Longest english word how many letters

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The identity of the longest word in English depends on the definition of a word and of length.

Words may be derived naturally from the language’s roots or formed by coinage and construction. Additionally, comparisons are complicated because place names may be considered words, technical terms may be arbitrarily long, and the addition of suffixes and prefixes may extend the length of words to create grammatically correct but unused or novel words.

The length of a word may also be understood in multiple ways. Most commonly, length is based on orthography (conventional spelling rules) and counting the number of written letters. Alternate, but less common, approaches include phonology (the spoken language) and the number of phonemes (sounds).

Word	Letters	Meaning	Claim	Dispute
methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanyl…isoleucine	189,819	The chemical composition of titin, the largest known protein	Longest known word overall by magnitudes. Attempts to say the entire word have taken two[1] to three and a half hours.[2]	Technical; not in dictionary; whether this should actually be considered a word is disputed
methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamyl…serine	1,909	The chemical name of E. coli TrpA (P0A877)	Longest published word[3]	Technical
lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsano…pterygon	183	A fictional dish of food	Longest word coined by a major author,[4] the longest word ever to appear in literature[5]	Contrived nonce word; not in dictionary; Ancient Greek transliteration
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis	45	The disease silicosis	Longest word in a major dictionary[6]	Contrived coinage to make it the longest word; technical, but only mentioned and never actually used in communication
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious	34	Unclear in source work, has been cited as a nonsense word	Made popular in the Mary Poppins film and musical[7]	Contrived coinage
pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism	30	A hereditary medical disorder	Longest non-contrived word in a major dictionary[8]	Technical
antidisestablishmentarianism	28	The political position of opposing disestablishment	Longest non-contrived and nontechnical word[9]	Not all dictionaries accept it due to lack of usage.[10]
honorificabilitudinitatibus	27	The state of being able to achieve honors	Longest word in Shakespeare’s works; longest word in the English language featuring alternating consonants and vowels[11]	Latin

Major dictionaries

The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters), a word that refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles,^[12] specifically from a volcano; medically, it is the same as silicosis. The word was deliberately coined to be the longest word in English, and has since been used^{[citation needed]} in a close approximation of its originally intended meaning, lending at least some degree of validity to its claim.^[6]

The Oxford English Dictionary contains pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters).

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary does not contain antidisestablishmentarianism (28 letters), as the editors found no widespread, sustained usage of the word in its original meaning. The longest word in that dictionary is electroencephalographically (27 letters).^[13]

The longest non-technical word in major dictionaries is flocci­nauci­nihili­pili­fication at 29 letters. Consisting of a series of Latin words meaning «nothing» and defined as «the act of estimating something as worthless»; its usage has been recorded as far back as 1741.^[14][15][16]

Ross Eckler has noted that most of the longest English words are not likely to occur in general text, meaning non-technical present-day text seen by casual readers, in which the author did not specifically intend to use an unusually long word. According to Eckler, the longest words likely to be encountered in general text are deinstitutionalization and counterrevolutionaries, with 22 letters each.^[17]

A computer study of over a million samples of normal English prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an everyday basis is uncharacteristically, at 20 letters.^[18]

The word internationalization is abbreviated «i18n», the embedded number representing the number of letters between the first and the last.^[19][20][21]

Creations of long words

Coinages

In his play Assemblywomen (Ecclesiazousae), the ancient Greek comedic playwright Aristophanes created a word of 171 letters (183 in the transliteration below), which describes a dish by stringing together its ingredients:

Henry Carey’s farce Chrononhotonthologos (1743) holds the opening line: «Aldiborontiphoscophornio! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?»

Thomas Love Peacock put these creations into the mouth of the phrenologist Mr. Cranium in his 1816 book Headlong Hall: osteosarchaematosplanchnochondroneuromuelous (44 characters) and osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (51 characters).

James Joyce made up nine 100-letter words plus one 101-letter word in his novel Finnegans Wake, the most famous of which is Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk. Appearing on the first page, it allegedly represents the symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve. As it appears nowhere else except in reference to this passage, it is generally not accepted as a real word. Sylvia Plath made mention of it in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, when the protagonist was reading Finnegans Wake.

«Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious», the 34-letter title of a song from the movie Mary Poppins, does appear in several dictionaries, but only as a proper noun defined in reference to the song title. The attributed meaning is «a word that you say when you don’t know what to say.» The idea and invention of the word is credited to songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman.

