Longest words

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The longest word in any given language depends on the word formation rules of each specific language, and on the types of words allowed for consideration.

Video Longest words

Special considerations

Agglutinative languages allow for the creation of long words via compounding. Words consisting of hundreds, or even thousands of characters have been coined with the goal of being ranked among the world's longest words. Even non-agglutinative languages may allow word formation of theoretically limitless length in certain contexts. An example common to many languages in the term for a very remote ancestor, "great-great-.....-grandfather", where formally the prefix "great-" may be repeated any number of times.

Systematic names of chemical compounds can run to hundreds of thousands of characters in length. The rules of creation of such names are commonly defined by international bodies, therefore they formally belong to many languages. The longest recognized systematic name is for the protein titin, at 189,819 letters. While lexicographers regard generic names of chemical compounds as verbal formulae rather than words, for its sheer length the systematic name for titin is often included in longest-word lists.

Longest word candidates may be judged by their acceptance in major dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary or in record-keeping publications like Guinness World Records, and by the frequency of their use in ordinary language.

Maps Longest words

Table

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Afrikaans

Afrikaans, as it is a daughter language of the Dutch language, is capable of forming compounds of potentially limitless length in the same way as in the Dutch language. According to the Total Book of South African Records, the longest word in the language is Tweedehandsemotorverkoopsmannevakbondstakingsvergaderingsameroeperstoespraakskrywerspersverklaringuitreikingsmediakonferensieaankondiging (136 letters), which means "issuable media conference's announcement at a press release regarding the convener's speech at a secondhand car dealership union's strike meeting". This word, however, is contrived to be long and does not occur in everyday speech or writing.

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Albanian

The longest word in the Albanian language is thought to be Kundërzhurmëkrijuesabërësave, which is 27 letters long, and means "Against noise maker makers".

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Armenian

The longest word in Armenian is considered to be the 29-letter-long ??????????????????????????????? (Arevajajanchaerkrapaylatakutyun). It means more or less, "rays of sun lighting up everything".

The Armenian language is agglutinative, and words are often formed by compounding elements and adding suffixes that modify a root word; this can be carried to extremes by creative writers, and theoretically endless words can be made. ???????????????????????????????????????? ("Arekagnajajanchatsoghabaydzarrap'ayladagoutiun") is a 40-letter variation of similar meaning to the above word ("brilliance of the solar radiation gleaming on dewdrops"). Theoretical words include the 41-letter ????????????????????????????????????????? ("manrashak'aravazanamanavajarrabedouhinernoon") - "for our finely ground sugar bowl chief saleswomen," and the 97-letter ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ("anoushark'ayamorehameghahamabaghbaghagatashkhouranahmoudavajarrantamagts'madeghagalaharrachakahabaraboutiunnere") - "the vice chairmanship of the senior sweet raspberry-flavored ice cream vendors' association vacancies."

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Basque

The longest word in Basque is considered to be the 35-letter-long konstituziokontrakotasunarekikoetan followed by a 34-letter word bederatziehungarrenarenganainokoak.

The longest last name is Jaureguiñalaberrigoyakoiturrimendiolaberrigoitiechezarreta (58) followed by Gaztelubarriurrutikoberrengormaetxebarrialdeconecoa (51) and Iturriberrigorrigoicoerrotaberricoganekoechea (45).

The longest Basque toponym is Azpilicuetagaraycosaroyarenberecolarrea (39).

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Bulgarian

The Bulgarian online etymological dictionary claims that longest word in Bulgarian to be the 39-letter-long ??????????????????????????????????????? (neprotivokonstitutsionstvuvatelstvuvayte), introduced in the Constitution of Bulgaria of 1947 (Dimitrov Constitution). The word means "do not perform actions against the constitution" (addressed to more than one person).

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Catalan

The longest word in Catalan is considered to be Anticonstitucionalment, an adverb meaning "[done in a way that is] against the constitution", however, the scientific word Psiconeuroimmunoendocrinologia, related to endocrinology has been proposed by the University of Barcelona to be the true longest word.

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Czech

Traditionally, the word nejneobhospoda?ovávateln?j?ímu (inflected adj, to the worst farmable one - dative singular) or nejneobhospoda?ovávateln?j?ími (with the worst farmable ones - instrumental plural) is considered as the longest Czech word, but there are some longer artificial words. Most of them are compound adjectives in dative, instrumental or other grammatical case and derived from the iterative or frequentative verbal form or the ability adjective form (like -able).

