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02/12/2016 admin

10 facts about English

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Ten Facts That You Perhaps Didn’t Know about English

Text source: Daily Express

 

English is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to understand why so many people want to study English.

You will undoubtedly be learning a lot of interesting things in your English classes. But here are some facts that perhaps you didn’t know about this fascinating language:

 

  1. The English language as we now know it began to emerge in the 14th century from a variety of dialects including Old Norse and Late West Saxon.
Early 12th century Old Norse manuscript / www.babelstone.co.uk

Early 12th century Old Norse manuscript / www.babelstone.co.uk

  1. Language, grammar and particularly spelling only really became standardised with the publication of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary in 1755.
Dr Johnson's Dictionary / D'Youville College Archives

Dr Johnson’s Dictionary / D’Youville College Archives

  1. More English words begin with the letter ‘S’ than any other letter of the alphabet.

s

  1. Mandarin Chinese is the only language spoken by more people around the world than English. *Our teachers at AIT Language School say: Not anymore! Nowadays, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish are the two most spoken languages in the world.

languages

  1. Around one in eight of all letters in written English is an ‘e’.

e

  1. The longest common words that can be typed on the top row of a keyboard are ‘proprietor’, ‘repertoire’, ‘perpetuity’ and ‘typewriter’ itself.

typewriter

  1. The three words most common in spoken English are ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘the’.

DV-00147797-001

  1. The top three words in written English are ‘the’, ‘of’ and ‘and’.

the

  1. The word ‘uncopyrightable’ consists entirely of different letters. Along with ‘dermatoglyphics’ (study of fingerprints), it is the longest such word.

uncopyrightable

  1. The English language grows at a rate of about one new word every two hours.

ascending-graph

 

 

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