Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers.

There are languages with no word for specific colors — some languages group blue and green as one color.

The word 'clue' originally referred to a ball of thread — in Greek mythology, Ariadne gave Theseus a thread to escape the labyrinth.

Some languages have no word for 'left' or 'right' — speakers of Guugu Yimithirr in Australia use cardinal directions instead.

The oldest written language is Sumerian, dating to around 3200 BCE.

Sign languages are complete natural languages — they are not universal and vary by country.

Some languages have gendered words that affect perception — German's 'bridge' is feminine and described more gracefully than Spanish's masculine word.

The word 'mortgage' comes from French for 'death pledge' — the debt dies when paid off.

Tonal languages like Mandarin use pitch to distinguish meaning — Cantonese has 6–9 tones.