• nejneobhospoda?ovávateln?j?ímu, "to the least farmable one", 30 letters
• nejzdev?tadevadesáteroroznásobiteln?j?ími, "by the most multipliable by 99", 41 letters
• nejnerestrukturalizovávateln?j?ímu, "to the least restructurable one", 34 letters
• nejneznesrozumitel?ovávateln?j?ímu, "to the least able to be making less understandable", 34 letters
• nejnevykrystalizovávateln?j?ímu, "to the least crystallizable one", 31 letters

(See also the Czech article.)

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Danish

Speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode, which is 51 letters, is the longest Danish word that has been used in an official context. It means "Period of plan stabilising for a specialist doctor's practice," and was used during negotiations with the local government.

But even longer words can be created as Danish grammar allows its user to put nouns together, forming brand new words, making it possible for a word to be arbitrarily long.

For instance, in the fairy tale The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, the author Hans Christian Andersen named one of the characters Gedebukkebensoverogundergeneralkrigskommandersergenten ("General-clothes-press-inspector-head-superintendent-Goat-legs" or in literal translation "the goaty-legged-above-and-under-general-war-commanding-sergeant") as a parody on the long Danish military titles. This word is 54 letters long.

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Dutch

Dutch, like many Germanic languages, is capable of forming compounds of potentially limitless length. The 53-letter word Kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamhedenplan, meaning "preparation activities plan for a children's carnival procession", was cited by the 1996 Guinness Book of World Records as the longest Dutch word.

The longest word in the authoritative Van Dale Dutch dictionary (2009 edition) in plural form is meervoudigepersoonlijkheidsstoornissen; 38 letters long, meaning "multiple personality disorders". The entry in the dictionary however is in the singular, counting 35 letters.

The free OpenTaal dictionary, which has been certified by the Dutch Language Union (the official Dutch language institute) and is included in many open-source applications, contains the following longest words, which are 40 letters long:

• vervoerdersaansprakelijkheidsverzekering, "carriers' liability insurance";
• bestuurdersaansprakelijkheidsverzekering, "drivers' liability insurance";
• overeenstemmingsbeoordelingsprocedures, "conformity assessment procedures" (38 letters)

The word often said to be the longest in Dutch - probably because of its funny meaning and alliteration - which has also appeared in print, is Hottentottensoldatententententoonstellingsbouwterrein ("construction ground for the Hottentot soldiers' tents exhibition"); counting 53 letters.

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English

The 45-letter word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest English word that appears in a major dictionary. Originally coined to become a candidate for the longest word in English, the term eventually developed some independent use in medicine. It is referred to as "P45" by researchers.

Antidisestablishmentarianism, at 28 letters, is the longest non-coined, non-systematic English word in Oxford Dictionaries. It refers to a 19th-century political movement that opposed the disestablishment of the Church of England as the state church of England.

Floccinaucinihilipilification, at 29 letters and meaning the act of estimating something as being worth so little as to be practically valueless, or the habit of doing so, is the longest non-technical, coined word in Oxford Dictionaries of the English language.

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Esperanto

The longest official Esperanto roots are 12 letters long, shown here with the added substantive "-o" ending:

• administracio (administration),
• a?tobiografio (autobiography),
• diskriminacii (to discriminate),
• konservatorio (conservatory),
• paleontologio (palaeontology),
• paralelogramo (parallelogram), and
• trigonometrio (trigonometry).

Since Esperanto allows word compounding, there are no limits on how long a word can theoretically become. A relatively short example is the 46-letter komencopaleontologiokonservatoria?estri?ontajn, which is an (accusative and plural) adjective that means "about to begin to become the leader of a contemptible palaeontology conservatory". (Such clusters are not considered good style, but are permissible under the rules of Esperanto grammar.)

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Estonian

Estonian has many long words; one of the more notable ones, at 24 letters, is "kuulilennuteetunneliluuk", meaning "hatch of the bullet pathway tunnel". It is notable as it is also a palindrome, meaning it can be read from both ends.

One other long word is "uusaastaöövastuvõtuhommikuidüll" at 31 letters, denoting an idealistic morning after the new year. It can be used in a sentence such as "Maalilist jõuluööeelootusaega ja illuminaarses aoõhetuses uusaastaöövastuvõtuhommikuidülli" to say "merry Christmas and a happy new year".

