Facts about language and people Bashny.Net

The population of Papua - New Guinea speak 500 different languages, representing about 10% of the total number of languages ​​in the world. This diversity is explained by the fact that people here live in the valleys, separated by mountains from one another, and therefore rare.




• Carriers of the most difficult languages ​​in the world - Tabasaran live in Dagestan. Aside from other difficulties in this language 48 plagues!

• In the Pacific Islands there are peoples who know only the words "my brother" or "your father." They can not just say "brother" or simply "father».

• The Lapps Saami languages, Chukchi and Nenets no word "snow". But there are a lot of words for certain types of snow, reminding our Russian "crust", "cereal" and "Drifting».

• If the Chinese pronounces five times the same syllable "ma", but with a different tone, turn the phrase "Help the horse, runs a mad dog!»

• The language of northern people Nivkhs for long objects, there are some numbers, for short - the other, and for round - the third.

• The inhabitants of the archipelago near New Guinea do not know the name for the black color. But they have a lot of words for its various shades. For example, "such as a crow" or "such as charred nut such a tree».

• The ancient Greeks differently than we do, grouped objects. Word that was supposed to mean "yellow", they could be called liquid items. Therefore, the blood in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" is sometimes greenish-yellow.

• In modern Welsh has not appeared word for brown.

• The language of the North American Delaware, sung by Cooper, Aimard and others have commanding verb "nadholineen", which means "we are looking for the cake." To say, "look for the cake for them or for you" have to use a different verb.

• In Australian way is not to say: "On the hill is a tree and a bird sitting on it." Australian necessarily call rock and plant and animal: "Should eucalyptus, and under it - the emu." And the question is, how many different birds, for example, sitting on a branch of the Australian lead to confusion: how can we add to it a cockatoo? One can not allow dogs stones!