1
Czech
A West Slavic language closely related to Slovak — official in the Czech Republic and famed for the unique "ř" consonant heard nowhere else.
Looking for 5-letter languages? Here are 24 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 5-letter Languages
2
Dutch
A West Germanic language sitting between English and German in many features — official in the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), and Suriname.
3
Greek
A single-branch Indo-European language with a continuous 3,400-year written record — the language of Homer, Plato, and modern Greece and Cyprus.
4
Hakka
A Sinitic language of the dispersed Hakka people — historically labelled "guest families" — spoken across southern China, Taiwan, and a wide diaspora.
5
Hausa
A Chadic language and one of Africa's largest lingua francas — spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, and as a trade language throughout West Africa.
6
Hindi
An Indo-Aryan language written in Devanagari and one of India's two official languages — the standardized form of a dialect continuum spoken across the Hindi Belt of northern India.
7
Hmong
A Hmong-Mien language spoken in southern China, Vietnam, Laos, and the diaspora — about 4 million speakers, with major communities in the United States after Indochina wars.
8
Irish
A Celtic language and the national language of Ireland — taught in all Irish schools, though daily speakers number only about 70,000 in the Gaeltacht regions.
9
Khmer
An Austroasiatic language and the official tongue of Cambodia — written in a Brahmic-derived script and notable for not being tonal, unlike its Southeast Asian neighbors.
10
Latin
The Italic language of ancient Rome that became Western Europe's intellectual lingua franca for over a millennium and the parent of all modern Romance languages.
11
Malay
An Austronesian language and the national language of Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore — closely related to Indonesian, with a 1,500-year history as a regional trade lingua franca.
12
Maori
An Eastern Polynesian language and the indigenous language of New Zealand — an official language of Aotearoa, undergoing active revitalization after late-20th-century decline.
13
Oromo
A Cushitic language and the most widely spoken first language in Ethiopia — written in a Latin alphabet known as Qubee since the 1990s.
14
Sango
A Ngbandi-based creole that serves as the national language of the Central African Republic.
15
Shona
A Bantu language and the most-spoken first language in Zimbabwe — also widely used in Mozambique, with a vibrant oral and musical tradition (especially mbira music).
16
Sotho
A Bantu language spoken by about 6 million people across Lesotho, South Africa, and Zimbabwe — also called Sesotho or Southern Sotho.
17
Tamil
A Dravidian language with one of the world's longest continuous literary traditions — official in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, and Singapore, with about 78 million native speakers.
18
Tatar
A Turkic language of the Tatar people in Russia — the official language of Tatarstan, spoken by about 5 million people.
19
Uzbek
A Turkic language and the most-spoken Turkic language after Turkish — Uzbekistan's official language, with about 34 million speakers.
20
Welsh
A Celtic language and one of the oldest living languages in Europe — co-official in Wales, with about 884,000 speakers and active government support for revitalization.
21
Wolof
A Niger-Congo language and the lingua franca of Senegal — spoken natively by about 5 million people and used as a second language by most Senegalese.
22
Xhosa
A Nguni Bantu language famous for its three click consonants — South Africa's second-most-spoken language and the mother tongue of Nelson Mandela.
23
Yakut
A Turkic language of the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia — the easternmost Turkic language, spoken by about 450,000 people.
24
Yuchi
A language isolate of the Yuchi people of Oklahoma — once spoken across the southeastern United States, now critically endangered.
About 5-letter languages
That's our current list of languages with exactly 5 letters. Need a different length? Try the browse-by-length pills in the sidebar, or combine with a starting letter — for example, 5-letter languages that start with A.