Another good example of a long word is "sünnipäevanädalalõpupeopärastlõunaväsimus" (41 letters) which means "The tiredness one feels on the afternoon of the weekend birthday party". Translated literally by parts this becomes "birth day week end party after lunch tiredness".

As Estonian uses agglutination, it is possible to create very long words by converting the first word into the next word's genitive, forming a compound which can be arbitrarily long. One example is "isapaabulinnusabakattesulesilmamunavärvivabrikukuldväravaauvahtkonnaülemapühapäevajakirinnataskusisevoodrivahe" at 114 characters, meaning "the peacock's tail's cover feather's eyeball's color factory's golden gate's head honor guard's Sunday jacket's breast pocket's inner lining gap". Because of this, there is no official "longest word" in the language.

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Finnish

Three examples of long words that have been in everyday use in the Finnish language are kolmivaihekilowattituntimittari which means "three phase kilowatt hour meter" (32 letters), peruspalveluliikelaitoskuntayhtymä ("a public utility of a municipal federation for provision of basic services", 34 letters) and lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas "airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student" (61 letters), an actual military term, although one which has been deprecated. If conjugated forms are allowed, even longer real words can be made. Allowing derivatives and clitics allows the already lengthy word to grow even longer, although the usability of the word starts to degrade. Because Finnish uses free forming of composite words, new words can even be formed during a conversation. One can add nouns after each other without breaking grammar rules.

If one allows artificial constructs as well as using clitics and conjugated forms, one can create even longer words: such as kumarreksituteskenteleentuvaisehkollaismaisekkuudellisenneskenteluttelemattomammuuksissansakaankopahan (102 letters), which was created by Artturi Kannisto.

The longest non-compound (a single stem with prefixes and suffixes) Finnish word recognised by the Guinness Book of Records is epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän (see also Agglutination#Extremes), based on the stem järki (reason, sanity), and it means: I wonder if - even with his/her quality of not having been made unsystematized

Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä and a defunct bar named after it, Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsi-baari, are the longest place names in use.

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German

In German, whole numbers (smaller than 1 million) can be expressed as single words, which makes siebenhundertsiebenundsiebzigtausendsiebenhundertsiebenundsiebzig (777,777) a 65 letter word. In combination with -malig or, as an inflected noun, (des ...) -maligen, all numbers can be written as one word. A 79 letter word, Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft, was named the longest published word in the German language by the 1972 Guinness Book of World Records, but longer words are possible. The word was the name of a prewar Viennese club for subordinate officials of the headquarters of the electrical division of the company named the Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft, which operated steam boats on the Danube river.

The longest word that is not created artificially as a longest-word record seems to be Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz at 63 letters. The word means "law delegating beef label monitoring" but as of 2013, it was removed from the books because European Union regulations have changed and that particular law became obsolete, leading to news reports that Germany "had lost its longest word".

In December 2016 the 51-letter word Bundespräsidentenstichwahlwiederholungsverschiebung ("deferral of the second iteration of the federal presidential run-off election") was elected the Austrian Word of the Year 2016. The jury called it a "descriptive word" which "in terms of its content as well as its length, is a symbol and an ironic form of commentary for the political events of this year, characterized by the very long campaign for the presidential election, the challenges of the voting process, and its reiteration."

Greek

In his comedy Assemblywomen (c. 392 BC) Aristophanes coined the 173-letter word Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleio-lagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon, a fictional food dish consisting of a combination of fish and other meat. The word is cited as the longest ancient Greek word ever written. A modern Greek word of 22 letters is ?????????????????????? (ilektroenkefalográfima) (gen. ????????????????????????? (ilektroenkefalografímatos), 25 letters) meaning "electroencephalogram".

Hungarian

Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért, with 44 letters is one example of a long word in the Hungarian language and means something like "for your [plural] continued behaviour as if you could not be desecrated". It is already morphed, since Hungarian is an agglutinative language. The language does not have a "longest word" due to its agglutinating nature. It is always possible to construct a longer one with enough creativity. For example, legösszetettebbszóhosszúságvilágrekorddöntéskényszerneurózistünetegyüttesmegnyilvánulásfejleszthet?ségvizsgálataitokról (119 letters), which means: "About your investigations of the upgradeability of the manifestation of the syndrome of the neurosis about the need to decide which is the world record of the most complex longest word."

The longest dictionary form word is the word in use (although it is constructed from the word: szent meaning: "saint"), megszentségteleníthetetlen, with 25 characters, and means "something that cannot be desecrated".

