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There are some 2,700 languages with over 7,000 individual dialects -

The world is an incredibly diverse place, which can be seen through its huge variety of languages. The most widely spoken languages are Mandarin, Spanish, English, and Hindi, in that order.

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Many languages could become extinct -

Some 2,400 of the world’s languages are in danger of becoming extinct. About one language becomes extinct every two weeks.

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People who speak Mandarin use both sides of the brain -

Researchers have found that people who speak Mandarin use both sides of their brain to understand the language, whereas English only uses the left side.

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William Shakespeare invented 1,700 words -

William Shakespeare is credited with the invention and introduction of over 1,700 words that are still used in English today. Shakespeare used more than 20,000 words in his plays and poems.

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There are over 200 artificial languages -

There are over 200 artificial languages in books, movies, and TV shows, such as Klingon ('Star Trek') and Quenya ('The Lord of the Rings'), the latter one of the many Elvish languages created by J. R. R. Tolkien.

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Hawaiians have over 200 different words for "rain" -

The Hawaiian language, also known as ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, is an important part of the native culture. The relationship between land and language is quite symbolic, which can be displayed in how many words exist for "rain" alone.

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Basque has no relation to any other language -

Spoken in the autonomous communities of Navarre and the Basque Country across northern Spain and south-western France, the origin of the Basque language is completely mysterious. It has no known relation to any other language.

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Cambodian has the longest alphabet -

The Khmer language has the largest alphabet in the world, with a total of 74 letters, consisting of 33 consonants, 23 vowels, and 12 independent vowels.

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German words can have three genders - German words can have three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter (neutral). Most languages only have masculine and feminine.

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Language is thought to have originated circa 100,000 BCE -

Most linguists agree that language began around the time when modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa with modern skull shapes and vocal cords.

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The Bible is the most translated book -

The Bible is the most translated book, followed by 'Pinocchio' (1883). The beloved children's tale about the wooden boy has been translated into more than 260 languages.

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About 30% of English words come from French -

It's estimated that about 30% of English words come from French. The main influx of French words can be traced back to the Norman invasion of England in 1066.

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The word "alphabet" is of Greek origin -

The English word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. The modern English alphabet with 26 letters started in the 16th century. It had influences from the Semitic, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman scripts.

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People don't use many words - On average, people only use a few hundred words in daily conversation, while most languages have more than 50,000 words.

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Russian was the first language spoken in outer space -

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space, so it's no surprise that the first language ever spoken in space was Russian. He traveled in the Vostok 1 capsule on April 12, 1961. 

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Over half of the world’s population speak more than one language -

Current estimates predict that around 43% of people are bilingual, with a further 17% being multilingual.

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Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world -

Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in the world. If you speak it, you can speak to 13% of the world’s population.

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Language was developed to strengthen social ties among our ancestors -

Studies on monkeys support the idea that languages may have evolved to replace grooming as a better way of forging interpersonal bonds. Two other theories suggest that humans began to develop language by imitating natural sounds, or that it started with the emanation of involuntary sounds.

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Ambigrams -

Ambigrams are words that look the same from different angles. For example, the word "swims" will look the same even when upside down. Similarly with "suns."

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Japanese has no distinction for singular and plural words -

Plural words are not individual words, but a combination of the word plus a number before it. In some cases, repetition of kanji indicates plurality.

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Spanish is the second most spoken language -

After Mandarin, Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world. In total, 21 countries have Spanish as their official language.

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Hindi didn’t become the official language of India until 1950 -

In 1950, the Indian constitution declared Hindi as the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect.

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South Africa has the most official languages -

South Africa's constitution recognizes 11 official languages: Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, and isiZulu.

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Japanese uses three different writing systems - Japanese has three completely separate sets of characters, called kanji, hiragana, and katakana, that are used in reading and writing.

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Over 300 languages are spoken in London alone -

The largest number of community languages in Europe can be found in London. Some of the most established are Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Hokkien.

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There’s a language that consists entirely of whistles -

Known as the Gomeran whistle, it's used by inhabitants of La Gomera, on the Canary Islands, to communicate across the deep ravines and narrow valleys of the island.

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The Pope tweets in nine languages -

Pope Francis tweets in nine languages, but it's his Spanish-language account that has the most followers. The pontiff also tweets in English, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Latin, French, German, and Arabic.

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The United States has no official language -

The US has no official language; most people just assume it’s English. It's also the country with the second highest number of Spanish speakers, after Mexico.

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Rotokas has the smallest alphabet -

The Papuan language of Rotokas has only 11 letters, making it the smallest alphabet in the world. It’s spoken by around 4,000 people in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

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The English language contains the most words -

Based solely on dictionary entries, English is among the largest languages by word count. It has more than 250,000 words.

Sources: (Dynamic Language) (Language Trainers) 

See also: How to improve speech and language 

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