1
Ainu
A language isolate of northern Japan and Sakhalin — once spoken by the indigenous Ainu people, now critically endangered with only a handful of native speakers.
Below are languages that contain the letter U anywhere in the name. Each of the 50 languages below opens to a full profile.
Table of contents
List of Languages That Contain U
2
Basque
A language isolate spoken in the western Pyrenees — a linguistic mystery with no proven relatives, predating the arrival of Indo-European languages in Europe.
3
Belarusian
An East Slavic language closely related to Russian and Ukrainian — one of two official languages of Belarus, though increasingly endangered as Russian dominates.
4
Bulgarian
A South Slavic language and the official tongue of Bulgaria — historically the first Slavic language to be written down, in the 9th-century Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts.
5
Burmese
A Sino-Tibetan language and the official tongue of Myanmar — written in a rounded Brahmic script and spoken by about 33 million people as a first language.
6
Buryat
A Mongolic language of the Buryat people in Siberia, Mongolia, and northern China — about 460,000 speakers, related to Khalkha Mongolian.
7
Cebuano
An Austronesian language and the second-most-spoken language of the Philippines — dominant across the Visayas and northern Mindanao.
8
Chuvash
The only surviving Oghur Turkic language — official in the Russian Republic of Chuvashia, spoken by about 1 million people and a key piece of Turkic linguistic history.
9
Dutch
A West Germanic language sitting between English and German in many features — official in the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), and Suriname.
10
Friulian
A Romance language spoken in Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia region — about 420,000 speakers, recognized as a minority language with regional cultural support.
11
Fula
A Niger-Congo language spoken across the Sahel from Senegal to Sudan — the language of the historically pastoralist Fulani people, with about 65 million speakers.
12
Guarani
A Tupian language and the co-official language of Paraguay — spoken by about 5 million people, unique among major Latin American languages for being used by both Indigenous and mestizo populations.
13
Gujarati
An Indo-Aryan language of western India and the mother tongue of about 56 million people — official in Gujarat and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, with global diaspora communities.
14
Gulf Arabic
The Arabic vernacular of the Persian Gulf coast — spoken from Kuwait to Oman, blending peninsular Arab features with Persian and South Asian loanwords.
15
Hausa
A Chadic language and one of Africa's largest lingua francas — spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, and as a trade language throughout West Africa.
16
Hawaiian Sign Language
An indigenous sign language of the Hawaiian Islands — only recently documented and likely the last surviving member of its language family.
17
Hungarian
A Uralic language stranded among Indo-European neighbors in Central Europe — Hungary's official language, with rich agglutinative morphology and vowel harmony.
18
Interlingua
A naturalistic auxiliary language compiled in 1951 from the shared Romance and Latinate vocabulary of major European languages — readable on first sight by their speakers.
19
Inuktitut
An Inuit language spoken across the Canadian Arctic — co-official in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, written in both Latin and Canadian Aboriginal syllabics.
20
Kurdish (Kurmanji)
The most widely spoken Kurdish variety — a Northwestern Iranian language used by Kurds in Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq, Armenia, and the diaspora.
21
Kurdish (Sorani)
The Central Kurdish variety — official in Iraqi Kurdistan and widely used in western Iran — written in a modified Arabic script.
22
Lithuanian
A Baltic language famous for preserving many archaic Proto-Indo-European features — Lithuania's official tongue, considered the most conservative living Indo-European language.
23
Luxembourgish
A West Germanic language of Luxembourg — a national language alongside French and German, with about 390,000 speakers.
24
Manchu
A Tungusic language of the Manchu people of northeastern China — once the language of China's last imperial dynasty, today critically endangered.
25
Mapudungun
An indigenous Araucanian language of central-south Chile and Argentina — the Mapuche people's traditional language, with about 250,000 speakers.
26
N|uu
A critically endangered Tuu (formerly "Khoisan") language of South Africa — famous for having the world's largest known phoneme inventory.
27
Nahuatl
A Uto-Aztecan language of central Mexico — the language of the Aztec Empire, today spoken by about 1.7 million people across more than two dozen regional varieties.
28
Old Church Slavonic
The first literary Slavic language — developed in the 9th century by Saints Cyril and Methodius for the Christianisation of the Slavs, still used liturgically by Orthodox churches.
29
Portuguese
A Romance language born in the Iberian northwest and spread by maritime empire — today the official language of Portugal, Brazil, and several African and Asian states.
30
Punjabi (Eastern)
The Indian variety of Punjabi — official in the state of Punjab, written in the Gurmukhi script developed in the 16th century for Sikh scripture.
31
Quechua
A family of indigenous Andean languages — the language of the Inca Empire, today spoken by about 8 to 10 million people across Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and beyond.
32
Quenya
A fictional Elvish language created by J.R.R. Tolkien — the "Elven-Latin" of Middle-earth, designed to evoke Finnish and Latin aesthetics.
33
Russian
An East Slavic language and the most widely spoken Slavic tongue — official across the Russian Federation and a key second language throughout the former Soviet sphere.
34
Sumerian
The language isolate of the world's earliest urban civilisation in southern Mesopotamia — the first language ever written down.
35
Telugu
A Dravidian language of southeastern India spoken by about 96 million people — official in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with a rich classical literary tradition.
36
Turkish
The most spoken Turkic language and the official language of Turkey — famous for vowel harmony and a relentlessly suffixing morphology.
37
Turkmen
A Turkic language and the official tongue of Turkmenistan — closely related to Turkish and Azerbaijani, with about 7 million speakers.
38
Ukrainian
An East Slavic language spoken by about 40 million people — Ukraine's official language, written in Cyrillic and closely related to Russian and Belarusian.
39
Urdu
An Indo-Aryan language and the national language of Pakistan — written in a flowing Perso-Arabic script, sharing colloquial Hindustani roots with Hindi but a literary Persian heritage.
40
Uyghur
A Turkic language of Xinjiang in northwestern China — spoken by about 11 million Uyghurs, written in a modified Perso-Arabic script.
41
Uzbek
A Turkic language and the most-spoken Turkic language after Turkish — Uzbekistan's official language, with about 34 million speakers.
42
Volapük
The first widely successful constructed international auxiliary language — created by Johann Martin Schleyer in 1879 and peaking before Esperanto overtook it.
43
Western Punjabi
The most widely spoken language of Pakistan — known there as Punjabi or sometimes Lahnda — written in the Perso-Arabic Shahmukhi script and spoken by over 100 million people.
44
Wu Chinese
A major Sinitic branch centered on Shanghai and the lower Yangtze — its best-known variety, Shanghainese, has about 14 million speakers and a notable tonal system.
45
Yakut
A Turkic language of the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia — the easternmost Turkic language, spoken by about 450,000 people.
46
Yoruba
A Niger-Congo language spoken by about 47 million people in southwestern Nigeria and Benin — known for its rich oral tradition and tonal phonology.
47
Yucatec Maya
A Mayan language spoken across Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and Belize — the largest of the Mayan languages, with about 770,000 speakers.
48
Yuchi
A language isolate of the Yuchi people of Oklahoma — once spoken across the southeastern United States, now critically endangered.
49
Yue Chinese (Cantonese)
A southern Chinese branch centered on Guangzhou and Hong Kong — famous for preserving more tones and finals than Mandarin and for its prolific role in global Cantonese pop culture.
50
Zulu
A Nguni Bantu language and the most widely spoken first language in South Africa — official, distinctive for its iconic click consonants.
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