Echoes of the Past: 35 Interesting Facts About the History of Languages

The word Shampoo is derived from the Hindi word 'chāmpo' which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit root 'chapayati' meaning: "to press, knead and soothe".

27. The English language capitalizes the pronoun 'I' because it looks too small when it's in lowercase.

28. There's a 300-page book called 'A Void' that was written without ever using the letter "e". The original is in French, but there are over a dozen versions of it in different languages written by translators who also managed to compose it without ever using the most common letter of the alphabet.

29. The most complex character in the Chinese language takes 57 strokes to write. It is a noodle dish.

30. Expecto Patronum roughly translates to "I await a protector" in Latin.

Many English words used to be spelled phonetically (e.g. debt was 'det') until some scholars purposely added silent letters to make them look more like Greek or Latin words, sometimes erroneously.

32. Washoe the chimpanzee was the first non-human to use the American Sign Language. When Washoe's caretaker returned to work after a miscarriage, Washoe ignored her. The caretaker then signed "MY BABY DIED", to which Washoe replied "CRY", simulating a tear running down the caretaker's face.

33. Young children, especially twins, will often develop their own language that they can understand but is unintelligible to any adult observers.

34. There is a short German rhyme about procrastination that also rhymes when translated into English. "Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute, sagen alle faulen leute." in English means "Later, later, not today, all the lazy people say."

35. Ye, as in "ye olde whatever", is pronounced 'the'. It comes from typesetters using y instead of the Old English letter þ which had a ‘th’ sound.