1
Ainu
A language isolate of northern Japan and Sakhalin — once spoken by the indigenous Ainu people, now critically endangered with only a handful of native speakers.
Looking for 4-letter languages? Here are 14 languages that fit — each linked to a full profile.
Letters are counted across the whole name with spaces, hyphens, apostrophes, and diacritics excluded. "Apple Pie" is 8 letters; "Boeuf Bourguignon" is 16.
List of 4-letter Languages
2
Akan
A cluster of closely related Niger-Congo languages of Ghana and Ivory Coast — including Twi and Fante — spoken by roughly 11 million people as a first language.
3
Cree
An Algonquian language of the Canadian boreal forests and plains — the largest indigenous language group of Canada, with about 96,000 speakers and a unique syllabic script.
4
Dari
The Afghan variety of Persian and one of Afghanistan's two official languages — mutually intelligible with Iran's Farsi and Tajikistan's Tajik, forming the Persian dialect continuum.
5
Fula
A Niger-Congo language spoken across the Sahel from Senegal to Sudan — the language of the historically pastoralist Fulani people, with about 65 million speakers.
6
Hopi
A Uto-Aztecan language of northeastern Arizona — spoken by the Hopi Tribe on the Hopi Reservation surrounded by the Navajo Nation.
7
Igbo
A Niger-Congo language of southeastern Nigeria — spoken by about 30 million people and one of Nigeria's three official "majority" languages.
8
Krio
An English-based creole that is the lingua franca of Sierra Leone — descended from the speech of freed Africans resettled in Freetown from the late 18th century.
9
Manx
The Goidelic Celtic language of the Isle of Man — extinct in 1974 with the death of its last native speaker, then revived from records and is now learnt anew.
10
Odia
An Indo-Aryan language and the official tongue of the Indian state of Odisha — one of India's six classical languages, with a literary tradition dating to the 13th century.
11
Pali
The Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Theravada Buddhist canon — preserved across South and Southeast Asia in monastic recitation.
12
Thai
A Tai-Kadai language and the official tongue of Thailand — tonal, with five distinct tones and a Brahmic-derived script not separated by spaces between words.
13
Urdu
An Indo-Aryan language and the national language of Pakistan — written in a flowing Perso-Arabic script, sharing colloquial Hindustani roots with Hindi but a literary Persian heritage.
14
Zulu
A Nguni Bantu language and the most widely spoken first language in South Africa — official, distinctive for its iconic click consonants.
About 4-letter languages
That's our current list of languages with exactly 4 letters. Need a different length? Try the browse-by-length pills in the sidebar, or combine with a starting letter — for example, 4-letter languages that start with A.