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Linking Young Minds Together
     Volume 2 Issue 2 | January 21, 2007|


  
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Feature

Interesting Language Facts

Amanat Ahmed


The exact number of languages prevailing in this planet can never be determined. There are roughly 6,800 languages spoken on this planet. 96% of these languages are spoken by 4% of the world's population and over half of these languages are endangered. However, there are many interesting facts about languages. Here I have compiled a few such facts for the readers of Star Campus. Hope you find these interesting.

· The most widely spoken language in this planet is Mandarin (near about 1 billion people speak it).

· Somalia is the only country in the world where every citizen speaks one language, Somali.

· There are over 583 different languages and dialects spoken in Indonesia alone, including English and Dutch.

· The Cambodian alphabet is the world's largest alphabet, with 74 letters. The world's shortest alphabet, used in the Solomon Islands, has only 11.

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

· The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.

· The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "The King is dead".

· English, the second most spoken language in the world, has more words than any other language. But English speakers generally use only about 1% of the language.

· 'Zorro' means 'fox' in Spanish.

· Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".

· The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

· Mafia in Old Arabic means 'sanctuary.'

· The word 'Bye' is used in both English and Spanish to mean the same thing.

· In Chinese, the words crisis and opportunity are the same.

· The word "voodoo" comes from a West African word that means "spirit" or "deity." In the etymology of the word, there are no connotations of evil or immorality.

· Goodbye came from God bye which came from God be with you. So long came from the Arabic word salaam and the Hebrew word shalom.

· In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value.

· The longest non-medical word in the English language is FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION, which means "the act of estimating as worthless".

· 'Stewardesses' is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

· The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

· The word "trivia" comes from the Latin "trivium" which is the place where three roads meet, a public square. People would gather here and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were trivial.

· "Speak of the Devil" is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall come". It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That's why when you're talking about someone and they show up people say "Speak of the Devil".

· The first word spoken on the moon was "okay."

(Source: Internet)

(9th Batch, Department of Accounting & Information Systems, University of Dhaka)

 

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