(data from 2011, http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/world_population.htm)
In Europe 234 living languages exist which is a really huge number.
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/languages.htm
I'm just fascinated by the diversity of languages in Europe and I find it amazing how many languages developed throughout the centuries, sometimes even in geographically small areas.
Dear Frank, thanks for recommending this language quiz, it has just made me even more conscious of how much I'm fascinated by the phenomenon of languages.
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| How do you sneeze in your mother tongue? |
Number of questions answered: 30
Number of correct answers: 21 (though some of them only for the second time)
Score: 175
http://ec.europa.eu/languages/quiz/quiz_en.htm
Did you know that...?:
- Mark Twain had troubles with learning German, he had been suffering with trying to master the language for 20 years! He complained that sometimes he would need a telescope in order to find the verb at the end of the sentence. Mark Twain claimed that Friedrich Schiller was able to put the whole history of the Thirty Years' War between two parts of a separable verb.
(I know exactly what Twain meant... :) - The saunas in Finland were not only used for relaxing but also for healing the sick and for giving birth because that was to most hygienic place on a farm. The mothers stayed there for a couple of days with their newborn babies.
- Latvian and Lithuanian are the only Baltic languages and they are among the oldest Indo-European languages. Lithuanian is also called "the dinosaur of languages" because it's so archaic.
- The word 'robot' was first used by a Czech playwright in the 20th century.
(I though it was much older!) - Slovene poetry is pretty romantic! Slovenian has a rare grammatical form referring to exactly two entities, thus making it easier to express love.
What surprised me the most:
- The Wiener Schnitzel actually comes from Milan! It's called cotoletta alla Milanese and the difference is that the Italian version contains the bone. There are different theories how it came to Austria but none of them is sure.
And last but not least, the easiest question (at least for me):
- Hungarian is the only language in Europe which places the family name before the given name. The reason is that the family name is usually a description, such as a personal feature (Kis Anna = Anna Little), original nationality (Német Anna = Anna German) or profession (Kovács Anna = Anna Smith) and these descriptions are always before a noun - or a name, in this case. It was really strange for me here in Austria to get used to the 'general' European way. Apart from Hungary this type of name order is used in some parts of Africa and Asia, for example in China and Japan.