Another word that conforms to Hungarian orthography: legeslegtöredezettségmentesíthetetlenebbeskedéseitekért (67 letters) can be translated to something like "because of your highest unfragmentationability factor".

Word formation

Icelandic

The longest word in Icelandic is Vaðlaheiðarvegavinnuverkfærageymsluskúraútidyralyklakippuhringur. It has 64 letters and means "A keychain ring for the outdoor key of road workers shed in a moor called Vaðlaheiði".

Analysis of a corpus of contemporary Icelandic texts by Uwe Quasthoff, Sabine Fiedler and Erla Hallsteinsdóttir identified Alþjóðaflutningaverkamannasambandsins ("of the International Transport Workers' Federation"; 37 letters) and Norðvestur-Atlantshafsfiskveiðistofnunarinnar ("of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries' Organization"; 45 letters) as the longest unhyphenated and hyphenated words.

Indonesian

Because Indonesian is agglutinative language, every noun can be transformed to verb and vice versa with additional informations can be added by just adding prefixes, infixes or suffixes to one noun or verb. The longest word in Indonesian from the root tanggung-jawab is mempertidakmempertanggungjawabkannyalah, means "to (become clearly) to make not responsible (for a responsibility) of something that (does something)", in the order form. It is composed of 39 letters. It is also possible to add the suffixes combination: mempertidak- unlimited times at the beginning of the words and it will make the meaning of the prefixes negating one another after it and the word's length becomes infinity, but Its meaning becomes a riddle and odd even to the native speaker. The word mempertidakmempertanggungjawabkannyalah can be interpreted:

tanggung-jawab=responsible

pertanggungjawaban= responsibility

mempertanggungjawabkan=to (become) responsible (for a responsibility)

mempertanggungjawabkannya=to (become) responsible (for a responsibility) for something

mempertanggungjawabkannyalah= to (become) responsible (for a responsibility) for something that (does something)

tidak-mempertanggungjawabkannyalah= to (become) not responsible (for a responsibility) of something that (does something)

menidakmempertanggungjawabkannyalah= to (become) to make not responsible (for a responsibility) of something that (does something)

mempertidakmempertanggungjawabkannyalah= to (become clearly) to make not responsible (for a responsibility) of something that (does something)

Italian

The longest word in Italian is traditionally precipitevolissimevolmente, which is a 26-letter-long adverb. It is formed by subsequent addition of postfixes to the original root:

1. precipitevole: "hasty";
2. precipitevolissimo: "very hasty";
3. precipitevolissimevole: "[of someone/something] that acts very hastily", (not grammatically correct);
4. precipitevolissimevolmente: "in a way like someone/something that acts very hastily" (not grammatically correct, but nowadays part of the language).

The word is never used in every-day language, but in jokes. Nevertheless, it is an official part of Italian language; it was coined in 1677 by poet Francesco Moneti:

finché alla terra alfin torna repente / precipitevolissimevolmente

The word technically violates Italian grammar rules, the correct form being precipitevolissimamente, which is three letters and one syllable shorter. The poet coined the new word to have 11 syllables in the second verse.

Other words can be created with a similar (and grammatically correct) mechanism starting from a longer root, winding up with a longer word. Some examples are:

• sovramagnificentissimamente (cited by Dante Alighieri in De vulgari eloquentia), 27 letters, "in a way that is more than magnificent by far" (archaic);
• incontrovertibilissimamente, 27 letters, "in a way that is very difficult to falsify";
• particolareggiatissimamente, 27 letters, "in an extremely detailed way";
• anticostituzionalissimamente, 28 letters, "in a way that strongly violates the constitution".

The longest accepted neologism is psiconeuroendocrinoimmunologia (30 letters)..

Other long words are:

• hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliofobia (35 letters)
• nonilfenossipolietilenossietonolo (33 letters)
• pentagonododecaedrotetraedrico (30 letters)
• esofagodermatodigiunoplastica (29 letters)
• elettroencefalograficamente (27 letters)
• diclorodifeniltricloroetano (27 letters)
• intradermopalpebroreazione (26 letters).

Kazakh

The longest Kazakh word is ????????????????????????????????? (qanag'attandyrylmag'andyqtaryn'yzdan), meaning "because of your dissatisfaction". It is 33 letters long.

