Longest words
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.
Agglutinative languages allow for the creation of long words via compounding. Words consisting of hundreds, or even thousands of characters have been coined. Even non-agglutinative languages may allow word formation of theoretically limitless length in certain contexts. An example common to many languages is the term for a very remote ancestor, "great-great-.....-grandfather", where the prefix "great-" may be repeated any number of times. The examples of "longest words" within the "Agglutinative languages" section may be nowhere near close to the longest possible word in said language, instead a popular example of a text-heavy word.
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.
Agglutinative and polysynthetic languages
Azerbaijani
In Azerbaijani, which is an agglutinative language, there is theoretically no limit on word compounding.An example is the 42-letter word Elektrikləşdirdiklərimizdənsinizmişcəsinə;, which translates to "As if you were from those ones we have electrified".
There is a shorter more well-known 32-long word, which is a tongue twister, too — Elektrikləşdirilmişlərdənsinizmi?; meaning "Are you from the ones who are electrified?".
Word formation
Basque
The longest Basque toponym is Azpilicuetagaraicosaroyarenberecolarrea which means "The lower field of the sheepfold the height of Azpilicueta".Esperanto
Since Esperanto allows word compounding, there are no limits on how long a word can theoretically become. An example is the 39-letter word oranĝ-kanton-pafil-limig-aktivul-malamanto, meaning "Orange County gun control activist hater". Such clusters are not considered good style, but they are permissible under the rules of Esperanto grammar. Hyphens are optional in Esperanto compounds, so is also technically a valid spelling.Disregarding compounding, conjugation, and affixes, the longest Esperanto word formally recognized by the Akademio de Esperanto is the 15-letter proper noun Konstantinopolo. The next longest recognized words are the following 13-letter words:
- administracio,
- aŭtobiografio,
- diskriminacio,
- konservatorio,
- paleontologio,
- paralelogramo, and
- trigonometrio.
As of April 2024, the longest word found in the Tekstaro de Esperanto text corpus is the 66-letter word unue-volapukista-poste-esperantista-poste-idista-poste-denove-esperantista, meaning "first-volapukist-then-esperantist-then-idist-then-again-esperantist", which was used in a review published in Monato in 1997 to describe František Lorenz. However, this word does not follow normal Esperanto word formation rules. Other long words found in Tekstaro de Esperanto that follow regular word formation include:
- sescent-kvindek-mil-kvadratkilometra, 33 letters, used in an Esperanto version of a 2011 article by Marc Lavergne in Le Monde diplomatique,
- tragedio-komedio-historio-pastoraloj, 33 letters, used in L. L. Zamenhof's 1893 translation of Hamlet,
- Nord-Atlantik-Traktad-Organizo, 27 letters, more commonly translated with two words: Nord-Atlantika Traktat-Organizo.
Estonian
- Sünnipäevanädalalõpupeopärastlõunaväsimatus meaning "afternoon untiredness of a birthday week graduation party" which is 43 letters.
- 31 lettered word of uusaastaöövastuvõtuhommikuidüll Help:IPA/Estonian| meaning "morning idyll after the new year".
- There is also the 25 letter long word of põllumajandusministeerium which is "Ministry of Agriculture".
- The word kuulilennuteetunneliluuk meaning "the hatch a bullet flies out of when exiting a tunnel" is 24 letters long and a palindrome. It could be one of the longest palindromes.
Finnish
If one allows artificial constructs as well as using clitics and conjugated forms, one can create even longer words: such as kumarreksituteskenteleentuvaisehkollaismaisekkuudellisennesk-
enteluttelemattomammuuksissansakaankopahan, which was created by Artturi Kannisto.
The longest non-compound Finnish word recognised by the Guinness Book of Records is epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhänkään, based on the stem järki, 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.
Greenlandic
The longest word in Greenlandic is Nalunaarasuartaateeraaranngualioqatigiiffissualioriataallaqqissupilorujussuanngortartuinnakasinngortinniamisaalinnguatsiaraluallaqqooqigaminngamiaasiinngooq, which has 156 letters. The rough translation of this word is: "There were reports that they apparently – God knows for how many times – once again had considered whatever I, my poor condition despite, still could be considered to be quite adept and resourceful as initiator to put a consortium together for the establishment of a range of tiny radio stations." The word is a tongue twister that forms an entire sentence, rather than being a word or phrase commonly heard in Greenland.Inuussutissarsiorsinnaajunnaarnersiutilik, consisting of 41 letters, is the longest singular word in the Greenlandic dictionary.
Hungarian
Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért, with 44 letters, is the longest word in the Hungarian language, and approximately means "for your continued behaviour as if you could not be desecrated". It is already morphed, since Hungarian is an agglutinative language.The Hungarian language has many causes for writing words together, but there are a few rules for avoiding undisciplined length, resulting in unreadability.
Words with less than six syllables can be written in one. Agglutinated words have to be separated by one dash, if they are more than six syllables altogether. If there are more than two words that are already written with a dash and more are needed, a new dash must be used to add it. If there would be two long words to be written, they are advised to be used separately.
The longest dictionary form word is the word megszentségtelenített, with 21 characters, and it means "desecrated" or "profaned".
Indonesian
Indonesian belongs to the Austronesian language family. According to Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, the longest word in the language is mentransmigrasilokalkan, which is 23 letters long, meaning "conducting transmigration within the boundaries of a single region or area" in English, as well as heksakosioiheksekontaheksafobia, a 30-letter-long word meaning "hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia" in English.Korean
There is some disagreement about what is the longest word in the Korean language, which arises from a misunderstanding of the Korean language. All of these examples below contain spaces in Hangul and do not qualify as a single word.The longest word appearing in the Standard Korean Dictionary published by the National Institute of the Korean Language is 청자 양인각 연당초상감 모란 문은구 대접 ; Revised Romanization:, 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. However, to call this a word would be incorrect. It simply consists of many words that act as adjectives for the one word 대접.
The word 니코틴아마이드 아데닌 다이뉴클레오타이드, a phonetic transcription of "nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide", has a larger number of syllable blocks but a smaller number of letters. It does not qualify as a single word.
In proper nouns, many Korean monarchs have overly 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 순조 선각 연덕현도 경인순희 체성응명흠광석경계천배극융원돈휴의행소윤희화준렬대중지정 홍훈철 모건시태형창 운홍기고명박후강건수정계통수력 공유범문안무정영경 성효대왕. This is simply writing the phrase in Hanja 純祖先覺淵德顯道景仁純禧體聖凝命欽光錫慶繼天配極隆元敦休懿行昭倫熙化峻烈大中至正洪勳哲謨乾始泰亨昌運弘基高明博厚剛健粹精啓統垂曆建功裕範文安武靖英敬成孝肅皇帝, being transliterate in Hangul. It is not a single word and does not qualify as a lexical entry.