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.
Whereas Asia leads the statistics with 2,301 languages, Africa follows closely with 2,138. There are about 1,300 languages in the Pacific, and 1,064 in South and North America. Europe, despite its many nation-states, is at the bottom of the pack with just 286.