In today’s post, we’re shining a spotlight on English, the most widely spoken language that has always been touted as the gateway to the world. And you know what? During our many years in the industry, we’ve come to realise just how true that statement is. At Overseas Translations, translations to and from English are our bread and butter. Whether it’s instruction manuals, press releases, financial reports, catalogues, interviews, simultaneous interpretations and other texts of all kinds, we either translate them into English or receive them in the language of Shakespeare and render into any language requested by our clients.
Overseas Translations English translation services
In 2022 alone, English translations accounted for 46.6% of our projects, with nearly 3 million words translated.
20 intriguing facts about the English language
At Overseas Translations, we’ve compiled a list of 20 fun and fascinating facts about English. Let us know in the comments which one has surprised you the most.
- English remains one of the most translated languages. According to a report by Common Sense Advisory (CSA), English is the primary source language for translations into other languages and also one of the main target languages. 44% of all translations carried out in 2022 were from English to another language.
- Over 2 billion people, accounting for 25% of the world’s population, speak English as either their first or second language. This makes English the most widely spoken language by the number of speakers and the third by the number of native speakers. With 300 million native speakers, the United States is the largest English-speaking country, followed by 60 million native speakers in the United Kingdom, 29 million in Canada, 25.1 million in Australia, 4.7 million in Ireland and 4.9 million in New Zealand. It is the official language in 67 countries, as well as in 27 territories or non-sovereign states such as Hong Kong and Puerto Rico.
- “I am” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
- A pangram is a sentence that contains every letter of a given alphabet. The best-known English example is “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.
- Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a type of lung disease caused by inhaling ash and dust, is the longest word in the English language. If pronouncing it is challenging, try memorising it…
- English is the only major language that lacks a governing organisation, unlike the Académie française, the Real Academia Española and the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung. These organisations oversee the evolution of their respective languages concerning usage, vocabulary and grammar.
- The letter “I” is the shortest, oldest and most used word in English.
- A new word is added to the dictionary every two hours. The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary have estimated that around 4,000 new words enter the dictionary each year. The latest update included words, phrases and concepts such as “pinkie promise”, “influencer”, “side hustle” and “binge-watch”. Surely “influencer” is the most popular of all these new additions, don’t you think?
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- We can find 10 words in the 7-letter word “therein” without rearranging any of the letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein and herein. Incredible!
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- Polysemy, the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase, is very common in English. For example, the word “run” is considered to have the most meanings of all English words—more than 600 reasons to run! You can run a business, enjoy running as a sport, go on a grocery run, run out of ideas or check if your car is running. Other English words with many meanings are “set” and “go”. If you’re familiar with phrasal verbs, you’ll know what we are talking about…
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- The words “month”, “angel” and “bulb” don’t have perfect rhymes in English. Give it a try!
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- The English language would not be the same without William Shakespeare. The famous 16th century English poet and playwright not only altered the usage of certain words (for example, he transformed many verbs into adjectives) but also coined over 1,000 words that he incorporated into his writings. We owe to Shakespeare words like “addiction”, “birthplace”, “blushing”, “cold-blooded”, “undress”, “torture” and “worthless”, which are used in everyday speech today.
- In 1951, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recommended that English be the standard language for communication in air travel, thereby establishing English the language of the skies, providing reassurance to all passengers…
- English is not a phonetic language. As we all know, the English alphabet consists of 26 letters. These 26 letters can form 44 different sounds or phonemes: 20 sounds come from the vowels a, e, i, o and u; and 24 sounds come from the remaining 21 consonants. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word. Consequently, English is a non-phonetic language, meaning that the pronunciation of a word does not depend on its spelling. To pronounce a word correctly, we need to correctly apply three factors: vowel sounds, consonant sounds and syllabic stress.
- Some English words only exist in the plural form, such as “glasses”, “jeans”, “scissors” and “binoculars”. This phenomenon also occurs in Spanish, for example with words like “tejanos”, “tijeras”, “gafas” and “binoculares”, where, even though thesingular form exists, the plural form is always used.
- The most used letter in English is “E” while “Q” is the least.
- The following sentence contains seven identical words in a row and still makes sense: It is true for all that that that that that that that refers to is not the same that that that that refers to. (= It is true for all that, that that “that” which that “that” refers to is not the same “that” which that “that” refers to). That’s it…
- The oldest English word still in use is “town”.
- The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 drastically changed the English language. When the Normans (French) conquered England, they brought about thousands of French words related to the church, legal systems and government, such as “baron”, “nobleman”, “parliament”, “governor” and “banquet”.
- The word “good” has the most synonyms in English, at 380. Crazy!
We hope you’ve enjoyed discovering interesting facts about the English language. If you need a translation into English or from English into any other language, feel free to contact us. We work with native-speaking translators specialised in numerous sectors, including engineering, marketing, cosmetics, construction, fashion, biology and more. Stay tuned for the post on the main differences between British and American English.
See you soon!
