Hardest Languages on Earth Found in China

Article here. Video here. The most complex language on Earth is Fengxian Wu, spoken near Shanghai. The second most complex was the language of the Dong people of Southwest China. The third most complex was the language of the Buyang people, also of SW China. The study took over 10 years and involved teams from both the Anthropology and Linguistics Departments at Fudan University. They also found that the languages of Eurasia were more complex than the languages of Africa or the Americas. The article suggests that this may mean that humans came out of Asia instead of out of Africa. This is an old conceit of the Chinese. They just can’t handle the idea that humans came out of Africa, and they are always fighting this idea. They even claim that there proto-humans have special characteristics that mean that they could not possibly have come out of Africa. The Chinese have long been pushing the multiregional theory of human evolution. I am not sure why the Chinese feel that way, but it may have to do with not wanting to believe that they came from Black people. The Chinese have always thought that that China was the center of the world. The ancient belief is that China is the land where all four winds (north, south, east and west) arise. It’s a silly nationalistic conceit and the sooner they dump it, the better. Here is a bit on Fengxian Wu and the Dong or Kam languages, focusing on their difficulty:

Sino-Tibetan Chinese

A recent 15 year survey out of Fudan University utilizing both the departments of Linguistics and Anthropology looked at 579 different languages in order to try to find the most complicated language in the world. The result was that a Wu language dialect (or perhaps a separate language) in the Fengxian district of Shanghai (Fengxian Wu) was the most complex language of all, with 20 separate vowels. The nearest competitor was Norwegian with 16 vowels. Fengxian Wu gets a 5 rating, hardest of all.

Kam-Sui

The Kam languages of the Dong people in southwest China were rated by the Fudan University study referenced above under Wu as the 2nd most complex on Earth. There are 32 stem initial consonants, including oddities like , tɕʰ, , pʲʰ, ɕ, , kʷʰ, ŋʷ, tʃʰ, tsʰ. Note the many contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless consonants, including bilabial palatalized stops, labialized velar stops, and alveolar affricates. There are an incredible 64 different syllable finals, and 14 others that occur only in Chinese loans. There are an astounding 15 different tones, nine in open syllables and six in checked syllables (entering tones). The main tones are high, high rising, high falling, low, low rising, low falling, mid, dipping and peaking. Kam gets a 5 rating, hardest of all. If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site. Donations are the only thing that keep the site operating.

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0 thoughts on “Hardest Languages on Earth Found in China”

  1. This is an old conceit of the Chinese. They just can’t handle the idea that humans came out of Africa, and they are always fighting this idea. They even claim that there proto-humans have special characteristics that mean that they could not possibly have come out of Africa. The Chinese have long been pushing the multiregional theory of human evolution.
    ^^^^^^
    the prevailing paradigm of recent single-origin out of Africa has been effectively refuted by the discovery of neanderthal, denisovan and other unknown hominid DNA in the modern human genome.
    As a linguist and race realist, is there a correlation between language hardness and racial IQ?

    1. Not at all. All modern humans came out of Africa, but on their journey out, they ran into some Neandertals and Denisovans and bred in with some of them. So the OOA theory still stands.
      There is no relationship at all between language difficulty and racial IQ. Amerindian languages are the most monstrous on Earth, and their IQ’s are only ~87. Eskimo languages are horrific, and Eskimos have ~91 IQ’s. The language of the Bushmen is insanely hard, but their IQ is thought to be between 50-60. Aborigine and Papuan languages can also be incredibly difficult.
      The languages of the Caucasus are the hardest on Earth, but their IQ’s are only ~85-90.

  2. I’m not sold on it either. There are artifacts found on earth that go back a billion years, footprints in rock that are half a billion years old…anomolies are all over the place and because so-called scientists don’t want their life’s work questioned, they ignore them. The Smithsonian has room fulls of such anomolies they can’t fit into their accepted worldview. So the jury’s still out, imo. For all I know, we could have been genetically modified by ETs. A billion years (or more) is a long time for things to happen.

  3. Mr. Lindsay, it seems that the languages were judged based on phonological attributes. Did the study use any other parameters to rank the languages in terms of complexity?

  4. Chinese are not superior to white man. White man is capable of more innovation, athleticism, and government structuring. But Chinese are the 2nd most superior ppl in the world. We have a lot of history and culture. Black niggers are lower than ants, the ant colony and anthive is more complex and organized than African mud hut. Blacks have no respect for other life and kill and murder each other like savage Mongols. Black ppl are like Mongol hordes of barbarians and are simple apes. The white man is brave strong and intelligent, Chinese is intelligent.

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