About 7,000 languages are spoken in the world today — one dies roughly every two weeks.

The word 'paradise' comes from the Old Persian 'pairidaeza,' meaning an enclosed garden.

Fear of long words is called hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

The word 'silly' once meant 'blessed' or 'happy' in Old English.

Some languages mark grammatical distinctions English lacks — such as whether the speaker knows something directly or by report.

The longest word in English, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, was invented to be the longest word.

The Hawaiian language has only 13 letters — 5 vowels and 8 consonants.

The word 'disaster' comes from Greek for 'bad star' — a reflection of ancient belief in astrological influence.

English has the largest vocabulary of any language — the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 600,000 words.