The Florentine dialect has become Italy's national language, beating many other regional dialects
1 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
In 2018, Chinese overtook German as the third most studied language in the UK
8 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Despite the fact that people all over the world do ballet, the terminology is mainly in French
15 day(s) ago
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Books, movies and TV shows have led to the creation of more than 200 artificial languages
22 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The word 'alphabet' originates from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet - 'alpha' and 'beta'
29 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Russian was the first language ever spoken in outer space
36 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Most people agree that the thousands of languages we use today are all descended from one initial language
43 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The origins of language are lost to time: some believe it was a divine gift, while others believe that humans began to imitate the sounds animals make
51 day(s) ago
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The country name 'Mexico' means 'Navel of the Moon' in Nahuatl: "mexitli" is made up of "metztli" (moon) and "xictli" (navel)
57 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The Pope's most followed Twitter account is his Spanish language one (he tweets in 9 languages in total)
71 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Learning another language has benefits for your memory and can help stave off dementia for up to five years
78 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
21 countries speak Spanish as one of their official languages
85 day(s) ago
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Spanish has incorporated around 4,000 Arabic words into the modern version of its language
92 day(s) ago
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More than 300 languages are now spoken in London
99 day(s) ago
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Chinese speakers use both sides of the brain when talking, while English speakers use only the left
106 day(s) ago
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Asia and Africa combined account for around 2/3 of all languages
113 day(s) ago
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There are more than 200 different Hawaiian words for 'rain'
120 day(s) ago
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Over 1.5 million Americans are native French speakers
127 day(s) ago
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Different languages and cultures use different degrees of physical contact as part of their communication
134 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The first ever printed book was written in German
141 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Spain (España) takes its name from Ispania, which the Carthaginians named it around 300 BC - literally meaning 'land of rabbits'
148 day(s) ago
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In Indonesian, “air” means “water”
155 day(s) ago
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Japanese uses three different writing systems: Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana
162 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Mexico has more Spanish-speakers than any other country, followed by the US
169 day(s) ago
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Speaking Mandarin Chinese enables you to speak to 13% of the world’s population
183 day(s) ago
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Hindi didn’t become the official language of India until 1965
190 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The word - or rather, sound - 'mmhmm' doesn't appear in the dictionary yet is used daily by English speakers to mean 'yes'
197 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
To read novels in another language, you need to learn around 8,000 to 9,000 lemmas (root words and all their inflections)
204 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
A trigraph is the use of 3 letters to make the sound of 1, such as 'igh' making the same sound as 'i' in English, or 'tea' making the same sound as 't'
211 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
To understand TV/film dialogue sufficiently in another language, you need to learn around 3,000 lemmas
218 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The letter 'e' is the most commonly used letter in English, whether considered as the most frequently used in text or in the vocabulary as a whole
225 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Learning 800 of the most frequently used lemmas and their inflections (word families) in English means you will understand 75% of daily conversation
232 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Learning 800 of the most frequently used lemmas (word families) in English means you will understand 75% of daily conversation
239 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Studies have shown that native speakers typically know 15,000 to 20,000 lemmas (word families) in their first language
248 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
A word family - or lemma - is a root word and all its inflections, e.g.: swim, swam, swimming; or red, reddish, reddest, etc.
