Urdu and Hindi are mutually intelligible in speech but use entirely different scripts — Nastaliq and Devanagari.

The word 'assassin' derives from the Arabic 'hashishin' — a medieval Islamic sect's name.

Loanwords are borrowed from other languages — 'kindergarten,' 'safari,' 'pajama,' and 'robot' are all loanwords in English.

The word 'set' has over 430 definitions in some English dictionaries — the most of any word.

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

Languages evolve continuously — Shakespeare's English is dramatically different from today's just 400 years later.

The longest novel ever written is 'In Search of Lost Time' by Marcel Proust, with approximately 1.2 million words.

The fastest spoken language is Japanese — measured at 7.84 syllables per second on average.

The @ symbol is called 'arroba' in Spanish and Portuguese, meaning a unit of weight.