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[edit] Contents

Introduction

[edit] Introduction

[edit] Just what is a language?

A language is an organised, ordered way of speaking and listening. Reading and writing are a way of representing language in a permanent format, but many languages have no written form. Language is one form of communication. It can be spoken, visual, or signed. We can say that language is a code of symbols used to communicate.

[edit] What is not a language?

There are some things that work like language. For example, when you see a red traffic light, it is just the same as if somebody said to you "You should not cross the street now". The traffic signs work in the same way: drivers know when they have to turn left or right or to go slower. So they are a kind of communication system. Can we speak about "Traffic signs language"? Not really. Traffic signs work very well for some signals, but you can not say "I've eaten pizza today" by using traffic signs. The number of thoughts that you can express with them is limited. This is not the case for real languages. Using English, or Russian, or Japanese, you can express a wide variety of different thoughts. You can also express brand new thoughts, create brand new sentences, and still be understood by your listeners.

[edit] Who came up with the languages?

People didn't just decide one day to start speaking. Languages developed over time. In fact, the English spoken only six hundred years ago would be almost unrecognizable to us today!

language development — the steady growth and change of a language; languages took over a thousand years to get to what we speak today.

Anthropologists have many different theories about how human language developed. Some animals have a wide range of calls which they make instinctively when they see food, potential threats, rivals or mates. It is possible that human language began as a refinement of these instinctive calls. It is also possible that early humans made sounds that imitated things that they heard in the natural world around them.

anthropology — the study of humans.

Studies of the fossils of early humans suggest that the shape of the vocal tract — the part of the throat where sounds are made — may have changed about 70,000 years ago in such a way as to enable early humans to make a much wider range of sounds. By the same time, humans had developed brains which were as large as modern humans. These developments would have allowed humans to think complex thoughts and communicate them. Archeologists note that signs of early human culture such as cave paintings and burial rituals appeared very quickly, suggesting that complex language and culture emerged together over a short period of time. There is no way of knowing exactly what early human language was like as it emerged long before written records.

[edit] What is grammar? Why is it important?

Grammar is a set of rules on how you should use words so that everybody will understand what you really mean. If words are bricks, then grammar is a manual that explains how to make a house with them.

When you think about a language, you'll probably think about its words in the first place. It is logical: you hear words, you can "feel" them, while you don't feel grammar directly. But grammar is at least as important as the words are. You cannot have a language with words only but no grammar. Not convinced yet? Try the following example:

You have the following words: I, dad, my, love. Having only these words but no grammar, you can make a lot of combinations of them, like "I my dad love" or "My love I dad", but nobody will understand what you really mean. If you want everybody to understand exactly what you mean, you have to make the next sentence: "I love my dad". Thus the words have to stand in exact sequence.

Another example from English might be "Susan helped Tony." We can easily see how word order is important if we rearrange it to say "Tony helped Susan." This expresses a quite different idea, but uses the same words. So word order is important in English grammar.

This is not true of every language, though. Russian, for example, has a free word order. Changing the order of the words does not change the meaning of the sentence. How is this possible? Russian relies on markers on the words to show which word is the subject and which is the object.

There are two ways grammar can work: by putting words in a certain sequence, and by changing words. The above examples use only word order. Here's an example that involves changing the words. If you wanted to say that your dad feels about you the same way you just said (in the earlier example) that you feel about him, you couldn't say that just by rearranging the words to "My dad love I" — but by changing "love" to "loves", and "I" to "me", you get a perfectly good sentence that means what you want: "My dad loves me".

[edit] Why not just use one language?

It may seem obvious to just create one language for everybody to use. Luckily, several linguists felt the same way. They made up what we call constructed languages. But, languages are a big part of a people's culture and identity and most of them have long interesting histories. People aren't willing to give them up. It is also very hard to become fluent in a language. It may seem natural to you to speak English, but it is actually very hard for many adults to learn.

linguist — someone who studies languages.

constructed language — a language made up scientifically.

fluency — being able to speak a language without any trouble.

Many linguists believe that there was originally only one language. However, when people are isolated from each other for thousands of years, the language that they speak evolves. Over time, slight changes in how people spoke built up until different tribes could no longer understand each other.

[edit] My friends and I would like to have a secret language

A lot of "secret languages" are actually not real languages, just your usual language with a couple of changes that make it harder to understand. For example, Pig Latin is not a real language and it is not even related to Latin, it's just English with the last letter moved and the added ending -ay. Verlan, the language common among French youths, just inverts the syllables of a word (for example, the English word "teacher" would become "chertea" by its rules). Since there is just one underlying concept in these "languages", they are quite easy to learn and it will only take a little practise until you can have fluent conversations in them. However, because of that, it's quite easy for adults or non-group-members to understand what you're saying, once they figured out the concept.

A method that will protect your secrets better is to use a secret alphabet. Write things down as you would usually, but don't use Latin letters (the letters used by English for example). Use a different alphabet, either one that you invented (be careful not to make letters too similar to Latin letters then, so that they can't easily be guessed) or an existing one — there's a big collection at http://www.omniglot.com/writing/alphabets.htm . Note: learning a new alphabet will probably take you a little more time than learning to speak in Pig Latin for example, but it can still be done in a few hours if you have a good course. Try this course for the Korean alphabet, for example. More than 99% of Americans or Europeans can only read the Latin alphabet, so your secrets will be quite safe even if you use an existing alphabet. However, be aware that it is possible to decipher an English text written in a secret alphabet, given enough study. For some people it's a fun enigma, just like crosswords. The key may be to make the text look like it isn't English at all, so that people don't even try to decipher it — that's why I liked to use Korean.