Korean

There is some disagreement about what is the longest word in the Korean language. The longest word appearing in the Standard Korean Dictionary published by the National Institute of the Korean Language is ????????????????? (?????????????????); Revised Romanization: cheongjayang-in-gakyeondangchosang-gammoranmuneun-gudaejeop, which is a kind of ceramic bowl from the Goryeo dynasty; that word is 17 syllable blocks long, and contains a total of 46 hangul letters. The term ??????? ??? ????????? (nikotin-amaideu adenin dainyukeulle-otaideu), a phonetic transcription of "nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide", has a larger number of syllable blocks (19) but a smaller number of letters (41), and also might not qualify as a single word due to the spaces.

In proper nouns, many Korean monarchs have long posthumous names built from many different Sino-Korean nouns describing their positive characteristics, for example Sunjo of Joseon, whose full posthumous name is the 77-syllable-block ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? (sunjoseongag-yeondeoghyeondogyeong-insunhuicheseong-eungmyeongheumgwangseoggyeong-gyecheonbaegeug-yung-wondonhyuuihaengsoyunhuihwajunlyeoldaejungjijeonghonghuncheolmogeonsitaehyeongchang-unhong-gigomyeongbaghugang-geonsujeong-gyetongsulyeoggong-yubeommun-anmujeong-yeong-gyeongseonghyodaewang).

Lithuanian

The longest Lithuanian word is 40 letters long:

• nebeprisiki?kiakop?stlapiaujan?iuosiuose - "in those, of masculine gender, who aren't gathering enough wood sorrel's leaves by themselves anymore." - the plural locative case of past iterative active participle of verb ki?kiakop?stlapiauti meaning "to pick wood-sorrels' leaves" (leaves of edible forest plant with sour taste, word by word translation "rabbit cabbage"). The word is attributed to software developer / writer Andrius Stasauskas.

Malay

There are two 46-letter words that are cited to be the longest words in the Malay language. Both are technical terms:

• menyepodaknyahcasdiversifikasielektrostatikkan (to undiversify uncharged electrostatic electricity.)
• penyetidaknyahcasdiversifikasielektrostatikkan (the process of undiversifiying uncharged electrostatic electricity.)

While the longest non-technical word in the Malay language is the 23-letter word, ketidakbolehkuatkuasaan, which means "unenforceability". Also kumempertanggungjawabkannyalah (30 letters), which means "right when I gave the responsibility to him".

M?ori

The M?ori-language 85-letter place name Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikomaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is the longest place name in English-speaking countries and second longest in the world, according to Wises New Zealand Guide and The New Zealand Herald.

Mongolian

Mongolian is an agglutinative language. Words can get longer by adding suffixes. So, the longest suffixed word in Mongolian is "??????????????????????????" (tsakhilgaanjuulaltykhantaigaa) which is 26 letters long. Here is a table showing, with translations, which suffixes are added.

Norwegian

The longest word in Norwegian, that is a real word in ordinary use, is menneskerettighetsorganisasjonene (33 letters). The meaning is "the human rights organizations". Being used mostly in statistics, the term sannsynlighetstetthetsfunksjonene (meaning "the probability density functions") is also 33 characters long. The physics term minoritetsladningsbærerdiffusjonskoeffisientmålingsapparatur has 60 characters, but is not a common word. Its meaning is "(a) device for measuring the distance between particles in a crystal".

In theory, though, it is possible in Norwegian to make words as long as one wants; for instance, menneskerettighetsorganisasjonssekretæren (the secretary of a human rights organization), menneskerettighetsorganisasjonssekretærkurset (the course for secretaries working for human rights organizations), menneskerettighetsorganisasjonssekretærkursmateriellet (the material for a course for secretaries working for human rights organizations), and so on, are possible. The reason is that compounds are, unlike in English, mostly closed in Norwegian (skolebuss vs. school bus). Definite articles are also suffixed instead of being separate words (bussen vs. the bus), which may lengthen nouns by an additional two-three letters.

Ojibwe

The longest word in Ojibwe language is "miinibaashkiminasiganibiitoosijiganibadagwiingweshiganibakwezhigan" (66 letters), meaning blueberry pie. This literally translates to "blueberry cooked to jellied preserve that lies in layers in which the face is covered in bread".

Polish

Very long Polish words can be created as adjectives from numerals and nouns. For example, Dziewi??setdziewi??dziesi?ciodziewi?cionarodowo?ciowego, 54 letters, is the genitive singular form of an adjective meaning roughly "of nine-hundred and ninety-nine nationalities". Similar words are rather artificial compounds, constructed within allowed grammar rules, but are seldom used in spoken language, although they are not nonsense words. It is possible to make even longer words in this way, for example:

Dziewi??setdziewi??dziesi?tdziewi??miliardówdziewi??setdziewi??dziesi?tdziewi??milionówdziewi??setdziewi??dziesi?tdziewi??tysi?cydziewi??setdziewi??dziesi?ciodziewi?cioletniego (176 letters, meaning "of 999,999,999,999 years old").

