The wonderful ocean of language

The fantastic world of different spoken languages offers us endless opportunities for growth and communication. It is rooted in a great deal of the rich history of this or that country. Scientists say that language first evolved in the time of modern homo sapiens. It was 50,000–150,000 years ago. And since then, over 7000 various spoken languages have been established.

This vast universe of modern languages is full of fun and stimulating facts to whip out whenever you would like to impress your pals. Like the fascinating fact that the word ‘language’ itself really comes from the Latin word ‘lingua’, which means tongue. Hungry for more linguistic tidbits? Keep reading!

There are endangered languages. Busuu language is among them. It’s a language only 8 people spoke in 1986. The native speakers lived in the Southern Bantoid of Cameroon. In fact, there were only 3 Busuu speakers in 2005.

What tongue is considered to be the hardest language to learn?

Chinese Mandarin is regarded as the hardest tongue to learn. Its alphabet is made up entirely of symbols, so this fact is not surprising. The average Chinese local is estimated to be familiar with over 8,000 symbols and 3,000 is the minimum for those who want to be able to read the newspaper. There are also 4 different tones for pronunciation to differentiate between words as many characters have the same sound.

English is the language with the most words. English takes the cake in this category at a proud 750,000 words, with new ones being added all the time. In fact, it’s estimated that about 5,400 new English words are created annually, although only around a thousand of these will be incorporated into the vocabulary of the general public.

William Shakespeare personally invented 1,700 words. On the subject of new words, he came up with a pretty large collection of novel terms. William Shakespeare did this through a combination of changing nouns to verbs, verbs to adjectives, combining words, adding prefixes and suffixes as well as just straight up inventing brand-new ones.

The US has no official language

While English is the most commonly used language in the United States of America, there actually isn’t an official language there. More than 300 languages are spoken within the country, which makes it both a culturally and linguistically diverse place. No wonder it is quite tricky to appoint just one official language!

Learning a second language boosts your brain. Speaking more than one language provides the speaker with a whole host of benefits. Apparently, the process challenges your brain in a way that studies have shown could make you smarter. Learning another language slows down the brain’s aging process. It keeps your mind sharper as you grow older.

The shortest grammatically correct sentence is “GO!” English is the dignified winner of the award for the shortest-ever grammatically correct sentence. The command “GO!” instructs a person to take action. At the same time the subject isn’t written or spoken, yet it is immediately understood.

There are around 160 different English dialects

The linguists can’t gauge the exact total of English dialects, yet it’s estimated that there are over 160 different ones around the world. It is always difficult to discern a dialect when first learning the language, but native English speakers can often tell very quickly where their fellow countrymen hail from, purely based on their accents.

“Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” is one of the world’s longest words. There is no clear consensus on the official longest word in the world (plus as we know, language is ever-changing) but this 45-letter word is certainly up there. The word refers to a specific lung disease which comes from inhaling very fine silica dust, predominantly from a volcano. At the same time, it is equated to the word ‘silicosis’ which seems like a far easier and more efficient option.

“E” is the most commonly used letter in the English language, found in about 11% of all words in the English vocabulary (“A” is the next runner up). There are more people around the world who have learned English as their 2nd language than there are native speakers. Some English words only exist in plural form: glasses, jeans, scissors, and pajamas.