Secret alphabets have one big disadvantage: they can only be used when you're writing down the message. What about the times when you want to quickly communicate something to your friends during break or when playing outside, or when you want to call somebody names without him being aware of it? In those cases you will still need a secret language that you can speak in. Have you had the idea of learning a foreign language like, for example, Spanish for that purpose? I'm afraid that this is not a very good option because it will take you years until you can speak that language well enough to communicate with your friends. And Latin, French, Chinese, or the like aren't better suited either. The only really easy language that you might succeed learning quickly enough is Esperanto — but it will still require more effort than learning, for example, Pig Latin or a new alphabet.

[edit] Constructed languages

Constructed languages are special languages. They aren't developed "naturally", but are created by people. People had various reasons to create new languages. Some thought an international language would help people from different countries to understand each other better and to have less conflicts. Esperanto is the best known example of this kind of language, and is the only constructed language to achieve a large number of speakers. Some estimates for the number of speakers of Esperanto are as high as 2 million.

Some constructed languages are a part of imaginary world, like Klingon, which was created specially for the science fiction series Star Trek. Fictional languages for different races in the Lord of the Rings trilogy have also been developed. There are even languages that were created without any purpose beyond being just for fun. Toki Pona is such a language.

[edit] Unusual languages

Some languages do not have any tenses. This means that there is only one way to say a verb. Imagine saying I go to school yesterday. In these languages, words like yesterday and tomorrow are used to say when you did something. Other languages even use pictures!

tense — a form of a verb that describes a time for an action; for example, "I went," "I am going", and "I will go" are in past, present, and future tense. They are different tenses because they describe when I did the action of going.

verb — a word that describes an action.

[edit] Arabic

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

The standard Arabic greeting As-salaam `alaykum in Arabic script

Arabic is a Semitic language written from right to left. Arabic consists of 28 letters: 25 consonants and 3 "long vowels".

There are also what are called "short vowels" (harakat) which are used to show correct pronunciation, for example, the word deen=religion and dayn= are normally written exactly the same way (3 letters D Y N) but to make the pronunciation clear deen can be written with a haraka/accent of a little dash under the D like so /. In dayn it can written as a little dash (horizantal) above the [D].

The Arabic script is used in many other languages such as Urdu and Farsi. In some of these languages there are added letters (or added dots/slightly different shapes) as in Farsi to compensate for sounds that are not found in the Arabic alphabet.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Arabic is spoken as a first language by more than 280 million people, and as a second language by another 250 million.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Green indicates the countries where Arabic is the only official language and blue indicates where Arabic is one of several official languages.

Arabic is spoken across the Middle East, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as in North Africa, and in portions of Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa. Since Muslims believe the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, can only truly be read in Arabic, it is fairly common for people in other predominantly Islamic countries to understand religious words in Arabic.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

In the third century B.C.E., Nabateans, a tribe of people in Asia, settled near the northern part of the Arabic Peninsula. They spoke a language very similar to Arabic, however they still wrote in an early language called Aramaic, which was itself a precursor to Hebrew.

Modern Arabic first truly formed when Arabic and Amharic combined in the mid fourth century C.E. It stood out among other new Semitic Languages for its ability to not be overtaken by other, already existent, languages.

Around the sixth century C.E., Arabic "took over" another language found in the Arabic peninsula, Sabaic, because the chief religious text, the Qur'an, was written and spoken only in Arabic. Although Sabaic exists today as a spoken language, only a small number of people use it.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

The Qur'an is the holy book of Islam

The most famous and influential Arabic books of all time was the founder of Islam, Mohammad with the Holy Qur'an. He was the messenger of God with the Qur'an, Islam's holy book.

"One Thousand and One Nights" is a collection of Arabic stories written and adapted over time by many authors. In English this collection is called "Arabian Nights" and includes the stories "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp," "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor."

Khalil Gibran was an Arabic writer, poet, and artist that wrote famous poems and books in Arabic and English while living in the United States between 1906–1933.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

The Arabic letters for “Ahlan"

Ahlan means “Hello” أﻫﻼ
Kayfa 'alok? means "How are you?" but can be used to say "Hello"
Ma'a salama is used to say “Good-bye”, but has a literal meaning of "Peace be with you." مع السلامة
Ismee means “My name” اسمي
Min fadlak means “Please” من فضلك
Shukran means “Thank you” شكراً
Manzil means “house” منزل Synonym: Addar الدّار
Uhibuki means “I love you” أحبكِ when speaking to a girl or woman.
Uhibuka means “I love you” أحبكَ when speaking to a boy or man.
Walad means “boy” ولد
Bint means “girl” بنت
Qitar means "train" قطار
Ana mina aldjazair means "I am from Algeria." أنا من الجزائر
Hal tatakalam aarabi? means "do you speak Arabic ?" هل تتكلّم عربي ؟

To introduce yourself you would say: “Ahlan, ana ismi” (“Hello, my name is”), then your name. ...أهلا ، أنا اسمي

If you are saying hello to your friend you would say: "Ahlan ya" then your friend's name.

