The Dao De Jing, foundational text of Taoism, is the world's second most translated text after the Bible.

Aztec markets like Tlatelolco impressed Spanish conquistadors — they rivaled the best markets in Europe.

Mozart could write music before he could write words — he composed his first piece at age 5.

The world's shortest alphabet, Rotokas, has only 12 letters.

The philosophy of language explores how words and sentences acquire meaning.

The first novel ever written in English is generally considered to be 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe, published in 1719.

The word 'rule of thumb' does not have an origin in domestic violence — this is a persistent false etymology.

Languages evolve continuously — Shakespeare's English is dramatically different from today's just 400 years later.

Linguistic relativity experiments show that speakers of languages with more color words can distinguish shades faster.