Language tidbits

Every once in a while, I receive a folio from Masterfile, a stock photography agency. This month, a page on language, with the following facts, was included;

• There are 6,912 living languages.
• 516 of those are nearly extinct.
• There are 820 living languages in Papua New Guinea (hate to see the translation guide for that country.)
• Khmer, the world's largest alphabet has 74 letters.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been translated into 321 languages.
• The English language has 250,000 distinct words.

The last tidbit I thought interesting was a quote from Carl Sandburg:

"Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work."