Turkey and Eurasia (sometimes classified as Altaic )
• Dravidian Southern India
• Sino-Tibetan Southeast Asia
• Austro-Asiatic Southeast Asia
• Austronesian Far East
• Altaic Eurasia, Central Asia and Northeast Siberia (a grouping not universally accepted by linguists)
• Japanese Japan
• Korean North and South Korea
• Tai-Kadai Southern China and Northern Burma
• Australia Australian Aboriginal
• Native North American North America
• South American South America
• Isolates Languages that have no known relations

Special Topics

• Artificial Languages
• Genetic Classification of Languages
• Useful Sources
• Glossary

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Last modified: April 24, 2000