Languages Facts for Kids
Weird and wonderful language facts
People who speak two or more languages have brains that are better at multitasking and solving problems.
Many ancient languages had no word for the colour orange — people called it "red-yellow" instead.
German can make extremely long words by combining smaller words — like "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" (Danube steamship company captain).
Some Inuit languages have dozens of different words to describe snow and ice.
The Bible has been translated into over 700 languages, making it the most translated book in the world.
Some Australian Aboriginal languages don't use "left" and "right" — instead they always use compass directions like north and south.
"Typewriter" is the longest common English word you can type using only the top row of a keyboard.
About 3 billion people speak a language from the Indo-European family, which includes English, Spanish, Hindi, and Russian.
Animal sounds are different in every language — in Japanese, a dog says "wan wan" and a cat says "nyan nyan."
The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799, helped scholars finally decode ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs because it had the same text in three scripts.