7 things you didn’t know about the English language

English is the global Lingua Franca – which means a common language people from different parts of the world use to communicate with each other. Irrespective of its popularity, there are some facts you might not have come across. Here are 7 things you didn’t know about the English language:

1. English is the official language of the sky! All pilots have to identify themselves and speak in English on international flights.
2. More English words begin with the letter ‘S’ than any other letter of the alphabet.
3. The Global Language Monitor estimated that there were 1,041,257 words in the English language in January 2017.
4. It’s believed that one new word is added to the English language every two hours, which means that the language grows about 4,000 words a year!
5. Pneumono­ultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a type of lung disease) is the longest word in the English language.
6. If you were to write out every number in full (one, two, three, four…), you wouldn’t use a single letter ‘b’ until you reached one billion.
7. “Good” is the most common adjective in the English language and “time” is the most common noun.

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