But why? A podcast for curious kids is known for serious answers to silly questions sent

in by kids just like you. But did you know that but why is now a book series?

Our first book, Our Lama's Ticklish, answers questions from real kids about farm animals.

This colorfully illustrated book is perfect for kids ages 8 to 10. And our second book,

To Fish Breathe Underwater, explores the underwater world of the ocean. Learn more at

at thebykids.org slash books.

This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids from Vermont Public Radio. I'm Jane Lindtom.

On But Why we let you ask the questions and we help find the answers.

One of the things that many of you are curious about is language. How we speak, why we speak,

and what we speak. We do this podcast in English, obviously. It's a pretty popular language.

There are more than 400 million people whose first or primary language is English. A lot

more people learn some English to get around in the world. But it's actually not the language

with the most speakers. That's Mandarin Chinese. There are more than a billion people speaking

Chinese just as native speakers. You might be one of them.

What's your guess on how many different languages there are?

What about a number? Well, it's just over 7,000, according to the best guesses of people

who study languages. These people are usually called linguists. Just this year, they found

7,097 living languages. Living languages are languages that are still being spoken by

at least one person. But that number is shrinking all the time because many languages have

just a handful of speakers. And there aren't enough new young people learning these endangered

languages to keep them alive. So some linguists say there are really more like 6,000 spoken languages

still around right now. The exact number is actually pretty hard to pin down. But the bottom

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