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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 175 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Languages
Ido. Ido is supposed to be a simplified version of Esperanto, but unfortunately all languages are complex. Some learners report that Ido is equally difficult to learn. The name 'Ido' means 'offspring'.
Sedang. Sedang is a language spoken by a minority group in Vietnam. It has 50 vowel sounds.
None. Experts have been able to find no linguistic connections between Basque and other modern languages.
| Not including Russia, what language is the mother tongue of the greatest percentage of Europeans? | Random World Languages
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German. German is the mother tongue of 22.1 percent of Europeans, English - 17.5 percent, Italian - 16.8 percent and French - 16.5 percent.
Cambodian. The Cambodian alphabet has 76 letters!
| Which number is this: zwei, zwee, and tsvei (German, Luxembourgeois, and Yiddish, respectively)? Hint: when translating from other IE languages, forget the vowels, and try replacing 'z' with 't' or 'd'. | Indo-European Languages
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2. If you replace 'z' with 't' you get 'zwei'...'twei'...'two.'
| Which number is this: kat, ceathair, and keturi (Picard, Irish, Lithuanian)? Hint: try replacing 'k' with 'qu' | Indo-European Languages
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4. Replacing 'k' with 'qu' you get 'kat'...'quat'...'quad' as in 'quadrangle'...'four.'
5. 'F' and 'v' are interchangeable. E.g. 'vyf'...'fyv'...'five'.
10. You could have gone from 'zene' to 'tene' to 'ten', or you could have noticed the similarity between 'das' and the Latin root 'dec' as is 'decimal.'
10. Again, I hope you saw the similarity with the Latin 'dec.' I hope you weren't thrown by the similarity with the Spanish 'dos.'
5. This was a little harder. Hopefully, you saw the similarity to the Greek 'pente' as in 'pentagon.' There is also another possibility. When in doubt, you can sometimes replace 'p' with 'f' and you can often replace 'm' with 'n'. 'Pumpe'...'fumfe'...'funf', which is German for 'five'.
5. Again, there is similarity to the Greek 'pente'. Incidentally, we get the word 'punch' from the Hindi word for 'five'.
9. For some reason, a lot of languages have similar words for 'nine' and 'new.' For instance, French 'neuf' and 'neuf'. I can't figure it out, but I'd love to hear from any of you that knows the reason.
8. From the root 'oct' as in 'octagon'.
1. That's all. I hope, if nothing else, you learned something about how similar the IE languages are.
| Aleph, Beth, Gimel. - Of what language are they the three first letters of the alphabet? | A World of Languages
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Celtic. East Slavic comprehends Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian. - Within the Indo-Aryan group you can find Hindi and Urdu. - Celtic had a third group which has been long extinct: Continental Celtic or Gaulish.
Manx. Mancunian is what you call an inhabitant of Manchester.
| In normal every day written Hebrew ( magazines, books, signs, newspapers - primers for learning the language excepted )there are 22 consonants and _________ vowels? | A World of Languages
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0. In Hebrew primers for learning Hebrew,the Bible and Sidurs (prayer books) "pointers" are used to signal the vowels that in normal spelling are not marked. Those "pointers" do not occur in the normal everyday written language of magazines, books, newspapers and signs. Also see: www.ancient-hebrew.org/13_faqs1.html .
| Which language puts the definite article ('the') at the end of the noun? | World Languages
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Swedish. It is a characteristic of the Scandinavian languages (and some others) that the definite article is placed at the end of the noun.
Swahili. Swahili is spoken in Central Africa, in countries such as Tanzania.
| What is the name for the popular form of Ancient Greek which Modern Greek is said to have come from? | World Languages
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Koiné. Koiné comes from the Greek word 'koinos', meaning 'common'. It was widely used in the Eastern Mediterranean area in Roman times and is the laguage of the original of the New Testament.
the womb. Hysteria was thought to be found only amongst women, hence the origin of the word.
English. Switzerland has an additional language, Italian, spoken in the south.
Hangul. Hangul is one of the very few alphabets of whom we know the name of the creator.
Ablative. The ablative case is used to say 'with what' and other variations.
Old Church Slavonic. Old Church Slavonic is the ancestor of modern Russian.
| From what language is the word 'oasis' said to have originated? | World Languages
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Ancient Egyptian. The word is said to have come from Greek, originally of Egyptian origin (OED).
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