To ask someone their name you would say: "Ma ismik?" for a girl ما اسمكِ ؟

or "Ma ismak?" for a boy ما اسمكَ ؟

To apologize you say:

"Asifah" for a girl when she says to other girl or to a boy.أسفه

"Asif" for a boy if he is telling to a boy or to a girl.أسف

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Here are some interesting Arabic expressions that you can learn

Arabic	Literal Translation	What it means
احفظ قرشك الأبيض ليومك الأسود	"Save your white penny for your black day."	Save your money for when you really need it.
أعط الخبز لخبازه ولو أكل نصفه	"Give the bread dough to the baker even if he eats half of it."	Give the job to a person who knows how to perform it best even if it will cost you more.
	"Bend a fish while it is (still) fresh/wet."	Children should be given guidance early in life (before it is too late).
سمن على عسل	"Cooking fat on honey."	To be doing very well.
الصديق وقت الضيق	"The friend in tight times."	A friend is the one that lends a hand during times of need.
القرد فى عين أمه غزال	"To his mother's eye a monkey looks like a deer"	A mother always thinks that their child is beautiful.

[edit] References

[edit] Bengali

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

The Bengali language, locally known as Bangla, uses Bengali script, an Indic script somewhat similar to Devanagari script used to write Hindi.

[edit] How many people speak this language

Bengali is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world with over 200 million speakers. It is the primary language of Bangladesh. 100 million citizens in Bangladesh speak in Bengali. Bengali is also spoken in India and Nepal by minority groups.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Where Bengali originated from.

Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, Tripura (states of India), Asham and also some portion of Jharkand. West Bengal and Bangladesh together formed the ancient region of Bengal. There is also a large and growing Bengali speaking population in England.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Bengali evolved from the merging of some derivatives of Sanskrit with local dialects. It also was enriched with the infusion of words from Arabic, Persian, Burmese, and European languages. The oldest specimen of Bengali literature is Charyapada from the 7th century.

Bengali also holds the distinction of being a language for which the speakers had to struggle a lot. In 1952, Bangladesh was part of Pakistan. The Pakistani rulers, mostly from the erstwhile Western wing of Pakistan (which forms the current state), were Urdu and Punjabi speaking, and wanted to declare Urdu as the national language. This was against the wishes of the Bengali population, who were the majority in Pakistan. On 21 February, 1952, a bloody crackdown by Police on unarmed students and activists resulted in a massacre. The movement later resulted in Bangla being recognized as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The event is commemorated as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh, and in 1999, UNESCO recognized it as the International Mother Language Day.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Nazrul playing a flute, Chittagong, 1926

Rabindranath Tagore is the most famous Bengali poet. He received the 1913 Nobel Prize in literature for his book of poems, Gitanjali. Two of his songs are the national anthems of Bangladesh and India.

Kazi Nazrul Islam, another famous poet was known as the rebel poet mainly because of his most famous poem called "Bidrohi" or "The Rebel", and also because of his strong sympathy and support for revolutionary activities leading to India's independence from British Rule.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

aami - I - আমি
tumi - You - তুমি
aapni - You (with respect) - আপনি
aamra - We - আমরা
bhalobasha - Love - ভালোবাসা
khela - Game - খেলা
din - Day - দিন
raat - Night - রাত
bari - house - বাড়ি
kukur - Dog - কুকুর
beeral - Cat - বেরাল
boi - Book - বই
dhonnobad - Thank you - ধন্যবাদ
naa - No - না
heh - Yes - হ্যাঁ
prithibi - Earth - পৃথিবী
chaad - Moon - চাঁদ
gorom - Heat - গরম
thanda - Cold - ঠাণ্ডা
hi/ai(ei) - hello;
manush - human - মানুষ;
bhasha - language - ভাষা;
pani/jol - water - পানি/জল;
batash - air - বাতাস;
akash - sky - আকাশ;
maati - soil - মাটি;
ekh - one - এক;
dui - two - দুই;
teen - three - তিন;
chaar - four - চার;
paach - five - পাঁচ;
choy - six - ছয়;
shaat - seven - সাত;
aat - eight - আট;
noy - nine - নয়:
dosh - ten - দশ;

Aamar naam Rishi - My name is Rishi - আমার নাম ঋষি
Tomar Naam Ki? - What is your name? - তোমার নাম কি?
Shuprobhat - Good Morning - সুপ্রভাত;
Bidaa-ye - Good bye - বিদায়;
Posondo kora- Like -

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

A nonsense children's rhyme in Bengali called 'Haattimatimtim'.

Haattimatimtim,

Tara maathe pare dim.

Tader khara duto shing,

Tara Haattimatimtim.

Translation: (Haattimatimtim,; They lay eggs in the field.; They have two straight horns,; They are the Haattimatimtim.)

In Bengali script: হাট্টিমাটিমটিম; তারা মাঠে পাড়ে ডিম; তাদের খাড়া দুটো শিং; তারা হাটিমাটিমটিম

Another nonsense children's rhyme in Bengali called 'Aaikom Baaikom'.

