The word 'silly' originally meant 'blessed' in Old English — its meaning shifted dramatically over the centuries.

Nearly all European languages, and many Asian ones, derive from a common ancestor called Proto-Indo-European.

The average educated English speaker knows 40,000–50,000 words but uses only 5,000–10,000 daily.

The word 'salary' comes from the Latin 'salarium,' referring to payments made to Roman soldiers in salt.

The longest palindrome in English is a sentence: 'A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.'

The word 'salary' comes from the Latin 'salarium' — Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt.

Inuit languages do not have unusually many words for snow — this is a persistent linguistic myth.

There is no word in English for the back of the knee.

There are approximately 7,000 languages spoken in the world — about half are expected to disappear by the end of the century.