One of the longest common words is 31-letter dziewi??dziesi?ciokilkuletniemu - the dative singular form of "ninety-and-some years old one". Another common long word is pi??dziesi?ciogroszówka (23 letters), "a 50 groszy coin".

Portuguese

The 52-letter word pneumoultramicroscopicossilicovulcanoconioticozinhos (plural diminutive of pneumoultramicroscopicossilicovulcanoconiótico) is the longest word . It is a plural noun referring to sufferers of the disease pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The 29-letter word anticonstitucionalissimamente (adverb, meaning "most anticonstitutionally") is recognized as being the longest non-technical word.

Romanian

The 44-letter word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniconioz? is the longest word. It is a noun referring to the disease pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

Russian

Theoretically, it is possible to create Russian words of unlimited length, for example: ?????????...??????? (praprapra...dedushka, great great great...grandfather). Most likely one of the longest originally-Russian words is ??????????????????????????????????? (prevysokomnogorassmotritel'stvuyushchiy) which contains 35 letters, in its dative singular form ???????????????????????????????????? (prevysokomnogorassmotritel'stvuyushchemu, with 36 letters), which can be an example of excessively official vocabulary of the 19th century. The longest numeral compounds can be longer, such as ?????????????????????????????????????????????? (Tysyachevos'misotvos'midesyatidevyatimikrometrovyy), which is an adjective containing 46 letters, meaning "1889-micrometer".

Sanskrit

Sanskrit allows word compounding of arbitrary length. Nouns and verbs can be expressed in a sentence. The longest sentence ever used in Sanskrit literature is (in Devanagari):

????????????????-???????-??????????-??????-??????-?????????-?????-?????-????????-?????????-??????-??????-????????-??????-???-???-????-????-?????-?????-???-????-???-??-?????-???????-???-??-????-?????-?????-??????-??????-????-?????-????????-??????-?????-????-?????-???????????????-?????-?????-????-??????-????????-???????????-????-????-??????-????-??????????-?????????-????-??????

In IAST transliteration:

nirantar?ndhak?rita-digantara-kandaladamanda-sudh?rasa-bindu-s?ndratara-ghan?ghana-v?nda-sandehakara-syandam?na-makaranda-bindu-bandhuratara-m?kanda-taru-kula-talpa-kalpa-m?dula-sikat?-j?la-ja?ila-m?la-tala-maruvaka-miladalaghu-laghu-laya-kalita-rama??ya-p?n?ya-??lik?-b?lik?-kar?ra-vinda-galantik?-galadel?-lava?ga-p??ala-ghanas?ra-kast?rik?tisaurabha-medura-laghutara-madhura-??talatara-saliladh?r?-nir?kari??u-tad?ya-vimala-vilocana-may?kha-rekh?pas?rita-pip?s?y?sa-pathika-lok?n

from the Varad?mbik? Pari?aya Camp? by Tirumal?mb?, composed of 195 Sanskrit letters (428 letters in the roman transliteration, dashes excluded), thus making it the longest word ever to appear in worldwide literature.

Each hyphen separates every individual word this word is composed of.

The approximate meaning of this word is:

"In it, the distress, caused by thirst, to travellers, was alleviated by clusters of rays of the bright eyes of the girls; the rays that were shaming the currents of light, sweet and cold water charged with the strong fragrance of cardamom, clove, saffron, camphor and musk and flowing out of the pitchers (held in) the lotus-like hands of maidens (seated in) the beautiful water-sheds, made of the thick roots of vetiver mixed with marjoram, (and built near) the foot, covered with heaps of couch-like soft sand, of the clusters of newly sprouting mango trees, which constantly darkened the intermediate space of the quarters, and which looked all the more charming on account of the trickling drops of the floral juice, which thus caused the delusion of a row of thick rainy clouds, densely filled with abundant nectar."

Slovak

Traditionally, the word najneobhospodarovávate?nej?ieho (31 letters) is considered as the longest Slovak word, but there are some longer artificial words. Most of them are compound adjectives in dative, instrumental or other grammatical case and derived from the iterative or frequentative verbal form or the ability adjective form (like -able).