Aaikom baikom taratari,

Jodu master shoshur bari.

Rel kom jhomajhhom ,

Pa pichhle aalur dom.

Translation: (Aaikom baikom Quickly,; Jodu master in-law's house.; Rail kom Choo-Choo,; Slip & fall down mashed potato.)

In Bengali Script: আইকম বাইকম তাড়াতাড়ি; যদু মাস্টার শ্বশুরবাড়ি; রেল কাম ঝমাঝম; পা পিছলে আলুর দম

[edit] References

[edit] Catalan

[edit] What writing system does this language use?

Catalan uses the Roman alphabet, which was originally used in Latin. Today, it is used in almost all European languages.

The letters U and J were added to the Roman alphabet in the Middle Ages. Catalan doesn't use K or W, except in foreign words. Catalan only uses Y in the combination NY.

Catalan also uses Ç (which is considered a variant of C), grave accents (À, È and Ò), acute accents (É, Í, Ó and Ú) and dieresis (Ï and Ü).

There also exists the combination L·L, using an interpunct between letters.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

It is difficult to say how many people speak Catalan because immigration in the last half of the 20th century has doubled the population of the area in which it is spoken. But the estimates are that about 6.5 million people speak it as their native language and roughly another 6.5 million people speak it as a second language, for a total of about 13 million speakers.

Catalan is considered to have more speakers than any other minority language in Europe.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

The Catalan language is spoken in parts of Spain (Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands and La Franja), France (Northern Catalonia), Italy (the little city of Alguer) and the small country of Andorra in the Pyrenees, where it is the only official language.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Catalan is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European languages, descended largely from Latin. The first documents written in what can be recognized as Catalan rather than vernacular Latin date from about 1000 years ago.

The language was born in Andorra and in the frontier of Spain and France and expanded to the other territories in the Middle Ages.

Except in Andorra, speaking Catalan language has been forbidden three times in history during more than two centuries. Now it can be studied freely in the schools, except in France, where today it is not forbidden but French is the only official language.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Relatively few Catalan authors are well-known among non-Catalan-speaking people. Here are some examples: Ramon Llull was the first in Western Europe to write about science and philosophy in a modern language. Other important writers of the past were Joanot Martorell (Tirant lo Blanc), Ausiàs March and Jacint Verdaguer (poets).

Important authors of the last century include Quim Monzó, Mercè Rodoreda and Manuel de Pedrolo, who have been translated into many languages.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Respostes	Responses
Sí.	Yes.
No.	No.
Potser.	Maybe.
Salutacions	Greetings
Hola.	Hello.
Bon dia.	Good morning.
Bona tarda.	Good afternoon.
Bona nit.	Good night.
Com anem?	What's up?
Comiats	Good-byes
Adéu.	Good-bye.
Fins després.	See you later.
Fins demà.	See you tomorrow.
A reveure.	See you soon.
Frases útils	Useful phrases
Quant és?	How much does it cost?
Vull llet.	I want milk.
M'agrades.	I like you.
T'estimo.	I love you.
Em dic Pau.	My name is Pau.
Ho sento.	Excuse me./Sorry.
Salut!	Cheers!

[edit] Are there words in English of Catalan origin?

Yes, but very few, and sometimes it can be difficult to know if they come from Catalan or from another Romance language.

Examples: allioli, aubergine, apricot, barracks, groggy, mayonnaise, mizzen, spinach, tilde...

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] References

Catalan language. (2006, August 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:00, August 18, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catalan_language&oldid=69939026
Catalan grammar. (2006, August 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:01, August 18, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catalan_grammar&oldid=67613505
Catalan phonology and orthography. (2006, August 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:03, August 18, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catalan_phonology_and_orthography&oldid=69247158

[edit] Dutch

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Dutch uses the Latin alphabet, just like English, but 'ij' is sometimes treated as a single letter, equivalent to 'Y'. At the beginning of a place name, both letters are capitalized (e.g. IJsselmeer).

[edit] How many people speak this language?

About 24 million people speak Dutch. More, of course, speak it as another language, but it is more common as a first or native language.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Dutch is spoken in Europe and in communities around the world.

The majority of Dutch speakers live in the Netherlands and the northern part of Belgium (Flanders). Those two countries alone have 21 million Dutch speakers. Dutch in the Netherlands and Flanders is the official language, and is spoken by nearly everyone there. Dutch is also the official language in Suriname where about 60% of the population has it as their mother toungue.

Dutch is also spoken in Aruba, the Netherlands Antilles, and a tiny corner of northern France called French Flanders. Dutch used to be spoken by many in Indonesia, which was a Dutch colony until 1949, but now only the older generation speak it. Afrikaans, one of the languages of European settlers in Africa, is almost completely based on Dutch. In fact, they are so similar, someone could be speaking Afrikaans and someone else Dutch, and they would both understand each other.

Dutch migrants to the US and Australia, and more recently to Spain, France and Italy, often continue to use Dutch.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Scholars believe that Dutch became an independent language in about 600 AD. Before it was just one of numerous West Germanic dialects.

