Where words come from and how languages fit together.
Language is the tool everyone uses constantly and almost nobody examines. This category looks at where words come from, how the major language families relate, and what the technical terms actually describe once translated out of linguistics. It covers scripts and alphabets, borrowed words, and the small devices, palindromes and onomatopoeia among them, that people enjoy long before they know the names. The explanations trace origins where they are genuinely known and say so plainly where they are disputed. Useful if you like words, and quietly useful if you are learning another language.
8 quizzes in Language & Words
Roots, scripts and the names for things you already do with language.
Which language has the most native speakers worldwide?
Nouns, adverbs, semicolons and the Oxford comma, without the schoolroom dread.
A word that names a person, place or thing is which part of speech?
Abjads, syllabaries and alphabets, and the very different ways writing can encode speech.
Which writing system uses characters that mostly stand for units of meaning rather than…
Ten everyday words with a Latin, Greek or Arabic ancestor hiding inside them.
The word "muscle" comes from a Latin word meaning what?
Scripts, families and the odd language that refuses to fit anywhere at all.
Which script is used to write Hindi, Marathi and Nepali?
The parts of speech and punctuation marks people use daily and rarely name.
A word such as "heavy" or "blue", which describes a noun, is called what?
Ten common phrases traced back to the law, the navy, the theatre and the hat trade.
To "read the riot act" refers to what?
Why languages drift apart, how new ones form, and what happens when the last speaker dies.
A pidgin is best described as what?
8 published quizzes in this subject, 80 questions in total. Every one is researched, written and checked by hand.
The mix here is 3 easy, 3 medium and 2 hard. Difficulty is about how obscure the answers are, not how fast you have to be — there is no timer on any quiz.
About 7 minutes on average, ranging from 6 to 8. Playing every language & words quiz would take roughly 1 hour.
"Words & Where They Come From" is the gentlest way in — 10 questions, about 6 minutes, rated easy.
No. Every quiz is free and playable straight away. An optional free account only saves your scores across devices.
Yes — every question has a short explanation of why the right answer is right, shown the moment you answer, whether you got it or not.