Artificial words, lexically valid but never used in language:

• najnerozkrasokor?u?ovate?nej?ieho, 33 letters
• znajneprekry?talizovávate?nej?ievajúcimi, 44 letters, "through the least crystallised ones"
• znajnepreinternacionalizovate?nej?ieva?, 39 letters

Spanish

The longest word in Spanish is "esternocleidomastoideitis" (inflammation of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, 30 letters). Runners-up are "anticonstitucionalmente" ([proceeding in a manner that is] contrary to the constitution) and "electroencefalografistas" (specialists that do electrical scans on brains), both 23 letters.

The word "anticonstitucionalmente" is usually considered the longest word in general use. This word can be made even longer by the addition of the absolute superlative suffix, rendering "anticonstitucionalísimamente" (i.e.: "very strongly against the constitution"). Some dictionaries (but not the RAE dictionary) removed its root word ("anticonstitucional") in 2005, causing comments about it not "being a valid word anymore" and suggesting the use of "inconstitucional" as a replacement.

Sundanese

The longest word in Sundanese from the root tanggung-jawab is ngahenteukeuntanggungjawabna (28 letters), meaning "Neglect the responsibility".

Swedish

Realisationsvinstbeskattning (28 letters) is the longest word in Svenska Akademiens Ordlista. It means "capital gains taxation", and is usually shortened to Reavinstskatt (same meaning). However, Swedish grammar makes it possible to create arbitrarily long words. One such word is Spårvagnsaktiebolagsskensmutsskjutarefackföreningspersonalbeklädnadsmagasinsförrådsförvaltarens (94 letters) which means: "[belonging to] The manager of the depot for the supply of uniforms to the personnel of the track cleaners' union of the tramway company".

Tagalog

The longest Filipino word in a dictionary is the 34-letter, 14-syllable Pinakanakakapagpapabagabag-damdamin, which means "the most emotionally disturbing/upsetting thing", from the root bagabag which means "to upset".

Like all other Philippine languages, Tagalog is an agglutinative language, and because of this there are many opportunities in everyday speech to create long words (by English standards).

Examples of this include:

• Nagsisipagsisinunga-sinungalingan (32 letters, 13 syllables) meaning "trying to scatter pretended lies", from sisinunga-sinungalingan ("pretending to lie")
• Nakikipagsisinunga-sinungalingan (31 letters, 13 syllables) meaning "[two] people trying to scatter pretended lies with each other"
• Pinagpinamamagaspasan (21 letters, 9 syllables) meaning "a dusty place where chickens usually groom themselves"

Turkish

Turkish, as an agglutinative language, carries the potential for words of arbitrary length.

Muvaffakiyetsizle?tiricile?tiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmi?sinizcesine, at 70 letters, has been cited as the longest Turkish word. It was used in a contrived story designed to use this word. The word means "As if you would be from those we can not easily/quickly make a maker of unsuccessful ones" and its usage was illustrated as follows:

Kötü amaçlar?n güdüldü?ü bir ö?retmen okulunday?z. Yeti?tirilen ö?retmenlere ö?rencileri nas?l muvaffakiyetsizle?tirecekleri ö?retiliyor. Yani ö?retmenler birer muvaffakiyetsizle?tirici olarak yeti?tiriliyorlar. Fakat ö?retmenlerden biri muvaffakiyetsizle?tirici olmay?, yani muvaffakiyetsizle?tiricile?tirilmeyi reddediyor, bu konuda ileri geri konu?uyor. Bütün ö?retmenleri kolayca muvaffakiyetsizle?tiricile?tiriverebilece?ini sanan okul müdürü bu duruma sinirleniyor, ve söz konusu ö?retmeni makam?na ça??r?p ona diyor ki: "Muvaffakiyetsizle?tiricile?tiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmi?sinizcesine laflar ediyormu?sunuz ha?"

We are in a teachers' training school that has evil purposes. The teachers who are being educated in that school are being taught how to make unsuccessful ones from students. So, one by one, teachers are being educated as makers of unsuccessful ones. However, one of those teachers refuses to be maker of unsuccessful ones, in other words, to be made a maker of unsuccessful ones; he talks about and criticizes the school's stand on the issue. The headmaster who thinks every teacher can be made easily/quickly into a maker of unsuccessful ones gets angry. He invites the teacher to his room and says "You are talking as if you were one of those we can not easily/quickly turn into a maker of unsuccessful ones, right?"

