12 Lesser known facts about English Language

Do you know English language is spoken by over 850 million people in the world as their first or second language. It is the official language of 67 countries. English is the most commonly used language in the United States and United Kingdom, while Canada is the third largest country to speak English. Below are the 12 interesting facts about the English language –

Interesting facts about the English language

1. Vowel is syllables: One of the interesting fact about English is every syllable must have a vowel(sound)
2. Two unique word ends:It is weird in English that only two words end with “-gry” : Angry and Hungry. These are the only words ending with “-gry”.
3. Interesting fact about Letter “S”: There are a maximum number of words starting with “S” than any other letter.
4. A sentence which contain all letters: One sentence in English which used for testing keyboards or typewriters contains all 26 letters of English Language : The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
5. No use of letter “B”:One amazing fact about the English language is when you write numbers in words(like one, two, three…), there is no use of the letter “B” until the word Billion.
6. English as a second Language: Most people learn English as a Second language. According to the British Council, there are 750 million English speakers as a foreign language and 375 million as a second language speakers.
7. Most Complex word in English Language: In the English Dictionary, the most complex word is “Run” which has more than 430 definitions and covers 24 pages in the Oxford English Dictionary. In the first edition of Oxford English Dictionary, this is the word with most definitions.
8. Most used and Least used Letter: According to Oxford Dictionary, Most used letter is “E” and least used letter is “Q”.
9. Most commonly used adjective and Noun: “Good” is considered the most commonly used adjective while “Time” is identified as the most frequently used noun.
10. Shortest sentence: ”Go” is considered the shortest grammatically correct sentence.
11. Vowel Game: Queueing is the only word where five consecutive vowels come in a row and Rhythm is the only long word without a vowel. 
12. Growing Dictionary: A new word is added to the dictionary every two hours.

Surprising statistics about English language:

• New words added: According to the Oxford Dictionary, It is estimated that 4000 words are added to the dictionary every year.
• More words than any other language:  English has around one million words which is more than any other language.

Speakers know English words: It is found out that speakers only memorised  20000 to 30000 words of the English language.