Agglutinative constructions

The English language permits the legitimate extension of existing words to serve new purposes by the addition of prefixes and suffixes. This is sometimes referred to as agglutinative construction. This process can create arbitrarily long words: for example, the prefixes pseudo (false, spurious) and anti (against, opposed to) can be added as many times as desired. More familiarly, the addition of numerous «great»s to a relative, such as «great-great-great-great-grandparent», can produce words of arbitrary length. In musical notation, an 8192nd note may be called a semihemidemisemihemidemisemihemidemisemiquaver.

Antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest common example of a word formed by agglutinative construction.

Technical terms

A number of scientific naming schemes can be used to generate arbitrarily long words.

The IUPAC nomenclature for organic chemical compounds is open-ended, giving rise to the 189,819-letter chemical name Methionylthreonylthreonyl…isoleucine for the protein also known as titin, which is involved in striated muscle formation. In nature, DNA molecules can be much bigger than protein molecules and therefore potentially be referred to with much longer chemical names. For example, the wheat chromosome 3B contains almost 1 billion base pairs,^[22] so the sequence of one of its strands, if written out in full like Adenilyladenilylguanilylcystidylthymidyl…, would be about 8 billion letters long. The longest published word, Acetylseryltyrosylseryliso…serine, referring to the coat protein of a certain strain of tobacco mosaic virus (P03575), is 1,185 letters long, and appeared in the American Chemical Society’s Chemical Abstracts Service in 1964 and 1966.^[23] In 1965, the Chemical Abstracts Service overhauled its naming system and started discouraging excessively long names. In 2011, a dictionary broke this record with a 1909-letter word describing the trpA protein (P0A877).^[3]

John Horton Conway and Landon Curt Noll developed an open-ended system for naming powers of 10, in which one sexmilliaquingentsexagintillion, coming from the Latin name for 6560, is the name for 10^3(6560+1) = 10¹⁹⁶⁸³. Under the long number scale, it would be 10^6(6560) = 10³⁹³⁶⁰.

Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis is sometimes cited as the longest binomial name—it is a kind of amphipod. However, this name, proposed by B. Dybowski, was invalidated by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature in 1929 after being petitioned by Mary J. Rathbun to take up the case.^[24]

Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis is the longest accepted binomial name for an organism. It is a bacterium found in soil collected at Llan­fair­pwll­gwyn­gyll­ (discussed below). Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides is the longest accepted binomial name for any animal, or any organism visible with the naked eye. It is a species of soldier fly.^[25] The genus name Parapropalaehoplophorus (a fossil glyptodont, an extinct family of mammals related to armadillos) is two letters longer, but does not contain a similarly long species name.

Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic, at 52 letters, describing the spa waters at Bath, England, is attributed to Dr. Edward Strother (1675–1737).^[26] The word is composed of the following elements:

• Aequeo: equal (Latin, aequo^[27])
• Salino: containing salt (Latin, salinus)
• Calcalino: calcium (Latin, calx)
• Ceraceo: waxy (Latin, cera)
• Aluminoso: alumina (Latin)
• Cupreo: from «copper»
• Vitriolic: resembling vitriol

Notable long words

Place names

The longest officially recognized place name in an English-speaking country is Taumata­whakatangihanga­koauau­o­tamatea­turi­pukaka­piki­maunga­horo­nuku­pokai­whenua­ki­tana­tahu (85 letters), which is a hill in New Zealand. The name is in the Māori language. A widely recognized version of the name is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (85 letters), which appears on the signpost at the location (see the photo on this page). In Māori, the digraphs ng and wh are each treated as single letters.

In Canada, the longest place name is Dysart, Dudley, Harcourt, Guilford, Harburn, Bruton, Havelock, Eyre and Clyde, a township in Ontario, at 61 letters or 68 non-space characters.^[28]

The 58-letter name Llan­fair­pwll­gwyn­gyll­gogery­chwyrn­drob­wlll­lanty­silio­gogo­goch is the name of a town on Anglesey, an island of Wales. In terms of the traditional Welsh alphabet, the name is only 51 letters long, as certain digraphs in Welsh are considered as single letters, for instance ll, ng and ch. It is generally agreed, however, that this invented name, adopted in the mid-19th century, was contrived solely to be the longest name of any town in Britain. The official name of the place is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, commonly abbreviated to Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG.

The longest non-contrived place name in the United Kingdom which is a single non-hyphenated word is Cottonshopeburnfoot (19 letters) and the longest which is hyphenated is Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe (29 characters).