253 day(s) ago
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The English language has some 47,156 obsolete words
260 day(s) ago
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There are estimated to be 171,146 words currently in use in the English language
267 day(s) ago
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The largest language by number of words is Korean, with more than 1.1 million words. Turkish, in second place, has just over 616,000
274 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
A digraph is the use of two letters to make a single sound, e.g. ph
281 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Tautology refers to the saying of the same thing twice over in different words, and is generally considered to be a fault of style (e.g. they arrived one after the other in succession)
288 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
In the Nigerian village of Ubang, the men and women speak different languages, yet can understand each other perfectly
302 day(s) ago
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The oldest known written language dates back to Yangshao culture pottery from China, dated around 4500 BC
309 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The smallest alphabet is that of Rotokas, which has just 11-12 letters
316 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Welsh is still spoken in Patagonia, Argentina, after Welsh settlers travelled there in 1865
323 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Basque is the only language in Europe not known to be related to any other language
330 day(s) ago
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In Japan, a man sued national broadcaster NHK for 'mental distress' due to its use of loan words borrowed from English
337 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
The easiest language for English speakers to learn is Frisian, which is native to part of the Netherlands, as it sounds similar and has a shared history
344 day(s) ago
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Tomedes
Esperanto was created in 1887 by Dr L Zamenhof as a language that would allow people who speak different native languages to communicate while retaining their own languages and cultural identities
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Tolkien referred to 12 artificial languages in Lord of the Rings, but only two were well developed - Quenya and Sindarin
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Eastern Siberia, Northern Australia and the Northwest Pacific Plateau in the US are hotspots for endangered languages
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Languages are dying at a rate of one per fortnight
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
25% of the world's population has at least some knowledge of English
1 year(s) ago
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There are 2,200 languages in Asia
1 year(s) ago
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12.4% of the world's population speaks Mandarin as a first language
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The artificial Esperanto language has up to 2 million speakers, but only 1,000-2,000 people speak it natively from birth
1 year(s) ago
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There are only two living Baltic languages: Latvian and Lithuanian
1 year(s) ago
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The word pulveratricious means three very different things: 1. (of birds) nesting on the ground; 2. dust-colored; and 3. covered with dust
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
90% of communication occurs using just 500 words
1 year(s) ago
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Most countries in Europe have several regional or minority languages, some of which have official status
1 year(s) ago
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The most widely used non-European languages in Europe are Arabic, Chinese and Hindi
1 year(s) ago
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90% of communication occurs using just 500 words
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Russia has the highest number of languages spoken on its territory: from 130 to 200 depending on the criteria
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The separation of the Korean nations in 1953 has resulted in increasing differences among the several dialects of the Korean language, with North Koreans borrowing Russian terms while South Koreans borrow extensively from English
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence in American English. It is an example of homonyms and homophones creating complicated linguistic constructs through lexical ambiguity.
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The verb 'to table' has opposite meanings in the UK and US. In the UK, it means to begin considering a proposal. In the US, it means to suspend a motion.
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
I.e. - meaning 'in other words' - is an abbreviation of the Latin 'id est'
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
E.g. - meaning 'for example' - is an abbreviation of the Latin 'exempli gratia'
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The town name “Scheveningen” was used as a code word by Dutch resistance fighters because Germans could not pronounce it correctly
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia refers to an irrational fear of the number 666
1 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia refers to an irrational fear of the number 666
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Triskaidekaphobia is a fear of the number 13
1 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
Paraskavedekatriaphobia is the word used to describe a fear of Friday the 13th (which some consider to be extremely unlucky)
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The most translated document: Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, written by the United Nations in 1948, has been translated into 321 languages and dialects
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Portuguese is the 5th most spoken native language in the world and the 3rd in Europe
1 year(s) ago
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Portuguese is the 2nd most spoken language in Latin America (after Spanish)
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
English is the official language of 27 non-sovereign entities including the UN, the EU, the IOC, NATO, ASEAN, NAFTA, and the Commonwealth of Nations
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
French is the official or preferred language of many international organizations, since France is one of the four largest industrial economies in the world and the second largest agricultural producer
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
1 in every 10 books published worldwide is in German
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Career-wise, bilingualism is a strong asset and it is said that in certain fields, bilingual candidates can earn up to 20% more than monolinguals
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Career-wise, bilingualism is a strong asset and it is said that in certain fields, bilingual candidates can earn up to 20% more than monolinguals
1 year(s) ago
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Wendy kalman
When Ben Yehuda brought back Hebrew and modernized it, he had to switch up how tenses were used biblically in order to standardize them.
