EDL Infographic Languages 2024 EN

In FRENCH the word for
potato is “pomme de
terre”, meaning “apple of
soil”, while in ITALIAN the word for tomato
is “pomodoro”, meaning “golden apple”
(pomo + d’oro).
ENDANGERED UNWRITTEN LANGUAGES THE MOST CONFUSING BIRD In GERMAN many words are created by
The majority of the languages and dialects IN THE WORLD combining two existing words: Vorfreude
in the world are unwritten. In Mexico is called “French chicken” in (before + happiness), Handschuh (hand
there are over 100 unwritten indigenous Greek, “peru” in Portuguese, + shoe), Zweisamkeit (two + loneliness),
languages and dialects, and India has “hindi” in Turkish and “turkey” in English. Drahtesel (wire + donkey), Luftschloss (air
over 1,000. A study by the MIT estimates + castle), Lampenfieber (lamps + fever),
that 3,000 of the world’s languages are Ohrwurm (ear + worm), Schadenfreude
endangered because few children are FALSE FRIENDS (damage + joy). Can you work out their
learning them. are words or phrases in two exact meaning?
languages that resemble
each other but have
EIGHT MAJOR ALPHABET GROUPS
are in use today: Arabic, Hebrew/
different meanings. E.g. the
Italian “squisito” means delicious while the
გამარჯობა
Aramaic, Armenian, Brahmi, Cyrillic, Portuguese “esquisito” means strange. In GEORGIAN words are usually
Georgian, Greek, Latin. pronounced exactly the way you write
them, as each letter has a single, fixed
pronunciation and in most cases the first
Niamh, Aoife, Fionnuala or Saoirse are all
syllable of a word is stressed. This makes it
IRISH NAMES, relatively easy for foreigners to learn. That
but can you pronounce them The INDUS SCRIPT is the oldest script is, once you have mastered the Georgian
correctly? On edl.ecml.at/ that has not yet been deciphered. It was characters! Წარმატებები!
irishnames listen to how these used around 2600 BC in the Indus valley
and many other names from in today’s Pakistan. Maybe you can be the
Ireland sound! one to crack it and become a decoding The word JANUARY can be traced back to
hero! Janus, the Roman god of portals, gates,
and doorways. The words “janitor” and
In FRENCH there are 16 ways “janela” (Portuguese for “window”) have
of writing the sound “o” within HELLO AND BYE the same origin.
a word: au, aux, aud, auds, aut, The informal Polish salutation “cześć” can
auts, eau, eaux, o, ô, ods, op, be used for both “hello” and “goodbye”.
ops, os, ot, ots. The same is true for the Italian “ciao”,
French “salut” and Austrian “servus”.
Οo Ωω ‫תיִרְבִע‬
Icelanders buy so many books as gifts for
Christmas that they have a word for it:
In the GREEK alphabet, the letters “Christmas Book Flood” (jólabókaflóð)
omicron and omega are “connected”: the HEBREW is the most successfully revived
first literally means “little o” (o mikron) and language in history. It wasn’t used as a
the latter is referring to “great o” (o mega). mother tongue and in everyday speech SCRABBLE is the king of all word games!
for about 15 centuries – until its revival in Invented in 1931, it currently exists in
the 19th century. Hebrew now has over 38 different language versions, including
9 million speakers. Faroese and Latin. The best players even
battle it out in world championships!
Many languages have

The SPANISH word for olive (aceituna) Have you ever heard of ARAGONESE?
their fair share of
actually comes from the Arabic word “zaytun” Once widespread, Aragonese is now a
untranslatable words,
( ). This tells us something interesting hidden gem of Northern Spain. Spoken by
e.g. the SWEDISH
about the connection between these two around 11,000, it’s a fascinating cousin of
Gökotta (to rise at dawn in order to go out
cultures, since both words refer to the olive Spanish with its own unique vocabulary
itself as well as the oil that comes from it. and listen to the birds sing), the ITALIAN
and sounds.
culaccino (the wet mark left by a glass on a
table) or the DUTCH niksen (sitting down
The two countries with the most native and doing nothing at all).
GERMAN speakers outside of Europe are
Brazil and the United States .
EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR
MODERN LANGUAGES
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2024-EN
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In FRENCH the word for

Many languages have

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