Friday, July 7, 2017

Greetings Infomaniacs,

Congratulations to Ralph Compton who won this week's "Mind Scrambler". Here was the scrambler:

Has a mouth,
but cannot drink.
Has a head,
but cannot think.
Has a tongue,
but not a lung.
Some are held
and some are hung.

ANSWER: A bell.

Enjoy!

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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow."

HINT: (1809-1894), One of the best regarded American poets of the 19th century.

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RANDOM TIDBITS
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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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




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*** Weekly Mind-Scrambler ***
Look for a new mind scrambler in Monday's issue of Trivia Today!

Submit your answer by clicking: TheDailyTease

Answer will be posted in Friday's Trivia Today. Good Luck! If your name appears in Friday's newsletter, EMAIL MICHELE your complete name and address to be shipped your prize.

Be sure to put "Winner" in the subject line.

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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow."

ANSWER: Oliver Wendell Holmes