The longest place name in the United States (45 letters) is Char­gogga­gogg­man­chau­ggagogg­chau­buna­gunga­maugg, a lake in Webster, Massachusetts. It means «Fishing Place at the Boundaries – Neutral Meeting Grounds» and is sometimes facetiously translated as «you fish your side of the water, I fish my side of the water, nobody fishes the middle». The lake is also known as Webster Lake.^[29] The longest hyphenated names in the U.S. are Winchester-on-the-Severn, a town in Maryland, and Washington-on-the-Brazos, a notable place in Texas history. The longest single-word town names in the U.S. are Kleinfeltersville, Pennsylvania and Mooselookmeguntic, Maine.

The longest official geographical name in Australia is Ma­mungku­kumpu­rang­kunt­junya.^[30] It has 26 letters and is a Pitjantjatjara word meaning «where the Devil urinates».^[31]

Liechtenstein is the longest country name with single name in English. The second longest country name with single name in English is Turkmenistan. There are longer country names if one includes ones with spaces.

Personal names

Guinness World Records formerly contained a category for longest personal name used.

• From about 1975 to 1985, the recordholder was Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfe­schlegelstein­hausenberger­dorffvoraltern­waren­gewissenhaft­schaferswessen­schafewaren­wohlgepflege­und­sorgfaltigkeit­beschutzen­von­angreifen­durch­ihrraubgierigfeinde­welche­voraltern­zwolftausend­jahres­vorandieerscheinen­wander­ersteer­dem­enschderraumschiff­gebrauchlicht­als­sein­ursprung­von­kraftgestart­sein­lange­fahrt­hinzwischen­sternartigraum­auf­der­suchenach­diestern­welche­gehabt­bewohnbar­planeten­kreise­drehen­sich­und­wohin­der­neurasse­von­verstandigmen­schlichkeit­konnte­fortplanzen­und­sicher­freuen­anlebens­langlich­freude­und­ruhe­mit­nicht­ein­furcht­vor­angreifen­von­anderer­intelligent­geschopfs­von­hinzwischen­sternartigraum, Senior (746 letters), also known as Wolfe+585, Senior.
• After 1985 Guinness briefly awarded the record to a newborn girl with a longer name. The category was removed shortly afterward.

Long birth names are often coined in protest of naming laws or for other personal reasons.

• The naming law in Sweden was challenged by parents Lasse Diding and Elisabeth Hallin, who proposed the given name «Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116» for their child (pronounced [ˈǎlːbɪn], 43 characters), which was rejected by a district court in Halmstad, southern Sweden.

Words with certain characteristics of notable length

• Schmaltzed and strengthed (10 letters) appear to be the longest monosyllabic words recorded in The Oxford English Dictionary, while scraunched and scroonched appear to be the longest monosyllabic words recorded in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary; but squirrelled (11 letters) is the longest if pronounced as one syllable only (as permitted in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary at squirrel, and in Longman Pronunciation Dictionary). Schtroumpfed (12 letters) was coined by Umberto Eco, while broughammed (11 letters) was coined by William Harmon after broughamed (10 letters) was coined by George Bernard Shaw.
• Strengths is the longest word in the English language containing only one vowel letter.^[32]
• Euouae, a medieval musical term, is the longest English word consisting only of vowels, and the word with the most consecutive vowels. However, the «word» itself is simply a mnemonic consisting of the vowels to be sung in the phrase «seculorum Amen» at the end of the lesser doxology. (Although u was often used interchangeably with v, and the variant «Evovae» is occasionally used, the v in these cases would still be a vowel.)
• The longest words with no repeated letters are dermatoglyphics and uncopyrightable.^[33]
• The longest word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops, a grass genus. However, this is arguably a proper noun. There are several six-letter English words with their letters in alphabetical order, including abhors, almost, begins, biopsy, chimps and chintz.^[34] There are few 7-letter words, such as «billowy» and «beefily». The longest words whose letters are in reverse alphabetical order are sponged, wronged and trollied.
• The longest words recorded in OED with each vowel only once, and in order, are abstemiously, affectiously, and tragediously (OED). Fracedinously and gravedinously (constructed from adjectives in OED) have thirteen letters; Gadspreciously, constructed from Gadsprecious (in OED), has fourteen letters. Facetiously is among the few other words directly attested in OED with single occurrences of all six vowels (counting y as a vowel).
• The longest single palindromic word in English is rotavator, another name for a rotary tiller for breaking and aerating soil.

