Language

A Creole language based on Japanese language exists in Yilan County, Taiwan. During Japan's colonial rule, indigenous tribes speaking different languages communicated through Japanese, creating a new language reported to academia only in 2007. About 2,000-3,000 people still speak it.

Many European surnames originated from 'son of [father's name].' English -son (Johnson, Jackson), Celtic Mc/Mac (McDonald, MacArthur) and O' (O'Brien), Spanish -ez (Rodríguez, González), and Slavic -vić (Ibrahimović, Đoković) all trace back to a father's name that became hereditary.

'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' is a grammatically perfect English sentence. Since 'Buffalo' can mean the city, the bison, or 'to bully,' it reads: 'Buffalo bison that Buffalo bison bully, bully Buffalo bison.'

English speakers use the word 'Ghoti' to mock their language's irregular spelling. Reading 'gh' as in 'tough' (f), 'o' as in 'women' (i), and 'ti' as in 'nation' (sh), 'Ghoti' is pronounced exactly like 'Fish.'

AM stands for Ante Meridiem ("before noon" in Latin) and PM for Post Meridiem ("after noon"). Since 12:00 noon is noon itself—neither before nor after—the expressions "12 AM" and "12 PM" are inherently contradictory.

In Buddhism, Avalokitesvara (觀世音) was shortened to Guanyin (觀音) due to Tang dynasty Emperor Taizong (李世民). Under Chinas name taboo custom, the character 世 from the emperors name could not be used publicly. This practice also renamed government offices, influencing Korea.

The English word "bear" was originally a euphemism meaning "the brown one." Ancient people feared or revered the bear so much that they avoided its true name, and the substitute became permanent. The Russian медведь similarly derives from a euphemism meaning "honey eater."

When asked to match 'bouba' and 'kiki' to a round shape and a spiky shape, about 88% of people worldwide assign 'bouba' to the round one and 'kiki' to the spiky one. Called the bouba/kiki effect, this tendency appears even among speakers of unwritten languages and the congenitally blind.

Some twins spontaneously create a unique language only they understand, a phenomenon called cryptophasia. The most famous case is June and Jennifer Gibbons, the 'Silent Twins,' whose language was so distinct that even their parents could not comprehend it.

The slang '黑歷史' (literally 'dark history,' meaning 'embarrassing past') originated from the anime '∀ Gundam.' In the show, it referred to a taboo era of humanity's warlike past. The term later became widespread slang for 'a past one would rather forget.'

When an acronym expands to include itself — like GNU (GNU is Not Unix), PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor), and YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) — it's called a recursive acronym. PHP was originally Personal Home Page Tools before being redefined.

Google's name was created by accident. The founders wanted to use "Googol," meaning 10 to the 100th power, but an investor misspelled it on a check — and "Google" stuck.

'Goodbye' originated in the mid-16th century as a contraction of "God be with ye." It was gradually shortened to forms like 'Godbwye,' and under the influence of greetings like 'Good morning,' 'God' shifted to 'Good,' giving us today's word.

The Korean word '그녀' (geunyeo, meaning 'she') didn't originally exist. It was coined in the early 20th century to translate the English pronoun 'She,' eventually winning out over competitors like '그미,' '궐녀,' and '그히.'

The word 'ketchup' comes from '膎汁' (kôe-chiap) in the Chinese Min Nan dialect, meaning 'fish sauce.' It was originally a fermented fish and shellfish sauce—tomato ketchup was not invented until 1812.

The Chinese character '羊,' read as 'yang' (meaning "sheep"), likely depicts a goat instead. When it was created, goats were far more common in East Asia. The "Year of the Sheep" in the Chinese zodiac was originally closer to the Year of the Goat.