Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
Persian language also known as Farsi (or فارسی, pronounced [fɒːɾˈsiː]) is a part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran (Persia) and has its name from the capital of the Achaemenid empire, Persis (Fars or Pars). Described as one of the great literatures of mankind, Persian literature has its roots in surviving works of Middle Persian and Old Persian, the latter of which date back as far as 522 BCE. The Perso-Arabic script is abjad (representing only consonants) and is exclusively written cursively.
Writing system: Arabic (Persian alphabet), Cyrillic (Tajik alphabet), Hebrew script
Official language in: Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
The Estonian language (or eesti keel, pronounced [ˈeːsti ˈkeːl] in Estonian) is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in the country and thousands of others in various migrant communities. Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language and is closely related to Finnish and distantly to Hungarian. The oldest written records of the Finnic languages of Estonia date from the 13th century. A document in Latin, named “Chronicle of Henry of Livonia” contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences.
Writing system: Latin (Estonian alphabet)
Official language in: Estonia, European Union
English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca. It is the third-most-common native language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and what is now southeast Scotland. Following the extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 17th to mid-20th centuries through the British Empire, it has been widely propagated around the world.
Writing system: Latin script (English alphabet)
Official language in: 54 countries and 27 non-sovereign entities
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
The Dutch language (or Nederlands, pronounced [‘næðer’lands] in Dutch) is a West Germanic language closely related in its roots with German and English. Dutch is the official and foremost language of the Netherlands, a nation of 16.7 million people of whom 96 percent speak Dutch as their mother tongue and approximately 4 million people as a second language. Dutch is spoken also in the Northern part of Belgium, where it is often called Flemish.
Writing system: Latin (Dutch alphabet)
Official language in: Aruba, Belgium, Curaçao, Netherlands, Sint Maarten, Suriname, Benelux, European Union, Union of South American Nations
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
Since the 10th century Dari (or دری, pronounced [dæˈɾiː]) has been used to name the Old Persian language and since 1964 it’s the official name of the Persian variety spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is mutually intelligible with the Persian of Iran (Farsi) though there are some differences in pronunciation and grammar. Dari is written with the traditional and predominant calligraphic version of the Perso-Arabic script, called Nastaʿlīq. As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, Dari is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Pashto.
Writing system: Persian alphabet
Official language in: Afghanistan
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
The Danish language (or dansk sprog, pronounced [ˈdansk ˈsprɒg]) in Danish) is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in Denmark. Along with other North Germanic languages like Swedish and Norwegian, it has evolved from Old Norse, common for the Scandinavian lands during the Viking era. Famous authors of works in Danish are the existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and the playwright Ludvig Holberg.
Writing system: Latin script (Danish alphabet)
Official language in: Denmark, Faroe Islands, European Union, Nordic Council
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
The Czech language (or čeština, pronounced [ˈtʃeʃtina] in Czech) is spoken by approximately 12 million people, thereof over 10 million in the Czech Republic. The first Czech language has developed itself from the Proto-Slavic language short after the first Bohemian state emerged in the late 9th century when it was unified by the Premyslid dynasty. According to a legend, the name čeština or “Czech” is derived from the name of Forefather Čech, who brought the tribe of Czechs into its land.
Writing system: Latin script (Czech alphabet)
Official language in: Czech Republic, European Union
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
The South Slavic language of Croatian (or hrvatski, pronounced [‘hrvʌtski] in Croatian) is most commonly spoken by Croats in Croatia as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Written Croatian documents can be traced back as far as the 9th century, mainly by looking at religious texts. During the 14th and 15th centuries the modern Croatian language emerged from its Old Church Slavonic form and since then has undergone only slight changes.
Writing system: Latin (Gaj’s alphabet)
Official language in: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia (Vojvodina), the European Union
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
Chinese (汉语 / 漢語, written in traditional or 中文, written in simplified Chinese characters) is the name of a group of related but mutually unintelligible language varieties of the Sino-Tibetan language family. More than one billion people, or about one-fifth of the world’s population, speak some form of Chinese as their first language. Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and the Cantonese Chinese originated in the vicinity of Canton (i.e., Guangzhou) and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue.
Writing system: Chinese characters
Official language in: China, Hong Kong (Yue), Macau (Yue), Taiwan, Singapore, Burma, United Nations
Posted on: March 14th, 2014 by asapbademko No Comments
Cebuano (or Bisaya, pronounced as [bɪ’saja] in Cebuano) is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people. The name “Cebuano” is derived from the island of Cebu, home to one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country.Like Tagalog, the Cebuano language was heavily influenced by the Spanish language during the period of colonialism. With the arrival of Spanish colonials, for example, a Latin-based writing system was introduced to the Cebuano language. Today Cebuano is used far more frequently as a spoken language than it is a literary language.
Writing system: Latin (Cebuano alphabet)
Official language in: Regional language in the Philippines
Recent Comments