Other well-known very long Turkish words are:

• Çekoslovakyal?la?t?ramad?klar?m?zdanm??s?n?zcas?na means "As if you are one of those people whom we could not turn into a Czechoslovakian".
• Afyonkarahisarl?la?t?rabildiklerimizdenmi?sinizcesine means "As if you are one of the people that we made resemble from Afyonkarahisar". (Afyonkarahisar is a city in Turkey.)

Word formation

Ukrainian

Long words are not typical for Ukrainian so the majority of them in this language are of foreign descent and mostly related to science. Perhaps the longest relatively commonly known word of the Ukrainian language in the nominative case is ?????????????????????????????? (dyxlordyfeniltryxlormetylmetan, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or DDT) which contains 30 letters. In the Instrumental case this word contains 32 letters. There may be longer chemical terms in Ukrainian, such as the 34-letter long ?????????????????????????????????? (Nikotynamidadenindynukleotydfosfat), which means nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate.

Theoretically, there can be words with unlimited length, for example: ?????????...?????? (praprapra...didusj, great great great...grandfather).

Vietnamese

Vietnamese is an isolating language, which naturally limits the length of a morpheme. The longest, at seven letters, is nghiêng, which means "inclined" or "to lean". This is the longest word that can be written without a space. However, not all words in Vietnamese are single morphemes. Indeed, nghiêng can be reduplicated as nghiêng nghiêng.

The written language abounds with compound words in which each constituent word is delimited by spaces, just like any freestanding word. Moreover, the grammar lacks inflection to mark parts of speech, and prepositions are often optional. Therefore, the boundary between a word and a phrase is poorly defined. Examples of this ambiguity include:

• Ch? ngh?a phân bi?t ch?ng t?c ("racism"), which is composed of the words ch? ngh?a ("ideology"), phân bi?t ("discriminate"), and ch?ng t?c ("race")
• C?m gà xào s? ?t, which literally describes a dish of grilled chicken sauteed with lemongrass and peppers on rice
• Ông ba anh ch? em, a polite pronoun composed of five kinship terms

Unlike locally coined compound words, compound words in Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary are less ambiguous, because of the use of premodifiers (as in English) as opposed to the native postmodifiers. Long Sino-Vietnamese words include bách khoa toàn th? ("encyclopedia") and th?y ??ng l?c h?c ("hydrodynamics").

Loanwords and pronunciation respellings from other languages can also result in long words. For example, "consortium" is côngxoocxiom (12 letters), and "Indonesia" may be left as-is or spelled In-?ô-nê-xi-a (13 counting hyphens). The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Vietnam systematically respells foreign names, introducing long names into an official Vietnamese lexicon:

• Kômixacjepxkaia ("Komissarzhevskaya", 15 letters)
• Rôj??ext?venxki ("Rozhdestvensky", 15 letters)
• Mêt?rôpôliten Ôpêra ("Metropolitan Opera", 18 letters)

Long initialisms in Vietnamese include:

• CHXHCNVN (C?ng hòa Xã h?i ch? ngh?a Vi?t Nam, "Socialist Republic of Vietnam", 8 characters)
• MTDTGPMNVN (M?t tr?n Dân t?c Gi?i phóng mi?n Nam Vi?t Nam, "Viet Cong", 10 characters)

In modern Vietnamese, compound words can be identified fairly easily within title cased text: a morpheme that begins with a capital letter followed by one or more morphemes that begin with a lowercase letter. For example, xã h?i ch? ngh?a ("socialism") is capitalized as one component within C?ng hòa Xã h?i ch? ngh?a Vi?t Nam.

Welsh

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a railway station on the island of Anglesey in Wales, is the longest place name in the Welsh language. At 51 letters in the Welsh alphabet (the digraphs ll and ch are each collated as single letters) the name can be translated as "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave". However, it was artificially contrived in the 1860s as a publicity stunt, to give the station the longest name of any railway station in the United Kingdom.

Long words are comparatively rare in Welsh. Candidates for long words other than proper nouns include the following (the digraph dd is also treated as a single letter, as is ng in many instances including in the last word below):

• gwrthddatgysylltiadaeth (antidisestablishmentarianism)
• microgyfrifiaduron (microcomputers)
• tra-arglwyddiaethasant (they predominated)
• cyfrwngddarostynedigaeth (intercession) (-au can be added to form the plural)

See also

• Morphology (linguistics)
• Longest English sentence
• Jugemu

References

Source of the article : Wikipedia