Language Facts

Papua New Guinea, a sovereign state in Oceania, is the most linguistically diverse country in the world. There are 839 living languages spoken in the country. Languages with statutory recognition are Tok Pisin, English, Hiri Motu, and Papua New Guinean Sign Language. Tok Pisin, an English-based creole, is the most widely spoken, serving as the country's lingua franca. A lingua franca is any language used for communication between people who do not share a native language. Papua New Guinean Sign Language became the fourth officially recognized language in May 2015, and is used by the deaf population throughout the country. • English - English is an official language of Papua New Guinea and is used by the government, courts, and the education system. In the 2011 census, 48.9% of the population were literate in English. • Tok Pisin - Tok Pisin is an English-based Creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely us

The first language spoken in space was Russian. On April 12, 1961, during the Vostok 1 mission, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space. During his historic flight, he communicated with ground control in his native tongue, Russian. There's a story that his first words in space were, "I see no God up here," but in actual fact, according to the flight transcript, he said, ""The craft is operating normally. I can see Earth in the view port of the Vzor. Everything is proceeding as planned" - not quite as poetic!  Since then, Russian has been one of the primary languages used in space missions, especially in collaborations involving Russian space agencies and international space agencies like NASA. Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft is the only way of traveling to the ISS since the end of NASA’s Space Shuttle program in 2011, and since all its controls are in Russian, every astronaut must learn the language. English is also commonly used