Typed words

• The longest words typable with only the left hand using conventional hand placement on a QWERTY keyboard are tesseradecades, aftercataracts, dereverberated, dereverberates^[35] and the more common but sometimes hyphenated sweaterdresses.^[34] Using the right hand alone, the longest word that can be typed is johnny-jump-up, or, excluding hyphens, monimolimnion^[36] and phyllophyllin.
• The longest English word typable using only the top row of letters has 11 letters: rupturewort. The word teetertotter (used in North American English) is longer at 12 letters, although it is usually spelled with a hyphen.
• The longest using only the middle row is shakalshas (10 letters). Nine-letter words include flagfalls; eight-letter words include galahads and alfalfas.
• Since the bottom row contains no vowels, no standard words can be formed. ^[37]
• The longest words typable by alternating left and right hands are antiskepticism and leucocytozoans respectively.^[34]
• On a Dvorak keyboard, the longest «left-handed» words are epopoeia, jipijapa, peekapoo, and quiaquia.^[38] Other such long words are papaya, Kikuyu, opaque, and upkeep.^[39] Kikuyu is typed entirely with the index finger, and so the longest one-fingered word on the Dvorak keyboard. There are no vowels on the right-hand side, and so the longest «right-handed» word is crwths.

See also

References

External links

• A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia – Long words
  • Long words (chemical names)
  • Long words (place names)
• What is the longest English word?, AskOxford.com «Ask the Experts»
• What is the Longest Word?, Fun-With-Words.com
• Full chemical name of titin.
• Taxonomy of Wordplay

Прежде чем вы начнете читать статью, ответьте на вопрос: Сколько букв в самом длинном слове английского языка? 50? 75? 100? 220? В любом случае, запомните эту цифру.

Трудно поверить, но в самом коротком длинном слове в английском языке «всего» 27(!) букв. Мы начнем с самого короткого слова, а закончим самым длинным:

1. Honorificabilitudinitatibus

Это слово придумал Уильям Шекспир, и найти его можно в комедии «Бесплодные усилия любви» (Love’sLabour’s Lost). Имеет ли это слово значение? Да. Оно означает «достойный почестей, признания», и вы найдете его в словарях, хотя оно и маркируется как устаревшее.

2. Antidisestablishmentarianism

Это слово (28 букв!) вы найдете в словаре, и переводится оно следующим образом – движение за не разделение государства и церкви. Данное движение появилось в Англии в середине 1860-ых. Хотя слово и относится к устаревшим (архаичным) словам, оно встречается в научной (исторической) и художественной литературе.

3. Floccinaucinihilipilification

В этом слове 29 букв и состоит оно из корней латинских слов. Что оно означает? Вы его без труда найдете в словарях, а означает оно «опорочивание, дискредитация».

4. Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism

В этом слове 30 букв. И обозначает оно один из типов генетического нарушения. Этот тип схож с тем, что в медицине называют псевдогипопаратиреоз, но при нем не наблюдается дефицит кальция. Не вдаваясь в медицинские детали, лучше не иметь у себя в организме то, что называется словом из 30 букв.

5. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Несмотря на то, что в этом слове 34 буквы, оно весьма популярно, так как встречается в песне, которую поет Мэри Поппинс в мюзикле «Мэри Поппинс». В словарях вы найдете такой перевод — суперархиэкстраультрамегаграндиозно. Авторство принадлежит Ричарду и Роберту Шерманам, написавшим тексты песен для мюзикла. В слове угадывается некоторый оттенок учености, хотя сама героиня книги говорила, что его стоит произносить, когда совсем нечего сказать.

6. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

В этом медицинском термине 45 букв! И означает он заболевание легких, вызванное вдыханием пыли, содержащей свободную двуокись кремния. Это слово зафиксировано в словарях, но в медицинской практике пользуются очень коротким словом – silicosis (силикоз или силикатоз).  Доктора, которые пишут в истории болезни такое длинное слово, очевидно, получают почасовую зарплату.

7. Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic

Это слово из 52 букв придумал Д-р Эдвард Строзер, для того чтобы описать состав воды для spa-процедур, которые можно получить в английском городе Бат (Bath). И сделал он это при помощи одного слова! Если расшифровать это слово, то получится – «равномерно соленая», «содержит кальций», «содержит алюминий и медь», «имеет восковый блеск». Конечно, вряд ли вы увидите это слово в научных статьях или услышите в речи, разве что в самих spa-салонах увидите его на постерах.

8. Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotr

immatosilphioparaomelito-katakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoio-siraiobaphetraganopterygon

В этом слове 171 буква, а авторство принадлежит древнегреческому автору Аристофану. В одной из комедий он приводит придуманное им самим блюдо. В основе – названия необычных ингредиентов: акулы, голуби, мед и всевозможные фрагменты тел животных, надо сказать, не всегда аппетитные.