The best known example of very old Dutch text is "Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu" ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"). It was written around 1100. For a long time, scholars thought that it was the oldest Dutch text, but now an older text has been discovered: "Visc flot aftar themo uuatare" ("A fish was swimming in the water") and "Gelobistu in got alamehtigan fadaer" ("Do you believe in God the almighty father"). If you know German, this should be pretty easy to understand. These were written around the year 900.

Modern Dutch developed around 1550.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Gerard Reve
Harry Mulisch
Willem Frederik Hermans
Jan Wolkers
Ronald Giphart
Annie M.G. Schmidt
Max Velthuijs

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Groeten	Greetings
Hoi/Hallo.	Hi/Hello.
Goededag.	Good day.
Goedeavond.	Good evening.
Goedenacht.	Good night.
Hoe gaat het met je?	How are you? (Formal)
Hoe gaat het?	How are you? (Informal)
Goed	Good
Heel Goed	Very Good
Slecht	Bad
Ja	Yes
Nee	No
Wat kan ik voor u doen?	What can I do for you?
Dank u wel.	Thank you.
Hartelijk bedankt.	Thank you very much.
Alstublieft.	Please.
Afscheid nemen	Good-byes
Tot ziens	See you later!
Dag!	Bye! (formal)
Doei!	Bye! (informal)
Vaarwel!	Farewell!

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

In Dutch:

Je bent de zon,
Je bent de zee,
Je bent de liefde,
Ga nu met mij mee

In English:

You are the sun,
You are the sea,
You are love,
Now go along with me

   Altijd is Kortjakje ziek
   Midden in de week maar 's zondags niet
   's Zondags gaat zij naar de kerk
   Met een boek vol zilverwerk
   Altijd is Kortjakje ziek
   Midden in de week maar 's zondags niet

[edit] References

[edit] English

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

English uses the Roman alphabet, which was originally used to write Latin. Today, this alphabet is used in almost all European languages. English uses 26 letters and is written left to right.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

For about 380 million people English is a native language, because they learned it when they were young children. However, possibly a billion people have learned the language as adults. Overall, only Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people as a native language.

English is widely considered the lingua franca of the diplomatic, business and scientific worlds. If you could pick two people speaking English to each other right now, somewhere in the world, it is likely that neither would be native speakers of English, nor of each other's languages. As they might not understand each other's language well, they would be using English to communicate.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

1500 years ago, the English language as we know it today did not exist. Tribes of warriors living in what is now Northern Germany spoke a language called Anglo-Saxon. This language is related to German. While many words in this language are similar to words in modern English, it is not possible to understand the language without intensive study.

After the Romans left Britain in 400 AD, these German warriors crossed the North Sea to pillage the cities that the Romans had abandoned. Finding the country to their liking, they stayed and settled down as farmers. Around 600 AD, the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity. As a result, they adopted many Latin words into their language because Latin was the language used by the Church. Words like ‘bishop’, ‘mass’ and ‘angel’ all entered the language at this time.

Between 800 AD and 1000 AD, England was invaded by the Vikings several times. The Vikings were tradesmen and warriors who came to England on long-ships. They spoke Norse, a language which is closely related to Danish and Norwegian. As the Vikings settled in the north and east of England, they soon began living peacefully with the English rather than fighting with them. Thus the English learnt many Norse words. Many everyday words in English, such as ‘cake’, ‘sister’, ‘skin’, ‘horse’ and ‘knife’ were actually borrowed from the Vikings.

In 1066, England was invaded by William the Conqueror, who came from Normandy and spoke Norman French. William became the King of England but could not speak English. Soon, government and trade in England were being conducted in Norman French. Words such as ‘merchant’, ‘money’ and ‘price’ — which were all borrowed from Norman French — show how much the invaders controlled business; words such as ‘castle’, ‘law’, ‘royal’, ‘prince’, and ‘government’ show how much authority the French speakers had.

In the 15th Century, the printing press was invented. At the same time, people across Europe became more and more interested in the discoveries of ancient philosophers and scientists, and learned Latin and Greek in order to be able to read what these people had written. Soon people were showing off their education by mixing Latin and Greek into their English speech, so that Latin words like ‘manuscript’ and ‘circumference’ were being used, as were Greek words like ‘encyclopedia’ and ‘philosophical’.

Around 1600, William Shakespeare was writing his plays. This was a time when many new words entered the language. Shakespeare alone was the first person to write ‘obscene’, ‘accommodation’, and ‘leap-frog’. He also invented many other words.

In the 1600s and 1700s, England developed an overseas empire. The English language spread to America and Canada in the 17th century when English settlers traveled there to set up farms, and to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries when English prisoners were sent there. In the 19th century, the language also arrived in New Zealand and began to be used in British colonies and territories in the West Indies, Africa, India and the Far East – including Hong Kong. As well as spreading overseas, the English language found itself being enriched by its contacts with other cultures at this time, borrowing many words from other languages such as ‘wigwam’, ‘racoon’, and ‘skunk’ from American Indians, ‘curry’, ‘bungalow’, and ‘pyjamas’, ‘juggernaut’, ‘bandicoot’ from India, and even ‘rickshaw’ and the expression ‘long time no see’ from Cantonese.

