When this series started, the Bradford family consisted of Tom, the father, a respected columnist for the Sacramento Register, Joan, his wife for about 25 years, and the eight children of the couple, all of them were very normal but quite independent. Unexpectedly, actress Diana Hyland died of cancer and was written off the series after 5 episodes.
Let's first take a closer look at the linguistic diversity that existed five hundred years ago. In 1500 there were probably about 7 thousand languages spoken across the earth, most still groupable into the 25 or so major families represented today.
10 Bizarre Languages Still Spoken Around the World. Language is a funny thing. There are about 500 million people who speak English on this planet, and itâs not even the most common language in the world (Mandarin tops the charts at over a billion). Yet, on the other end of the scale, there are somewhere close to 2,000 languages that are spoken by less than a thousand people each.