What Are the Weirdest Languages in the World?

According to Idibon, a company that makes language processing applications, these are the weirdest languages on different continents:

In North America: Chalcatongo Mixtec, Choctaw, Mesa Grande Diegueño, Kutenai, and Zoque; in South America: Paumarí and Trumai; in Australia/Oceania: Pitjantjatjara and Lavukaleve; in Africa: Harar Oromo, Iraqw, Kongo, Mumuye, Ju|’hoan, and Khoekhoe; in Asia: Nenets, Eastern Armenian, Abkhaz, Ladakhi, and Mandarin; and in Europe: German, Dutch, Norwegian, Czech, and Spanish.

But is weirdness relative? Maybe the World Atlas of Language Structures provides a source for objective evaluation. Here's what Idibon did with it:

For each value that a language has, we calculate the relative frequency of that value for all the other languages that are coded for it. So if we had included subject-object-verb order then English would’ve gotten a value of 0.355 (we actually normalized these values according to the overal entropy for each feature, so it wasn’t exactly 0.355, but you get the idea). The Weirdness Index is then an average across the 21 unique structural features. But because different features have different numbers of values and we want to reduce skewing, we actually take the harmonic mean (and because we want bigger numbers = more weird, we actually subtract the mean from one). In this blog post, I’ll only report languages that have a value filled in for at least two-thirds of features (239 languages).

What's the weirdest language (subjectively speaking) that you've ever encountered?

Link -via Marginal Revolution

(Photo: Amazon.com)


Comments (2)

Newest 2
Newest 2 Comments

Isn't English strange enough for this list? I mean with words like BOW that are spelled the same but pronounced differently, and combinations of letters like "-ough" that can be said several different ways, it can get very confusing.
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Could it be something to put up where you don't want small birds? For example in a garden to keep birds away from freshly planted seeds, or growing plants.
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It's got a slot in the front, maybe for a piece that's now missing. The long bracket in the back mounts it as it sits...I'd say that it is a lantern holder.
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It's made to prevent burning wood pieces to go out the hearth in a chimney. (sorry regarding my english ... and see Alex I didn't post URL ! lol sorry for the last time I haven't read all the rules)
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Mmmh... Let's say 3 ^^:
- A candle or fire light source holder
- A bird feeder
- Two of those could hold a board on a wall and create shelves

:/
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Two of these are used like "hood ornaments" on
those Cinderella-type carriges, one at each forward corner of the cabin, on either side of the driver. The fitting at the bottom is for a lantern holder, and the one that goes to the driver's right is a
mirror image of this one.

They kinda symbolize gargoyles, which kinda
symbolize some kind of protection. :-)

Cheers!
Rich
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This is what is called a snowbird, used to keep snow and ice from sliding off the roofs of houses. You rarely see them anymore, mostly on the roofs of old homes with slate roofs. The snow and ice would melt, slide down the roof and get hung up on these where it would melt, not fall off where it could potentially hurt someone below
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I think Mark #18 is close but I think it, along with several others like it would be lined up at the bottom edge of a sloped roof--not to keep the snow from falling off ut to help it melt and run off frequently and evenly.
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