With the global dominance of American culture in the 20th century, the influence of English continued to expand and the English vocabulary continued to grow. Words like ‘movie’, ‘hamburger’ and ‘TV dinner’ all reflect the global influence of American popular culture. More recently, the appearance of words like ‘blog’ and ‘cyberspace’, ‘text’ used as a verb, and ‘mobile’ used as a noun shows how technology is influencing the development of the language at the beginning of the 21st century.

The oldest form of English is called Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. Old English sounds and looks very different from the English spoken today and for the most part is not understandable by speakers of Modern English.
Here is an example of Old English from "Beowulf":

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum

Old English later became Middle English which is much more like Modern English.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Here's an example of the Middle English spoken during the 1300s, from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales:

Bifil that in that seson, on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,

That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.

In the 1500s, William Shakespeare played a large part in the creation of modern English. Both Shakespeare and Chaucer wrote in the English vernacular. Before them, most important works were written in Latin, or sometimes French. Latin was considered a professional language that scholars used. Chaucer and Shakespeare were some of the first to write important stories in English.

vernacular — the native language of a country.

[edit] Some famous authors or poets who speak this language

William Shakespeare was a playwright and poet.

William Shakespeare, who wrote in verse, is the author of dozens of plays and over a hundred sonnets. Many popular English prose authors, such as Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, Jane Austen, the author of Pride and Prejudice, and Charles Dickens, the author of A Tale of Two Cities, come from the Romantic and Victorian eras, which were during the 1800s.

verse — writing in poetic form; not writing in sentences.

prose — writing in sentence form; the opposite of verse.

One of the most popular writers of English fiction for children was Enid Blyton. She is noted for series of books based on recurring characters. Her most widely known character is thought to be Noddy. Her books have enjoyed popular success in many parts of the world, and have exceeded sales of 400 million. In 2006, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world. There have been more than 3300 translations of her works.

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Twinkle, twinkle little star.
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky,
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.

[edit] References

"Beowulf" www.humanities.mcmaster.ca
"Vernacular." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 15 Mar 2006, 17:30 UTC. 2 Apr 2006, 12:49 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vernacular&oldid=43916157>.
"English language." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2 Apr 2006, 10:53 UTC. 2 Apr 2006, 12:50 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_language&oldid=46580990>.
"English literature." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 Mar 2006, 16:53 UTC. 2 Apr 2006, 12:50 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_literature&oldid=46184672>.

[edit] Estonian

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Estonian uses the letters in the English alphabet, but includes several letters with diacritics. Here is a list of all the Estonian letters.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, Š, Z, Ž, T, U, V, W, Õ, Ä, Ö, Ü, X, Y

Letters in bold are only used in words that are not actually Estonian; rather, they are from another language.

diacritic — a mark added to a letter to change how it's pronounced.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Estonian is spoken by about 1.1 million people, making it the 243rd highest language in number of speakers.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Estonian is an official language in:

It is a minority language in:

[edit] What is the history of this language?

It is believed that the Baltic-Finnic languages evolved from a proto-Finnic language, from which Sami was separated around 1500–1000 BC. It has been suggested that this proto-Finnic had three dialects: northern, southern and eastern. The Baltic-Finnic languages separated around the 1st century, but continued influencing each other. You might see southwestern Finnish dialects have many genuine Estonian influences.

Around the 15th century, northern Estonia was under great cultural influence of Germany. Some German monks wanted to bring God closer to the native people, so they invented the Estonian literal language. It was based on the German alphabet and one character "Õ/õ" was added. As time passed, many words that were borrowed from German, coaleased. This was the beginning of enlightenment.

When the Estonians declared themselves a nation, at the beginning of the 20th century, the country bloomed. For the first time they could express themselves freely. This was the golden age of Estonia, and the language was evolved greatly.

The Second World War ended the golden age. Forces from the east marched in, took power, and Estonian was forbidden from being spoken or taught. At that time many changes were made. For example, the structure of sentences was changed — the verb was put at the beginning of the sentence. Interestingly, this is not the way that it is in German.

When Estonian people got back to power, the Soviet Union was disunified. They were a democratic nation for a second time, the cultural shield was broken. New information came in. A lot of slang words and phrases were adopted from English and English-speaking countries.

[edit] Interesting fact

Finnish and Estonian are closely related languages. It's been said that northern Estonians can understand what is being said by Finnish people, even if they haven't learned Finnish.

Strangely, it doesn't seem to work the other way around. The Finnish have to put a lot more effort into learning Estonian, than Estonians have to put into for Finnish.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Anton Hansen Tammsaare

Friedebert Tuglas

Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald

Johann Voldemar Jannsen

Jaan Kross

Lennart Meri

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Vastused	Responses
Jah	Yes
Ei	No
Võibolla	Maybe
Tervitused	Greetings
Tere	Hello
Minu nimi on ____	My name is ____
Tere hommikust	Good morning
Tere päevast	Good afternoon
Head ööd	Good night
Mis lahti?	What's up?
Mis toimub?	What's going on?
Mitte palju.	Not much.
Hüvastijätud	Good-byes
Head aega.	Good-bye.
Hüvasti.	Bye.
Näeme homme.	See you tomorrow.
Hoiame ühendust.	Keep in touch.
Peatse jällenägemiseni.	See you soon.
Kasulikud fraasid	Useful phrases
Kas te võiksite juhatada mind tualettruumi? (polite) Kus on tualettruum?	Could you tell me where the bathroom is? Where is the bathroom?.
Kui palju see maksab?	How much does it cost?.
Ma tahan piima.	I want milk.
Sa meeldid mulle.	I like you.
Ma armastan sind.	I love you.
Mu koer sõi mu kodutöö.	My dog ate my homework.
Muuhulgas...	Among other things...
Lahe	Cool
Öö	Night
Jää	Ice
Kutt	Dude
Naine	Woman
Mees	Man
Hea	Good
Halb	Bad

