7 interesting facts about the English language

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Knowledge is power. And a life hacker needs knowledge doubly. In this series of articles, we collect fascinating and sometimes unexpected facts about the world around us. We hope that you will find them not only interesting, but also practically useful.

Today it is difficult to live without knowledge of the English language. It is the language of international communication, trade, new technologies. With its help, you will be able to discover new knowledge, feel confident in any environment, and achieve more significant career success. Learning English can be not only very rewarding, but also really interesting. Our selection of facts will help you to verify this.

Statistics

Although English is only the third most popular language, the total number of English speakers is over a billion. This is about every seventh earthling. However, don't think that the majority of English speakers live in the United States and England. For example, Nigeria has more English speakers than England. And in Sweden 89% of residents know this language.

UK and USA

In the linguistic sphere, there are rather vague relations between these countries. During the struggle for independence and the building of a young American state, attempts were made to come up with their own American language, in which Noah Webster was especially successful in publishing his American Dictionary of the English Language. And in the state of Illinois until 1969 there was a law prohibiting speaking in English. The official language of this state was prescribed to use the American language. However, at present in the United States, researchers distinguish as many as 24 dialects of the English language. Unsurprisingly, publishers had to translate the Harry Potter books from English into American.

Letters

• The most commonly used letter in English is the E, and the least commonly used is the Q.
• Everyone knows that letters in English can be pronounced in completely different ways. Here's a good example: He believed Caesar could see people seizing the seas. In this sentence, the sound [i:] is conveyed by seven different letter combinations.
• The English alphabet once had one more letter. This letter was the & symbol.
• Removing the last four letters from queue will not change its pronunciation.

The words

In any language, there are unusual words that stand out from the general set with interesting spelling or sound. Here are some examples from English.

• The longest English word without vowels is rhythms.
• In English, there is a word with a vowel that is repeated six times - indivisibility.
• The most ambiguous word in English is set. It has 44 basic meanings for a verb, 17 meanings for a noun, 7 meanings for an adjective, and a few hundred more different variations. So when translating this insidious word, you need to be especially careful.
• Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest word that denotes the name of the disease and is translated into Russian something like this: "lung disease caused by inhalation of volcanic particles or other kinds of fine dust." The most interesting thing is that such a disease does not actually exist.
• From 1932 to 1940, due to a typographical error, there was a word in the English dictionary that had no meaning. This is the word dord, also known as the "ghost word."

Offers

• Hardest tongue twister in English: The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.
• The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog is unique in that it contains all the letters of the English alphabet. This is why it is used to showcase different fonts.
• The shortest English sentences containing both subject and predicate are I am and I do.
• The longest sentence in fiction in English is 13,955 words (The Rakeli Club, Jonathan Coe).

History

• English appeared in the early Middle Ages in the Germanic tribes (!) Who invaded Britain after the Romans left it.
• The word bride (bride) comes from an old Germanic word meaning the process of cooking.
• The oldest words in English are I (I), we (we), two (two) and three (three). Linguists believe that they appeared several thousand years ago.
• The word goodbye (goodbye) once sounded entirely like God be with ye (Old English "May the Lord be with you").
• Until the 15th century, there were no punctuation marks in English.

Wealth and Poverty

There is a theory that the English language became so widespread due to its simplicity and uniqueness. However, this is not at all the case. The English language has the most words (about 800,000) and the richest synonyms. For example, there are 2,241 synonyms for the word drunk, and this result is even recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. In addition, English is one of the fastest growing languages. Every 98 minutes a new word appears in conversational practice.

At the same time, 90% of texts written in English use no more than 1,000 different words. And for ordinary everyday communication, it is quite enough to know 1,500-2,000 words.

What interesting facts about the English language do you know?