I believe that learning a new language changes how you se the world (if nothing else) because it forces you to reconsider how you see the world.
Learning a language with gender forces you to reconsider how you imagine objects (and makes the phrase "I have a friend" much more interesting to others). Learning a language without conjugation forces you to reconsider how you express time. Going into the more exciting cases, learning a language with evidentiality forces you to reconsider how you know things. Learning a geocentric language would require an expert sense of direction. Learning a language with VOS(verb-object-subject) word order forces you to reconsider what's most important.
What I'm trying to do is see how far we could push this idea. If you could learn 5 languages, and you wanted to choose 5 that each had totally different linguistic features, which ones would you choose?
I haven't been able to decide yet, but here are some I'm considering and why:
Cantonese - 6 tones. Character writing system. Isolating(so everything is done with individual words - instead of prefixes and suffixes). No conjugation.
Pirahã - No numbers. No recursion (sentence inside sentence). No colors(just light, dark, etc.). Evidentiality(you must explain how you know something). Agglutinative (many word said with affixed- which means long words!)
!Xóõ - The most sounds of any known language. Lots of clicks.
Guugu Yimidhirr - Geodirectional (you don't say "left/right" etc. You say "north,south,east,west"). SOV word order.
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from Language Learning https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/vhjxsz/what_5_languages_are_most_different_from_each/
via Learn Online English Speaking
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