Mother, bark and spit are some of the oldest known words, say researchers. Continue reading → Mother, bark and spit are just three of 23 words that researchers believe date back 15,000 years, making them the oldest known words.
The word is of Hebrew origin(it is found in the 30th chapter of Exodus). Also according to Wiki answers,the first word ever uttered was “Aa,” which meant “Hey!” This was said by an australopithecine in Ethiopia more than a million years ago.
Dr de Boer says it is likely the first basic speech emerged around a million years ago, with 'Duh' and 'Buh' both being contenders for the first word. Loss of the air sac by around 500,000 years ago would have made more complex words containing similar sounds an option. Examples include 'perpetual'.
The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the midrashim) and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden.
Mother, bark and spit are just three of 23 words that researchers believe date back 15,000 years, making them the oldest known words.
There was no first word. At various times in the 5th century, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other northern Europeans show up in what is now England. They're speaking various North Sea Germanic dialects that might or might not have been mutually understandable.
The truth is, no one knows for sure when talking was “invented.” It's a big mystery. But as a language scientist for 15 years, I can tell you our best guess about when people started talking to each other using language, and how we think it got started. Talking is an activity unique to Homo sapiens, our species.
Linguists have also “reconstructed” the mother language that all these languages come from. It is called Proto-Indo-European and was spoken nearly 5,000 years ago!
The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany.
Humans have flexibility in the mouth, tongue and lips that lets us form a wide range of precise sounds that chimps simply can't produce, and some have developed this complex voice instrument more than others.
Etymology. The word water comes from Old English wæter, from Proto-Germanic *watar (source also of Old Saxon watar, Old Frisian wetir, Dutch water, Old High German wazzar, German Wasser, vatn, Gothic ???? (wato), from Proto-Indo-European *wod-or, suffixed form of root *wed- ("water"; "wet").
Scientists at the University of Reading have discovered that 'I', 'we', 'who' and the numbers '1', '2' and '3' are amongst the oldest words, not only in English, but across all Indo-European languages.
William Shakespeare is credited with the invention or introduction of over 1,700 words that are still used in English today. William Shakespeare used more than 20,000 words in his plays and poems, and his works provide the first recorded use of over 1,700 words in the English language.
The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a word that refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano; medically, it is the same as silicosis.
The shortest word is 'a. ' Some might wonder about the word 'I' since it consists of one letter, too. In sound, 'a' is shorter because it is a monophthong (consists of one vowel), while 'I' is a diphthong.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest word entered in the most trusted English dictionaries.
The longest word entered in most standard English dictionaries is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis with 45 letters. Our definition is "a lung disease caused by inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust." The entry for this word can be found in our Medical Dictionary.
'The' tops the league tables of most frequently used words in English, accounting for 5% of every 100 words used. “'The' really is miles above everything else,” says Jonathan Culpeper, professor of linguistics at Lancaster University. But why is this?
Zyzzyva has achieved notoriety for being the last word in several English-language dictionaries.
“Language evolves, and it is clear that the one-word spelling of groundwater has become the preferred usage both nationally and internationally. The one-word spelling has been used by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary since 1998.
Old English had mere for “sea, ocean, lake, pool, pond”, encompassing both salt- and freshwater bodies. Modern English “mere” came to denote the latter type, “pool, small lake, pond”; nowadays it exists only in place names, such as Windermere.
Here's why. Dogs' brains cannot distinguish words that differ by a single speech sound, such as "sit" versus "set." You probably think your dog is the smartest (and cutest!)
Monkeys and apes lack the neural control over their vocal tract muscles to properly configure them for speech, Fitch concludes. "If a human brain were in control, they could talk," he says, though it remains a bit of a mystery why other animals can produce at least rudimentary speech.