Mind-blowing facts about linguistics
In addition to Eddie Doo's answer on English and Hindi being related (as branches of Indo-European) here are a few other related languages that might surprise you:
- Finnish and Hungarian
- Not only are English and Hindi Indo-European, but also Farsi, Icelandic & Kurdish
- Malagasy (spoken in Madagascar) and Hawaiian
- Some have suggested Japanese and Turkish are related
Other interesting facts:
- Around 40% of the World's 6000+ languages are close to extinction
- English spelling, for all the trouble it gives middle schoolers and foreigners, provides a unique glimpse into the history of English, indicating words' pronunciations from hundreds of years ago (e.g., night used to be nicht, related to German nacht).
- Languages are in a constant state of flux. With that knowledge, you can laugh at your curmudgeon friend who rails against the "misuse" of literally. Not only has literally been used as an intensifier for a long while, but this usage fits a well-known pattern of words meaning, "for real" becoming intensifiers like, well, "really". Complaining about how kids use language today is an futile exercise that dates back millenia and will certainly never stop, but so too will language never stop changing.
- Ebonics or African-American Vernacular English is not sloppily spoken English, but rather is a language/dialect with its own set of well-defined rules and principles. These include the metathesis in the word aks to the appropriate use of be, as in the distinction between I be working on Friday versus I am working on Friday, the former being the habitual use, not present in Standard American English.
- Lots of phrases sound like they mean what you think they mean when they actually don't. A common example is misnegation, e.g., "Does he have an agenda? I'd say it's hard to deny he doesn't." (from Language Log: Language Log " It’s hard to deny he doesn’t). Parse what that literally means versus what it sounds like it means.
- Filler, e.g., "um" and "uh" are not just people being lazy, thoughtless speakers, but are carefully placed spacing in a sentence to either help the listener prepare for upcoming complicated language or to help the speaker eke out a little extra time to put the sentence together.
Types Of Verbs Presentation
Types Of Adverbs
Grammar Moods
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