BUNLARI BİLİYOR MUYDUNUZ? (İngilizce metinler)

2 700 LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN THE WORLD



The "invention" of language is not known except for references in the Bible. It is not known what language Adam and Eve spoke. The first mention of different languages is the reference to the tower of Babel when different tongues were bestowed.

The invention of writing, however, is credited to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC. Their descendants, the Sumero-Babylonians, developed the time system that we use today: an hour divided into 60 minutes, which are divided into 60 seconds.

Today, there are more than 2 700 different languages spoken in the world, with more than 7 000 dialects. In Indonesia alone, 365 different languages are spoken. More than 1,000 different languages are spoken in Africa. The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is spoken in north-western Spain and south-western France. It is not related to any other language in the world. Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, followed by English. But as home language, Spanish is the second most spoken in the world.

Youngest language

The youngest language in the world is Afrikaans, spoken by South Africans. Dutch and German Protestants fled persecution from the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th and 18th century to settle in the Dutch colony of Cape of Good Hope on the southern point of Africa. By the early-20th century Afrikaans had developed from Dutch, German and other influences into a fully fledged language with its own dictionaries. After a mere 100 years, it is the second most spoken language in South Africa (Zulu being the most spoken, the Zulu people being the largest ethnic group there).

New languages develop as different cultures meet and mix. For instance, about 700 different languages are spoken in London. In some suburbs of the London, English is now a second language. The same is happening - or has taken place - in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Singapore. Already the Internet and mobile phone texting are influencing the development of languages as people communicate freely across cultural and regional borders. In fact, the fastest growing language in the world is Nerdic, the language of technology and gadgets.

The smallest country in the world is the Vatican. It also is the only country where Latin is the official language.

Somalia is the only country in the world where all the citizens speak one language, Somali.

The Berbers of North Africa have no written form of their language.

THE WORLD'S SMALLEST ISLAND.



The largest island in the world is Greenland. Australia is considered a continent because it has unique plant and animal life. Antarctica also is a continent - larger than Europe and Australia. Greenland, although quite big, shares the habitat features of Northern America.

The smallest island in the world - according to the Guiness Book of Records - is Bishop Rock. It lies at the most south-westerly part of the United Kingdom. It is one of 1040 islands around Britain and only has a lighthouse on it. In 1861, the British government set out the parameters for classifying an island. It was decided that if it was inhabited, the size was immaterial. However, if it was uninhabited, it had to be "the summer's pasturage of at least one sheep" - which is about two acres.

Going by the above parameters, most of the 179 584 "islands" around Finland and the almost 200 000 around Canada would not match Indonesia as the country with the most islands. In fact, Indonesia consists only of islands - 13 667 of them, 6000 of which are inhabited.

The remotest uninhabited island is Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic. The remotest inhabited island in the world is Tristan da Cunha. It is in the South Atlantic, 2575 km (1600 miles) south of St Helena, which is an island a few hundred kilometres (miles) off the coast of South Africa. Tristan da Cunha has no TV but it has one radio station. The population totals 242 and they only have 7 surnames (last names) between them, so they are all related. Tristan da Cunha does have a capital, called Edinburgh of the South Seas.

The smallest independent island country is the Pacific island of Nauru. It measures 21,28 sq km (8.2 sq mi). (Only the Vatican City and Monaco are smaller countries.)

Of the 6 billion+ people in the world, one out of ten lives on an island (600 million). Which is not so hard to imagine when you consider that more than 200 million people live in Indonesia alone - and some 60 million live in Britain, the only island connected to a continent (through the Chunnel).

"In the 13th Century, people convicted of a serious crime were taken out to Bishop Rock and left there with bread and water to be ravaged by the sea. Or so history suggests. Today the rock is better known as the point where record-breaking attempts to cross the Atlantic are started and finished."

Iceland, ironically, is quite green - as this graphic depicts. Over one third of Iceland is volcanically active and loaded with lava fields. Iceland is far enough north to be entirely covered by ice, like Greenland to the west of it, but the magma below the surface heats the rock above, keeping it "green."

COWS DON'T HAVE UPPER FRONT TEETH



Although a cow has no upper front teeth, it grazes up to 8 hours a day, taking in about 45 kg (100 lb) of feed and the equivalent of a bath tub full of water. A healthy cow gives about 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

A cow has four stomachs: the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. The rumen is the largest stomach and acts as a fermentation chamber. The abomasum is last of the four and is comparable in both structure and function to the human stomach.

With all its grazing and many stomachs, it is no wonder that cows are one of the main contributors to the hole in the ozone layer. Apart from CFC, the biggest culprit is hydrocarbon emissions from cars and cows. Yes, cows! Cows release some 100 million tons of hydrocarbon annually - by releasing gas. To give you an idea of how much gas a cow emits: if the gas of 10 cows could be captured, it would provide heating for a small house for a year.

But unlike what you think, cows release hydrocarbon mostly by burping.

Cow factoids
The average lifespan of a cow is 7 years. The oldest cow ever recorded was Big Bertha. She reached 48 in 1993. She also holds the record for producing 39 calves.
There are more than a billion cattle in the world, about 200 million in India.
Twelve cows are known as a "flink."

Cows and global warming
Video take on cow flatulence, sheep burps and global warming