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

At Christmas time, you might like to sing Christmas carols about your tree. The Estonians do, too. This song is originaly called "O Tannenbaum", but it's called "Oh kuusepuu" in Estonian. It has also been translated into English. The song was first written by Ernst Anschütz in 1824.

Here is the first verse:

"Oh kuusepuu"	"O Christmas Tree"
Oh kuusepuu, oh kuusepuu	O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!
Kui haljad on su oksad!	How are thy leaves so verdant!
Ei mitte üksi suisel a’al.	Not only in the summertime,
Vaid talvel ka siin külmal maal	But even in winter is thy prime.
Oh kuusepuu, oh kuusepuu	O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Kui haljad on su oksad!	How are thy leaves so verdant!

and so on...

Listen to the melody

[edit] French

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

French uses the Latin alphabet just as English does, with the addition of several accent marks that are not used in English: the acute accent or accent aigu (é), the grave accent or accent grave (è), and the circumflex accent or accent circonflexe (ê). There is also a diacritical mark called a cedilla or cédille, which is placed under the letter c (ç) to give it a soft pronunciation (like an "s" sound) in certain situations where it would otherwise be pronounced hard (like a "k").

[edit] How many people speak this language?

There are 87 million people who can speak French natively. But there 182 million French speakers total, which means that 95 million people decided to learn the language as adults! This is because there is a lot of interesting literature in French. French is also a language often used in diplomacy.

native speaker — someone who learned to speak a language as a child.

literature — books, like the one you are reading now.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

French is spoken all around the world.

As you probably already figured out, French was first spoken in France. Three of France's neighbors — Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg — also use French as one of their official languages. And because of colonization, French is spoken in Canada (the majority in Québec), Louisiana, and Africa.

colonization — going to and conquering other countries in order to live there. Because England colonized America, most people in America now speak English.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

French was created from the Latin language, just like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. It was first used by the Franks, a people who lived in what we now call France. In the 1600s, French people came to Canada and settled in the area we now call Québec. Some French people (who were expelled from Canada) also settled in Louisiana, which was named in honor of King Louis XIV of France. Louisiana is now a state of the United States. In the 1800s, France conquered large parts of northern, western and central Africa, mostly in the Sahara desert. As France took over ruling these territories and their populations, they established French as the language of instruction in schools, and as the official language of the government. Over time, French became the second native language of many African people, although local languages are still used most often in the home. Although France no longer rules these former colonies, they still use French in daily life.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) Les Miserables
Alexandre Dumas (1802 – 1870) Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers)
Jules Verne (1828 – 1905) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Francois Marie Arouet/Voltaire (1694 – 1778)
Gaston Leroux (1868 – 1927) The Phantom of the Opera

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Les salutations	L'e salutasio	Greetings
Salut	Saloo	Hi/Bye
Bonjour	Bonjoor	Hello
Bonsoir	Boonswar	Good evening
Bonne nuit	Bon noowi	Good night
Quoi de neuf ?	kwa do naf?	What's up?
Pas grand chose.	Pa gron shoz	Not much.
Les adieux	LeZadio	Good-byes
Au revoir.	O rovwar	Good-bye.
À demain.	A doma	See you tomorrow.
À tout à l'heure.	A tu ta lor	See you!
À bientôt.	A biantoe	See you soon.
Phrases de base	Farz do bas	Basic phrases
Parlez-vous anglais ?	parl'e-voo angl'e?	Do you speak English?
Où sont les toilettes ?	oo soon l'e twalet?	Where is the bathroom?
Plus lentement, s'il vous plaît.	Ploo lontemo, sil voo pl'e.	(Speak) slower please.
J'aime . . .	j'em . . .	I like . . .
Je n'aime pas . . .	Jo n'em pa . . .	I don't like . . .
Je m'appelle. . .	Jo map'el . . .	My name is. . .
Comment t'appelles-tu ?	Como tap'el tu ?	What is your name?

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] Petit Papa Noël

Petit Papa Noël	Little Santa Claus
Quand tu descendras du ciel	When you come down from the sky
Avec des jouets par milliers	With toys in the thousands
N'oublie pas mes petits souliers	Don't forget my little shoes
Mais avant de partir	But before leaving
Il faudra bien te couvrir	It will be necessary to cover you
Dehors tu vas avoir si froid	Outside you will be so cold
C'est un peu à cause de moi	It's a little because of me

[edit] Dame Tartine

Il était une Dame Tartine	There once was a Dame Tartine (tartine is a kind of sandwich)
Dans un beau palais de beurre frais.	Who lived in a beautiful palace of fresh butter.
La muraille était de praline,	The walls were made of praline,
Le parquet était de croquets,	The floors were of croquettes,
La chambre à coucher	The bedroom
De crème de lait,	Of fresh cream,
Le lit de biscuit,	The bed, a biscuit,
Les rideaux d'anis.	And curtains of aniseed.

