• There are about 2,700 languages in the world. India has the most languages and dialects (around 1,600).
• Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people than any other language in the world. English is spoken as an official language in 44 countries, more than any other language. French is the official language in 27 countries and Spanish is spoken as the official language in 20 countries.
• About 10% of people living in the U.S. speak a language other than English in their home.
• About half of all English words came from other languages.
• The Inuit may have 50 words for snow, but the Italians have over 500 words for pasta. People in New Guinea have a hundred words for yams. The Maoris of New Zealand have 35 words for drunk. Tasmanians have a different word for every type of tree but no word that means simply “tree.”
• The Ilocano language of the Philippines has a variety of different words meaning “this” including one form referring to an object in view, one for things that are not in view, and one for things that no longer exist.
• The Swahili word “kiplefti” denoting a traffic island was borrowed from the English “keep left.”
• It takes about 100 symbols on a keyboard to represent most common languages and their punctuation marks. On the other hand, the Japanese language requires about 7,000 keys on a keyboard to accurately be able to type the language. And a keyboard loaded with the most commonly used Chinese characters would be the size of two ping-pong tables.
• A dog in the U.S. goes bow-wow; in France oua-oua; in Italy bu-bu; in Korea mung-mung and in Japan wan-wan.
• In the U.S. “John Doe” is a generic name for an anonymous man, and in England it’s “John Bull” and in Dutch it’s “Jan Kees” which translates literally as “John Cheese.” When pronounced in Danish, “Jan Kees” sounds like “Yon Kees” which is possibly the origin of the word “Yankees.”
• The “–chester” in places like Manchester and the “–caster” in places like Lancaster both spring from the Roman word for “camp.”
• In Britain, for centuries some people spoke Old English while others spoke Old Norse, and the two languages mingled together. Many words were added to the vocabulary, and when two words were similar but not identical, often both words would survive, with subtle differences in meaning. Thus we have both wish/want; raise/rear; no/nay; ditch/dike; shriek/screech; skirt/shirt; bathe/bask; scatter/shatter; whole/hale.
• Centuries later, when the Norman French inhabited Britain, ten thousand words of French descent entered the English language, including words such as felony, traitor, justice, jury, prison, marriage, sovereign, parliament, govern, prince, duke, and baron.
• Words whose equivalent don’t exist in English:
• Culacino: Italian, the mark left on a table by a moist glass.
• Sgriob: Gaelic, the itchiness of the upper lip before taking a sip of whiskey.
• Hyge: Danish, meaning instantly satisfying and cozy.
• Schadenfreude: German, literally “harm” plus “joy” meaning taking delight in the misfortune of others.
• Sgiomlaireachd: Scottish, “the habit of dropping in at mealtimes.”