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Learning a foreign language has been shown to have benefits from an academic as well as an information retention point of view. Improvements include critical thinking skills, creativity and flexibility of the mind
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
South Africa holds a Guinness World record for having the most official languages in the world, with 11
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Nearly every African country was at one time a colony, therefore many of the population speak English, French or Portuguese as their first or second language
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Danish was the official language of Norway until about 1830 and of Iceland until 1944
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
In Albania, shaking your head means ‘yes’ whilst nodding means ‘no’
1 year(s) ago
3
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There was only one code during World War II that was never broken by the enemy and was used by the US Army. Navajo soldiers, called Codetalkers, developed a radio code based on their native language. It was the only way US soldiers on the battlefiel
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Besides Wales, Argentina is the only other country where Welsh is spoken by a significant minority thanks to settlers that inhabited Patagonia nearly 200 years ago
1 year(s) ago
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840 (almost 1/7) of all the languages on Earth are spoken in 1 country…Papua New Guinea
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The Silbo language of La Gomera off the coast of Spain consists entirely of whistles
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
There are 2,400 languages classified as being ‘endangered’
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Q is the only letter that does not occur in any of the US state names
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
At 45 letters, "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis," a lung disease, is the longest word in English
1 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
"Euouae," a medieval music term, is the longest word in English that contains only vowels. It’s also the word with the most consecutive vowels
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
"Euouae," a medieval music term, is the longest word in English that contains only vowels. It’s also the word with the most consecutive vowels
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Irish has no words for "yes" and "no" - the answer to a question contains a repetition of the verb, either with or without a negative particle
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
1 out of every 8 letters written in English is an E
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language - Somali
2 year(s) ago
2
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The shortest -ology is oology, the scientific study of eggs
2 year(s) ago
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2
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In written English, only one letter in every 510 is a Q
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Schoolmaster is an anagram of “the classroom"
2 year(s) ago
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If you were to write out every number in full (one, two, three, four...), you wouldn’t use a single letter B until you reached one billion
2 year(s) ago
1
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Only two modern English words end in “-gry”: “angry” and “hungry" - unless you count the addition of "hangry"
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The dot above the letters “i” and “j” is called a superscript dot
2 year(s) ago
1
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"Typewriter” is one of the longest common words you can type on the top row of a typewriter
2 year(s) ago
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1
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Tomedes
The oldest English word that is still in use is ‘town’
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The first English dictionary was written in 1755
2 year(s) ago
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The word ‘lol’ was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011
2 year(s) ago
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The most commonly used noun in English is ‘time’
2 year(s) ago
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The most common adjective used in English is ‘good’
2 year(s) ago
0
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Tomedes
A text that deliberately excludes a particular letter of the alphabet is called a lipogram
2 year(s) ago
1
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About 100 languages rely on the Roman alphabet. Used by roughly two billion people, it's the world's most popular script
2 year(s) ago
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Goddessship is the only word in the English language with a triple letter
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The history of the alphabet started in ancient Egypt. By the 27th century BC Egyptian writing had a set of some 24 hieroglyphs which are called uniliterals, to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (o
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Famous pangrams include: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" and "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs."
2 year(s) ago
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1
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A sentence which contains all 26 letters of the English alphabet is called a pangram
2 year(s) ago
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The longest word in English which doesn't use the letter E is floccinaucinihilipilification
2 year(s) ago
1
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1 out of every 8 letters written is an E
2 year(s) ago
2
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The word "rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel
2 year(s) ago
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1
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Tomedes
If you try to say the alphabet without moving your lips or tongue every letter will sound the same
2 year(s) ago
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2
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The 26 letters of the English alphabet make up more than 40 distinct sounds
2 year(s) ago
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Despite no discernible relationship between English and Mbabaram, the word for 'dog' is the same in both languages
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Irish has no words for "yes" and "no" - the answer to a question contains a repetition of the verb, either with or without a negative particle
2 year(s) ago
0
1
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Tomedes
Semantic satiation (semantic saturation) refers to the repetition of a word or phrase until it temporarily loses meaning for the listener/reader
2 year(s) ago
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Elephants have voices that are different for each individual, in just the same way that humans do
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Koko the gorilla, born in 1971 at San Francisco Zoo, learned to sign over 1,000 words and was able to competently communicate with her trainers
2 year(s) ago
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Cats only ‘meow’ when communicating with humans - they purr and hiss to communicate with other cats
2 year(s) ago
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Baby chickens can cheep before they hatch: about 24 hours before hatching they cheep in response to the mother hen's clucks
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Whales and dolphins have regional accents, just as humans do
2 year(s) ago
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Whales and dolphins have regional accents, just as humans do
2 year(s) ago
2
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Tomedes
Bilinguals recover faster from strokes than monolinguals
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
“Go!” is the shortest grammatically correct sentence in English
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
Approximately one new word is added to the English language every two hours and around 4,000 new words are added to the English dictionary every year
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
A polyglot is a person who can write and speak several different languages
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
German and French were voted the best languages for graduates to learn to help enhance their job prospects
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Agatha Christie is the world’s most translated author
2 year(s) ago
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80% of African languages have no written form
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is the fear of long words
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
You speak about 4,800 words a day
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The language which has won the most Oscars for Best Foreign Film is Italian (there have been 12 winning films in Italian)
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Languages have existed since about 100,000BC
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
There is a language in Mexico called Ayapaneco that is in danger of dying out because its last two remaining speakers refused to talk to one another (though they are now on speaking terms and have even opened a school to try and teach the language t
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The United Nations has 6 official languages – Arabic, Manadarin, Russian, English, French and Spanish
2 year(s) ago
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The European Union has 24 official languages
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
More than 70% of all the home pages on the Internet are in English
2 year(s) ago
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Silbo is a variation of Spanish used to communicate over long distances in the mountains, it consists entirely of whistles
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Tolstoy’s original text for War And Peace in Russian and French contains about 460,000 words. The English translation has about 560,000.
