Interesting Facts about Languages

More than one hundred languages and dialects are spoken by Native Americans today.

Many Native American words are very long, because in most of the American Indian languages a whole sentence can be expressed in one word. For example, in the Algonquian language, “yallvolemartawpolwose” means “I am walking, carrying a beautiful black umbrella over my head.”

The longest word that ever existed is reported to be the name of an Indian chief who died in 1866. This word has 179 letters: “Lepodotemachoselachogaleokranioneipsandorimupotrimmalosilphioparaornelitokatakeclummenokichlepikossuphophattoperisteralektruonopteglephalokigklopeleiolagoolsiraiobaletraganopterugon”

The longest place name in the world is the 85-letter name of a hill in New Zealand: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. The name in Māori means “the brow of the hill where Tamatea, the man with the big knees who climbed and swallowed mountains, the land explorer, played his flute to his beloved one.”

The longest place name in the United States is Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, near Webster, Massachusetts. The 45-letter name of this lake comes from the Nipmuc language. It is traditionally said to mean “You fish on your side, we fish on our side, nobody fishes in the middle.” Today, the name is often shortened to Lake Chaubunagungamaug.