Imagine trying to read a book where each letter is a separate picture and the rules of grammar change depending on which way the wind blows.
No, this is not a nightmare scenario - it is the reality for those who undertake to learn the most difficult languages on the planet.
Some languages require you to remember thousands of hieroglyphs, others make your brain boil with conjugations, and still others sound like a code from a spy novel.
Here are five languages that even polyglots call "hellish training for neurons."
In first place is Chinese. Its hieroglyphic system has more than 50,000 symbols, but for basic literacy you need to know at least 3,000.
Each hieroglyph is not just a letter, but a mini-story with tones that change the meaning of the word. For example, "ma" can mean "mother", "horse" or "scold" - depending on the melody of pronunciation.
The writing here is like an art: one wrong stroke and instead of "friend" you get "pig." Add to that the lack of an alphabet and verb tenses, and it becomes clear why Chinese is called the "Everest of languages."
The second candidate is Arabic. Its difficulty begins with writing: letters change shape depending on their position in the word, vowels are often omitted in writing, and you have to read from right to left.
Verbs have 13 conjugations, and nouns have three cases, two genders and three numbers. But the main nightmare is dialects. What sounds like "hello" in Cairo may not be understood in Dubai.
Moreover, Arabic script is not only a language, but also a cultural code: a mistake in an inscription can offend an entire nation.
Third place goes to Hungarian. It has 18 cases — for comparison, Russian has six. Want to say “in the house”? Get ready for a word that ends in “-ban”. Need to indicate the direction “towards the house”? Then “-hoz”. And if we are talking about moving “through the house”, the suffix “-n keresztül” is added.
Verbs are no slouch either: they conjugate for person, number, tense, and mood, plus there are separate forms for definite and indefinite objects. Hungarians joke that their language was invented so that no one could eavesdrop on secrets.
In fourth place is Tabasaran, spoken in Dagestan. The Guinness Book of Records lists it as the language with the largest number of cases - 48. Each noun can have up to 50 forms, and verbs change according to person, number, tense and aspect.
But that's not all: Tabasaran has unique sounds that a European cannot reproduce without training. For example, the glottal stop, which resembles an attempt to speak while falling.
The top 5 is rounded out by the Navajo language, spoken by the indigenous people of North America. During World War II, it was used as a code: the Japanese were never able to crack it. The reason is its incredible structure. Verbs here include not only the action, but also the shape of the object. For example, “to carry a round object” and “to carry a long object” are different words.
The Navajo alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, but the pronunciation of sounds has no equivalent in European languages. Try saying "chʼį́įdiitʼaash" — it means "we are in trouble."
Why have these languages survived despite their complexity? Perhaps because they are not just a tool for communication, but a key to culture that protects traditions from prying eyes. Or because the brain loves challenges. But the fact remains: mastering them is like winning the linguistics Olympiad.
Author: Kurchev Anton