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
After The Bible, the most translated books are ‘The Little Prince’ and ‘Pinocchio’
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The Khumer language from Cambodia has the longest alphabet, with 74 letters
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Cryptophasias is the private language developed between twins
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
There is a language in Botswana that consists mainly of five types of clicks
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
You can us an ATM in Latin in Vatican City
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The pope tweets in nine languages
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The bible is available in 2,454 languages
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
George R.R. Martin, in his A Song of Ice and Fire book series, established the nomadic horse-rearing Dothraki people. In the books Martin included very few words of the Dothraki language, but for the HBO television series David Peterson of the Langu
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
There is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet published in Klingon
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
Star Trek fans have used Klingon to conduct marriage ceremonies and write songs
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
The Klingon Language Institute has a quarterly journal dedicated to the fictional Klingon languge
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The fictional language Klingon was created by linguist Marc Okrand as the language of the warrior Klingon race on the TV show Star Trek
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
Due to the influx of migrants and refugees, Europe has become largely multilingual. In London alone some 300 languages are spoken (Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Berber, Hindi, Punjabi, etc.).
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet
2 year(s) ago
1
1
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Tomedes
The word "girl" appears only once in the Bible
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
"Polish" is the only word in the English language that when capitalized is changed from a noun or a verb to a nationality
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
Honorificabilitudinitatibus, at 27 letters long, is the longest word consisting strictly of alternating consonants and vowels. It is the dative and ablative plural of the medieval Latin word honorificabilitudinitas, which can be translated as "the state of being able to achieve honours"
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
The little dot above lower case ‘i’s and ‘j’s is called a tittle
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
In Germany, Rice Krispies don’t go ‘snap, crackle and pop’ - they go ‘Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!'
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
The language in which a government conducts business is the official language of that country
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is spoken in northwestern Spain and southwestern France. It is not related to any other language in the world. It has an extremely complicated word structure and vocabulary
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
No words in English rhyme with: "month," "orange," "silver," or "purple"
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
William Shakespeare created many of the words in the English language including birthplace, blushing, torture, circumstantial, excitement, dwindle, and jaded
2 year(s) ago
3
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Tomedes
"Bookkeeper" is the only word in English language with three consecutive double letters
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
The English word 'infant' comes from the Latin word 'infans', meaning "unable to speak" or "speechless"
2 year(s) ago
3
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Tomedes
By the age of 18 months a child usually has a vocabulary of 50 to 150 words
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
The most common first words are ?mama? or ?dada?. No matter the language, the first words are usually mum or dad
2 year(s) ago
1
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Tomedes
Children usually say their first words between nine and 18 months old
2 year(s) ago
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1
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Tomedes
There are hundreds of sign language dialects in use around the world. Each culture has developed its own form of sign language to be compatible with the language spoken in that country.
2 year(s) ago
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Tomedes
American Sign Language (ASL) is the third most widely used language in the U.S., after English and Spanish.
2 year(s) ago
1
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The United States has more Spanish speakers than Spain
2 year(s) ago
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Almost is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order
2 year(s) ago
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The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
2 year(s) ago
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Include more from no. 16 onwards from here: http://edl.ecml.at/LanguageFun/LanguageFacts/tabid/1859/Default.aspx
2 year(s) ago
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Countries can sing in any language in the Eurovision Song Contest, even made up languages
2 year(s) ago
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Most European languages are either Germanic, Romance or Slavic
2 year(s) ago
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Languages can have upwards of 50,000 words, but everyday conversation uses just a few hundred
2 year(s) ago
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At least 50% of the world's population is bilingual
2 year(s) ago
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Europe is home to around 225 indigenous languages, which account for just 3% of the world's total
