weird facts about langauges Archives | Raptor Translations Magazine

19Nov

By Gareth SeagullNo Comments

Facts

12 completely extinct languages

Languages come and go, those languages that go are called extinct languages. Just like other species, languages can go extinct, sometimes, there is a revivalist movement centuries down the line, which saves it, and other times, not. So which languages are extinct? 12 extinct languages (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 12. Breton We spoke about Breton in our previous article- 12 useless languages. In that article we talked about how in 2009, the UN reported that the language was officially considered one of the extinct languages. Breton was previously the most spoken language in Brittany, a Celtic language, spoken from the descendants of the Britons (a Celtic people who lived in present day Britain). This was up until it began to be overtak...

What is the first language spoken by man?

Man has been around for 200,000 years. Many languages have been spoken since, but what was the first language spoken by man? What first language spoken by man is a difficult question to answer. Whilst there were undoubtedly languages before. We just don’t know their names or what they sounded like. They have simply been lost to history. The first languages were likely those in the cuneiform script, dating back to the 8 millennium BCE. However, other linguists claim that Sumerian or Egyptian are the oldest- simply because they have the oldest writing systems. What are the first languages spoken by man that we still use? Tamil (5000 years old)- Tamil was first spoken Sri Lanka. It is also the official language of both Sri Lanka and Singapore. It is spoken by 78 milli...

11 Weird Facts About Translation

Like everything, there are an array of extremely weird and intricate facts about translation and the industry. So, this begs the question, what are they? 1. A dedicated day Every year on the 30th of September, it is International Translation Day. It was started to promote and celebrate translators and their expertise, who would have thought that? 2. Patron Saint The translation industry has its own patron saint, his name is Saint Jerome. He gained this accolade and became the guardian of the profession after he translated the Bible into Latin in the 5th century (that Bible went on to be called ‘The Vulgate’). 3. Work load It’s no secret that being a translator is a physically and mentally demanding task. So it came as no surprise when a study showed that the average tran...