What is the oldest English word?

According to a 2009 study by researchers at Reading University, the oldest words in the English language include “I“, “we“, “who“, “two” and “three“, all of which date back tens of thousands of years.
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What was the 1st English word?

There was no first word. At various times in the 5th century, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other northern Europeans show up in what is now England. They're speaking various North Sea Germanic dialects that might or might not have been mutually understandable.
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What are some of the oldest words in English?

Scientists at the University of Reading have discovered that 'I', 'we', 'who' and the numbers '1', '2' and '3' are amongst the oldest words, not only in English, but across all Indo-European languages.
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Is town the oldest word in English?

The oldest word in the English language is town. Originated from old English and has kept the same definition.
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What is the most rare word?

Here are the fifteen most unusual words you can find in the English language.
  • Nudiustertian. ...
  • Quire. ...
  • Yarborough. ...
  • Tittynope. ...
  • Winklepicker. ...
  • Ulotrichous. ...
  • Kakorrhaphiophobia. ...
  • Xertz. Who would have imagined it?
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What's the Earliest English Word?



Who spoke the first word?

Also according to Wiki answers,the first word ever uttered was “Aa,” which meant “Hey!” This was said by an australopithecine in Ethiopia more than a million years ago.
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What was the first human word?

Mother, bark and spit are some of the oldest known words, say researchers. Continue reading → Mother, bark and spit are just three of 23 words that researchers believe date back 15,000 years, making them the oldest known words.
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What's the shortest word ever?

The shortest word is a. Some might wonder about the word I since it consists of one letter, too. In sound, a is shorter because it is a monophthong (consists of one vowel), while I is a diphthong. Both do consist of one letter in the English writing system, and in most fonts I is the narrowest letter.
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Who invented English?

Having emerged from the dialects and vocabulary of Germanic peoples—Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—who settled in Britain in the 5th century CE, English today is a constantly changing language that has been influenced by a plethora of different cultures and languages, such as Latin, French, Dutch, and Afrikaans.
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Who invented talking?

Language started 1.5m years earlier than previously thought as scientists say Homo Erectus were first to talk. In the beginning was the word. And it was first spoken by Homo Erectus, according to a controversial new theory.
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Who invented language?

Who invented language? Language came about and evolved over time in order for humans to survive and develop. It was first invented and used by Homo sapiens, but researchers don't know exactly when. Language likely began somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago.
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What is the 2nd word in the dictionary?

The second word in the English dictionary is the word consisting of the double letters A A. The word AA is a basaltic lava that forms rough, jagged masses with a light frothy texture.
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What language is English closest to?

The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.
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What was the first language?

Thus, given this evidence, Sumerian can also be considered the first language in the world. Sumerian was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, but it continued to be used as a literary, ceremonial, scientific and sacred language until the 1st century AD.
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Who was the first person to talk English?

The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany.
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What word takes 3 hours to say?

Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl… isoleucine is the chemical name for the protein of “titin” also known as “connectin.” The largest known protein that consists of 26, 926 amino acids is made up of 189, 819 letters and can take about three hours to pronounce.
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Is there a word with all 26 letters?

An English pangram is a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the English alphabet. The most well known English pangram is probably “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. My favorite pangram is “Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.”
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Is y still vowel?

Y is considered to be a vowel if… The word has no other vowel: gym, my. The letter is at the end of a word or syllable: candy, deny, bicycle, acrylic.
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What is the oldest saying?

writes instead: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” from the code of Hammurabi, 1780 BC.
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What language does Adam spoke?

The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the midrashim) and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden.
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Who invented humans?

Homo sapiens

Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving from Homo heidelbergensis or a similar species and migrating out of Africa, gradually replacing local populations of archaic humans. For most of history, all humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers.
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When was English invented?

The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th centuries.
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What is longest word in the world?

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest word entered in the most trusted English dictionaries.
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What are the 23 oldest words?

Science Says These are the Oldest 23 Words in the English...
  1. Thou. The singular form of "you," this is the only word that all seven language families share in some form. ...
  2. I. Similarly, you'd need to talk about yourself. ...
  3. Mother. ...
  4. Give. ...
  5. Bark. ...
  6. Black. ...
  7. Fire. ...
  8. Ashes.
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What is the hardest language to learn?

1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons.
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