World Languages

Facts about the world languages

According to Illinois state law, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is "American."

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Finnish word SAIPPUAKIVIKAUPPIAS a soapstone seller is the longest known palindrome in any language.

All pilots on international flights identify themselves in English.

Country with the most languages spoken: Papua New Guinea has 820 living languages.

Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, has been translated into more languages than any book outside of the Bible.

First language ever written: Sumerian or Egyptian (about 3200 BC)

Forty is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. "One" is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.

Four is the only number whose number of letters in the name equals the number.

French was the official language of England for over 600 years.

Go. is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

In Vulcan, Alberta Canada, the tourist welcome sign is written in both English and Klingon (alien language from “Star Trek”).

It has been estimated that the number of actively spoken languages in the world today is about 6,000.

Language spoken by the greatest number of non-native speakers: English (250 million to 350 million non-native speakers)

Language with the fewest words: Taki Taki (also called Sranan), 340 words. Taki Taki is an English-based Creole spoken by 120,000 in the South American country of Suriname.

Language with the greatest number of native speakers: Mandarin Chinese

Language with the largest alphabet: Khmer (74 letters). This Austro-Asiatic language is the official language of Cambodia, where approx.12 million people speak it. Minority speakers live in a handful of other countries.

Language with the most words: English, approx. 250,000 distinct words.

Language with the shortest alphabet: Rotokas (12 letters). Approx. 4300 people speak this East Papuan language. They live primarily in the Bougainville Province of Papua New Guinea.

Latin is a dead language.

Longest word in the English language: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters)

Many languages in Africa include a “click” sound that is pronounced at the same time as other sounds. You must learn these languages in childhood to do it properly.

More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.

More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.

No language has more synonyms than English.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

No word in the English language rhymes with"month".

Number of living languages: 6912

Number of those languages that are nearly extinct: 516

Of all the languages in the world, English has the largest vocabulary about 800,000 words.

Of all the words in the English language, the word ' set ' has the most definitions!

Of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions.

Oldest written language still in existence: Chinese or Greek (about 1500 BC)

On June 26th, 1945, the charter of the United Nations was signed by 50 countries in San Francisco. (The text of the charter was in five languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.)

Only 3 words in the English language end in "ceed": "proceed," "exceed," and "succeed."

Out of all the eight letter words in the English language, only one has only one vowel in it: "strength"

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."

Rhythms is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.

Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter was reported to have said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers."

Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.

Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.

Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.

Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the ancient Bible) did not contain an easy way to say 'many things' and used a term which has come down to us as 40. This means that when the bible -in many places -refers to '40 days,' they meant many days.

South Africa used to have two official languages, now it has eleven.

The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

The Chinese language does not require punctuation.

The computer programming language ADA was named in honor of Augusta Ada King. The U.S. Defense Department named the language after the Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron because she helped finance and program what is thought to be the first computer, the “analytical engine” designed by Charles Babbage.

The letter most in use in the English language is "E" and the letter "Q" is least used.

The longest one syllable word in he English language is "screeched".

The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA.

The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters ispneumonoultra-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

The longest word in the Finnish language, that isn't a compound word, is 'epaejaerjestelmaellistyttaemaettoemyydellaensaekaeaen'. In English it means 'even with their lack of ability to disorganize'.

The most common letters in English are R S T L N E.

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.

The most widely published language: English

The only MLB team to have both its city's name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.

The Philippines has more than 1,000 regional dialects and two official languages.

The shortest word in the English language with all its letters in alphabetical order is the word "almost."

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.

The word "honcho" comes from a Japanese word meaning "squad leader" and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.

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.

There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe - roughly 3% of the world’s total.

There are at least two words in the English language that use all of the vowels, in the correct order, and end in the letter Y: abstemiously & facetiously.

There are between 6000 and 7000 languages in the world - spoken by six billion people divided into 189 independent states.

There are more than 2,700 languages in the world. In addition, there are more than 7,000 dialects.

There are only 4 words in the English language which end in "duos": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

There are only two sequences of four consecutive letters that can be found in the English language: "rstu" and "mnop." Examples of each are understudy and gynophobia.

There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."

There is no word that rhymes with orange.

There is no word that rhymes with purple.

There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper

Underground is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

Victor Hugo's Les Miserable contains one of the longest sentences in the French language 823 words without a period.