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.
Index of languages by language family. There are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken in the world. Ethnologue lists 7,097 language, of which 3,947 have fewer than 10,000 speakers. By end of the 21st century it is thought that between 50-90% of all languages will be extinct.