Weird But True (13 page)
M
ore than 450 languages have been designated as endangered; in other words,the number of people who speak these languages is dwindling and when those populations die out, there won't be anyone left who uses them. More than 70 endangered languages are (or were) native languages of the United States.
We Don't
Use That Sort
of Language
B
etween 2005 and 2009 it's estimated that ninety-one languages went “extinct,” meaning that there are no longer any living native speakers. With the death of Chief Marie Smith Jones in 2008 came the death of Eyak, the language of the Eyak people of central Alaska.
* * *
The Bo or Aka-Bo language of India's Andaman Islands was classified as extinct in 2010 when the last native speaker died. Aka-Bo had been in use for more than sixty-five thousand years.
W
ith eleven official languages, South Africa has the most official languages of any nation in the world. They are: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Sepedi, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu.
* * *
India has twenty-two commonly used languages, many of which are official languages in their particular states or regions; however, Hindi and English are the only designated official languages of India's national government.
M
andarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language on Earth. Spanish is second, followed by English, Arabic in all its forms, and Hindi.
T
he national anthem of the Republic of Kosovo has no lyrics. It was chosen so that no preference would be given to one language over another. Kosovo, which declared its independence in 2008, has several commonly used languages, including Albanian, Serbian, Turkish, Roma, and Bosniak.
T
he national anthem of Spain, “La Marcha Real,” also has no official lyrics, though there have been several attempts to introduce them, even as recently as 2008.
A
n earworm is a repetitive, catchy song or piece of music that lodges itself in your brain and won't leave. Strategies such as listening to a different song or playing the earworm song in an effort to get it out of your head generally don't work, and might even make the situation worse.
* * *
Earworms almost always are songs or jingles with lyrics.
This Is So
Disgusting We
Can't Even Believe
We're Writing It
G
uinea worms enter the human body via drinking water. They're swallowed as tiny larvae that begin to grow almost immediately, burrowing through the intestines and winding through the body until they measure more than three feet in length. The human host is almost always unaware that the worms are growing until the creatures burst through the skin. The only way to remove a guinea worm is to pull it out, but this must be done slowly and carefully, and it can take months to remove the worm completely.
P
rograms to ensure clean drinking water for communities have nearly wiped out guinea worm infestations in most of Asia and Africa. In 1986, when these programs began, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases of guinea worm disease in twenty countries; by 2009 that number was down to 3,500 cases in four countries. The aim is to eliminate guinea worm infestations entirelyâand who could argue with that?
D
ifferent systems of writing, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics and Babylonian cuneiform, were wiped out over time, even when the society's spoken language survived. One exception is the use of Chinese characters, which has continued for about three thousand years.
A
rchaeologists at the Maya site at Calakmul, Mexico, unearthed large painted murals with hieroglyphic captions describing the action in the artworkâmost of which related to food.
* * *
The Maya people of Central America had one of the first systems of writing in the New World. Evidence indicates that it could date back as far as 300 BCE. Archaeologists refer to the writing as hieroglyphs, even though the characters are unrelated to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
A
t a cave in Spain, archaeologists found shells that had been pierced to be strung as necklaces, as well as traces of pigments that they think were used as cosmetic body paints by Neanderthals fifty thousand years ago.
A
ncient Greeks and Romans created a substance to darken their hair and cover their grays by making a paste of slaked lime (essentially limestone mixed with water) and lead oxide.
* * *
The Greek playwright Aristophanes mentions hair dye in the fourth century BCE. The Roman author Pliny the Elder and the Roman poet Ovid mention it in texts from the first century CE.
P
remature gray hair is often caused by genetics. Although it happens rarely, some children are born with gray hair.
D
NA from Neanderthals found in Spain and Italy indicates that the gene for red hair dates back to prehistoric times.
T
oday, redheads make up about 2 percent of the world's population.
* * *
Scotland is considered to have the world's highest percentage of redheads. An estimated 11 to 13 percent of the Scottish population has red hair.
T
he amount of anesthesia given to a patient before surgery depends on a number of factors. One of them is hair color. A study at the University of Louisville in Kentucky found that redheads require about 20 percent more anesthesia before surgery than blondes or brunettes.
E
ven though the administering of general anesthesia prior to surgery is intended to make the patient completely unaware of the operation, about 1 in every 863 patients under general anesthesia has some awareness or recollection of the surgical procedure.
. . .And You Will
Know Us by the
Trail of Germs
T
here is only one you; and your germs prove it. Each individual carries about 150 species of bacteria on his or her hands, and every person's combination of bacteria is unique. The germs aren't necessarily dangerous, but they are distinctive; and scientists can tell where your hands have been simply by the germ samples they find on your phone, your computer, or other hard surfaces in your environment.
G
erms that cause colds can live on hard surfaces such as faucets, handles, doorknobs, telephones, and television remote controls for as long as two days.
