The clicks in Khoisan languages of southern Africa are consonants — making them among the most phonetically complex languages.
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The Hawaiian language has only 13 letters — 5 vowels and 8 consonants.
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Tonal languages like Mandarin use pitch to distinguish meaning — Cantonese has 6–9 tones.
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The Pirahã language of the Amazon has no words for numbers beyond 'one,' 'two,' and 'many.'
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Profanity activates a different part of the brain than regular language — it's processed more emotionally.
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The average educated English speaker knows 40,000–50,000 words but uses only 5,000–10,000 daily.
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The Pirahã language of the Amazon has no words for numbers beyond 'one,' 'two,' and 'many.'
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All human languages have nouns and verbs — but many lack adjectives or other categories found in English.
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The printing press led to standardized spelling — before it, words were spelled however the writer chose.
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