The most interesting facts about the languages of the world

There are more than 20 synonyms of the word “snow” in Eskimo.

“I am” – is the shortest complete sentence in English.

In Chinese hieroglyph which meant “difficulty, trouble” is pictured as two women unde  the one roof.

The longest alphabet in the world is Cambodian, it has 74 letters.

In America is usual to ask “How do you do?” (the answer is “fine” and “normal”), as well in Malaysia, they ask “Where do you go?”, and there is not a question but greeting, so the answer is “just for a walk”.

Taki language widespread in some parts of French Guiana consists of only 340 words.

The most famous polyglot of the past is the keeper of Vatican library cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (1774 – 1849). He could speak 140 languages.

European physicists fixed that the studying of languages in prone years enhances memory and inhibit the process of senescence. Learning of foreign languages can rejuvenate brain on 15-16 years.

The shorter the words are the closer is the probability to win the battle. To such a conclusion came the USA scientists, having analyzed the Okinawa warfare experience during The World War II. As they say, Americans won more often than Japanese, because orders in English are give faster than in Japanese.

The most roomy word in the world is “mamihlapinatapai” (Yahgan language), which mean “to look at each other with hope that someone will agree to do what they both want but don’t do”.

In definition dictionary of 1940 edited by Ushakov there is such a definition of the word “Figli-migli”(!): “…used for the designation of some kind of tricks, jokes or approaches for achievement something, attended by suavities, frills, scrolls and winking”.

“Hermitage” from French is translated as “the place of solitude”.

“Symposium” from Latin is translated as “mutual libation”.

Almost – is the longest word, in which all the letters are in the alphabet order.

The word “botcher” is brought in Russian language by Igor Severyanin.

“Mount Fuji” from Japanese is translated as “Steep Mountain”.

Until the XX century all the improper words were called “absurd verbs”.

There no words in English rhymed to month, orange, silver and purple.

The words “cheerfulness” and “tea” showed by similar hieroglyphs in Chinese.

Artificial international language Esperanto was created in 1887 by Warsaw physicist L. Zamenhof.

Swahili – is the combination of African tribes languages, Arabian and Portugal languages.
American gesture “everything’s ok” (fingers put into the loop) in Cyprus means “homosexual”.

The oldest word in English is “town”.

English language has more than 600 000 words.

The words “for future use”(впрок), “all in”(ва-банк) and “full face”(анфас) are adverbs.

There is no Latin letter W in Latin alphabet.

There are more than 40 000 symbols in Chinese writing.

Writer Ernst Vincent Right has a novel “Gatsby”, consisted of more than 50 000 words. There is no letter E in the whole novel (the most frequent letter in English).

Coast-dwellers have a belief: “On the blots matrices kinks”. In the modern language it would sound like: “During the aurora compass doesn’t work”.

Benjamin Franklin collected 200 synonyms of the word “drunk”, including such masterpieces as “cherry-merry”, “nimptopsical”, “soaked”.

In U.N.O. there are only 6 official languages: English, French, Arabian, Chinese, Russian and Spain.

Karamzin invented the word “industry”, Saltikov-Shchedryn – “feebleness” and Dostoevskyi – “efface oneself”.

Arabian language has 28 letters which have different spelling at the end of the world than in the middle, in Hebrew – there is 5 such letters, in Greek – 1 and other European languages have no such letters.

The names of the zodiacal signs in Latin are as follows: Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn.

The words of Persian origin “pyjamas’ and “chemodan”(suitcase) have similar root (“pyJAMA”, “JAMA-dan”).