Learning a second language preserves cognitive function with aging — bilingualism may delay Alzheimer's onset.

The word 'nice' originally meant foolish or stupid in 13th-century English — its meaning has almost fully reversed.

The Rosetta Stone helped scholars decode Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters — all consonants — and became the ancestor of most Western alphabets.

The alphabet is a Greek innovation — the Greeks added vowels to the Phoenician consonant alphabet around 800 BC.

Language is transmitted culturally, not genetically — children adopted across language communities learn the local language perfectly.

Body language accounts for 55% of communication impact, tone for 38%, and actual words for only 7%.

Some languages have no word for 'left' or 'right' — speakers of Guugu Yimithirr in Australia use cardinal directions instead.

Sign language grammar differs from spoken language grammar — word order and facial expression serve different grammatical roles.