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.
There are 7,106 known living languages in the world today. 389 (or approximately 6%) of the world's languages have at least one million speakers and account for 94% of the world's population. By contrast, the remaining 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the world's people.