15 interesting facts about English!
- The two most common words in English are I and you.
- The USA does not have an official language but English is the official language of 67 countries.
- The first English dictionary was written in 1755.
- More English words begin with the letter ‘S’ than any other letter of the alphabet.
- There is no word in the English language that rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
- English is the official language of the sky! It doesn’t matter which country they are from, all pilots speak in English on international flights.
- Shakespeare added 1,700 words to the English language during his lifetime.
- The language that is most closely related to English is Frisian, a West Germanic language that is spoken in parts of the Netherlands and Germany.
- The most common letter in English is "e".
- The word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, bēta.
- The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is "rhythm".
- "Shit" is one of our oldest words, and used to mean "cattle diarrhoea".
- The chess term "checkmate" comes from a 14th-century Arabic phrase, "shah mat", which means "the king is helpless".
- English is the third most commonly spoken language in the world (the first and second are Mandarin Chinese and Spanish).
- Approximately one new word is added to the English language every two hours and the dictionary grows by about 4,000 words a year.
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