В начале статьи мы попросили вас предположить, сколько букв в самом длинном слове английского языка. Какую цифру вы выбрали? Смеем предположить, что вы ошиблись. Потому что самое длинное английское слово —

9. Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenyl—
alanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamyl—
glycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonyl—
leucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminyl—
serylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamy—
lalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucyl—
prolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylproly—
lthreonylisoleucylglutaminylaspfraginylalanylthreonylleucylarginy—
lalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanyl—
glutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucylalany—
lleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucyl—
prolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginy—
lleucylvalylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartyl—glutamylphenylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamylly—sylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalyl—prolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginyl—glutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanyl—prolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanyl—aspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanyl—seryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylseryl—arginylalanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginyl—arginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalyl—alanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolyl—prolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanyl—prolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl—glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucyl—valyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginy—lisoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanyl—leucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanyl—alanylthreonylarginylserine

Да, это одно слово и в нем 1913 букв (!). Это химическое название триптофансинтетазы, белка, в составе которого 27 аминокислот.

Конечно, нет смысла составлять такие длинные слова, прежде всего из-за их непрактичности. Поэтому в языке их не так уж много. Но на досуге можно попробовать прочитать их и, возможно, даже запомнить парочку! 

Предлагаем начать с «supercalifragilisticexpialidocious». И это возможно!

Не верите? Тогда смотрите!

01.07.2021

International Business

Did you know that the longest word in the world contains 190,000 letters? The following  is our list of the five longest words in the world:

1. An English word of 189, 819 letters 

The longest word in the world is the English term: «methionylthreonylthreonyl(…)isoleucine».

This term, which has no less than 189, 819 letters, is the chemical name of the largest protein: titin. It would take three hours to recite it from beginning to end! 

1. A Sanskrit word of 195 characters

निरन्तरान्धकारित-दिगन्तर-कन्दलदमन्द-सुधारस-बिन्दु-सान्द्रतर-घनाघन-वृन्द-सन्देहकर-स्यन्दमान-मकरन्द-बिन्दु-बन्धुरतर-माकन्द-तरु-कुल-तल्प-कल्प-मृदुल-सिकता-जाल-जटिल-मूल-तल-मरुवक-मिलदलघु-लघु-लय-कलित-रमणीय-पानीय-शालिका-बालिका-करार-विन्द-गलन्तिका-गलदेला-लवङ्ग-पाटल-घनसार-कस्तूरिकातिसौरभ-मेदुर-लघुतर-मधुर-शीतलतर-सलिलधारा-तदीय-विमल-विलोचन-मयूख-रेखापसारित-पिपासायास-पथिक-लोकान् 

The second longest word in the world is a 195-character Sanskrit word (equivalent to 428 letters in the Latin alphabet).

It is a word that has been listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest word in the world. It first appeared in the 16th century in a book written by Queen Tirumalãmbã, and is actually a description of a region in India called Tamil Nadu.

1. An Afrikaans word of 136 letters

The third longest word is this 136-letter Afrikaans word:

«Tweedehandsemotorverkoopsmannevakbondstakingsvergaderingsameroeperstoespra-akskrywerspersverklaringuitreikingsmediakonferensieaankondiging”

Roughly translated, it means ‘a press conference on a speech by a trade union official at a used car dealership about a strike’.

Afrikaans is a Germanic language derived from Dutch, and is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa.

1. A New Zealand word with 85 letters

This is the fourth longest word in the world:

«Taumatawhakatangihangakoauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu”

This is actually the name of a hill in New Zealand. Its translation is: «The peak where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the surveyor, the mountain climber, the walker who travelled here, played his flute to his beloved.»

Consisting of 85 letters, this word is the longest place name in the world in the Latin alphabet. It has also been included in the Guinness Book of Records.

1. An Icelandic word with 64 letters

«Vaðlaheiðarvegavinnuverkfærageymsluskúraútidyralyklakippuhringur»  

This Icelandic word of 64 letters is the fifth longest in the world. It is literally translated as follows: 

«A ring on a key ring for the outer door of the tool shed used by road maintenance workers on Vaðlaheiði hill.”

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Answers to your questions about the longest words in the world

The longest French word officially recognised by the Académie française is «anticonstitutionnellement», which consists of 25 letters. It is, in other words, the longest word in the French dictionary.

«Rinderkennzeichnungsfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz» is the longest word in the German language with 79 letters.

The longest English word is also the longest word in the world, with almost 190,000 letters. It is the chemical name for titin, the largest protein known. The longest word in the English dictionary however, is the 45-letter word «pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis», which refers to a lung disease. Doctors call it «P45».

About the author

The editorial team, which is led by the founder of the group to which Alphatrad UK belongs, consists of experts who specialise in language services. Our goal is to regularly provide you with articles related to translation and language services, which will help you with your language services’ needs.