• Did You Know...?



    Here are some interesting facts about the English language...
    • The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
    • "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
    • The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
    • The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
    • "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
    • There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
    • The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwe-nuakit natahu, a New Zealand hill.
    • 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.
    • The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable".
    • There is only ONE word in the English language with three consecutive sets of double letters... Bookkeeper.
    • In the English language there are only three words that have a letter that repeats six times. Degenerescence (six e’s), Indivisibility (six i’s), and nonannouncement (six n’s).
    • There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
    • 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.
    • The shortest word in the English language with all its letters in alphabetical order is the word "almost."
    • The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA.
    • The letter most in use in the English language is "E" and the letter "Q" is least used.
    • Out of all the eight letter words in the English language, only one has only one vowel in it: "strength".
    • Of all the languages in the world, English has the largest vocabulary about 800,000 words.

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

    • No language has more synonyms than English.

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

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

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

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

    • English is the most widespread language in the world and is more widely spoken and written than any other language.

    • Over 700 million people, speak English, as a foreign language.

    • Of all the world's languages (over 2,700) English is arguably the richest in vocabulary; and that the Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words, and a further half-million technical and scientific terms remain uncatalogued.

    • The main language used throughout the world on the internet is English.

    • The shortest complete sentence in the English language is “I am.”

    • The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” uses every letter of the alphabet!

    • The only three words in the English language to have 2 consecutive u’s is vacuum, residuum, and continuum.

    • The very first dictionary “The American” took Noah Webster 20 years to put together.

    • The word “alphabet” is derived from the first two letters in the Greek alphabet: “alpha” and “beta”.
    • The only word in the English language that has 4 sets of double letters in a row is "balloonneer".
    • A moment is defined as zero seconds long.
    • Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States!

    Here are some interesting facts about language(s):

    • The Chinese language does not require punctuation.
    • Some languages do not have pronouns and/or verb tenses.
    • The only Major League Baseball 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.
    • South Africa used to have two official languages, now it has eleven.
    • Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.
    • There are more than 7,000 dialects around the world.
    • There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers.
    • The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.
    • The language of a society changes slowly but steadily with the result that an educated person will not be able to read or understand words in his language written 500 years ago.
    • 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.
    • Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.
    • French was the official language of England for over 600 years.




    References:
    http://www.etni.org.il/farside/moreinterestingfacts.htm
    http://www.funshun.com/amazing-facts/language-facts.html
    http://www.framtak.com/english/facts.html
    http://www.dumbfacts.com/facts/
Last Modified on August 31, 2010