Because the whole base of a country is it's people. Without a well educated and efficient populace, a country is doomed
The Treaty of Versailles was very harsh on Germany: it had to make huge reparations to the other countries, and it spend years with a very poor economy because of these reparations. This frustrated people and paved way for extremism (which came in the form of Hitler).
Actually.. there are more than 1000 languages in each of : Africa, Asia, Americas and the Pacific, and the most are in Asia, Just above a 1000 are in the Americas - that's probably the answer you're looking for, and the others that i mentioned have over 2000.