[edit] Frère Jacques

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques	Brother James, Brother James.
Dormez-vous, Dormez-vous?	Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?
Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines.	Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing.
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.	Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.

This song can be sung as a 'round', which is when one person or group starts the song, and when they arrive at the end of the first verse, the second person or group begins.

[edit] References

"French language." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 31 Mar 2006, 16:33 UTC. 2 Apr 2006, 06:51 [1].
French Wikibook

[edit] German

[edit] What writing system(s) does German use?

German uses the Latin alphabet just like English, French, and Spanish, with one extra (non-latin) letter, the eszett, which is pronounced "ss". It also has umlauts, which are not pronounced in English. When people don't have a German keyboard, or the software required to use extra symbols on your own keyboard, they can write the umlauts by adding the letter "e" after the basic vowel. These umlauts would then look like this: Ae, ae, Oe, oe, Ue, ue. The pronunciation remains the same.

eszett — A letter which only found in the German alphabet, it looks like this: ß.

umlauts — Dots, which can be placed above three of the vowels in German, and which change the sound of them. They look like this: Ää, Öö, Üü.

[edit] How many people speak German?

There are roughly 110 million people that speak German as a first language; however, there are around 120 million people who speak it as a secondary language.

native speaker — someone who learned to speak a language as a child.

secondary language — any language that a person learns to speak after the first language that they learned at home.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

German is spoken widely in Europe and in communities around the world.

German is primarily spoken in the following countries:

German is spoken as a secondary language in the following countries:

In small communities all over the world, German and variants (Pennsylfaanisch Deitsch) are spoken as the primary or secondary language. German is also the most widely spoken language in Europe, and the tenth most spoken language in the world.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

The spread of the German language until ca. 1945 in Central Europe. Orange marks Lower German, blue Middle German and green Upper German dialects.

West Germanic was an ancient language that evolved into many different languages including German, English, Frisian and Dutch. German evolved from West Germanic between 400AD and 1200AD when people in southern and middle regions of Germany started pronouncing several consonants differently. This language is now called Standard German ("Hochdeutsch", literally "High German").

West Germanic dialects were still spoken in the northern and western regions of Germany and evolved into what is now called Low German ("Plattdeutsch"). For many years the people of these regions of Germany struggled to understand one another. It wasn't until the 1800's that a common language was developed, called Standard German, that allowed the people of the highlands and the lowlands to be able to speak to one another.

dialect — one form of a language; sometimes different regions of a country develop slightly different forms of a language, called dialects.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Ludwig van Beethoven

Some famous authors and poets in this language include the Grimm brothers, Schiller & Goethe.

The Brothers Grimm (Jacob, 1785 – 1863; Wilhelm, 1786 – 1859) were Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, German professors who were best known for publishing collections of authentic folk tales and fairy tales. Their fairy tales are very famous, mostly because Disney made animated movies based on three of them: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. Many of the other fairy tales are very famous, and untouched by Disney. These include Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, and Rapunzel.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (November 10, 1759 – May 9, 1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and dramatist. His childhood and youth were spent in relative poverty, although he attended both village and Latin schools. He eventually studied medicine. At school, he wrote his first play, The Robbers, about a group of naïve revolutionaries and their tragic failure. In 1780, he obtained a post as regimental doctor in Stuttgart. Following the performance of Die Räuber (The Robbers) in Mannheim, in 1781 he was arrested and forbidden to publish any further works. He fled Stuttgart in 1783, coming via Leipzig and Dresden to Weimar in 1787. In 1789, he was appointed professor of History and Philosophy in Jena, where he wrote only historical works. He returned to Weimar in 1799, where Goethe convinced him to return to playwriting. He and Goethe founded the Weimar Theater which became the leading theater in Germany, leading to a dramatic renaissance. He remained in Weimar, Saxe-Weimar until his death at 45 from tuberculosis.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath: he was a painter, novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist, philosopher, and for ten years chief minister of state at Weimar. Goethe was one of the paramount figures of German literature and the movement of German classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, Sensibility ("Empfindsamkeit"), and Romanticism, in all of which he participated to varying degrees. As the author of Faust and Theory of Colours, Goethe's influence spread across Europe, and for the next century, his works were a primary source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry, and even philosophy.

German is also the language of classical music, as it was the language of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach just to name a few. Read on for more detail on these artists...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) is among the most significant and enduringly popular composers of European classical music. His enormous output includes works that are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Many of his works are part of the standard concert repertory and are widely recognized as masterpieces of the classical style.

Johann Sebastian Bach (21 March 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a prolific German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments drew together almost all of the strands of the Baroque style and brought it to its ultimate maturity. Although he introduced no new musical forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust and dazzling contrapuntal technique, a seemingly effortless control of harmonic and motivic organization from the smallest to the largest scales, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France.

Ludwig van Beethoven (December 17, 1770 – March 26, 1827) was a German composer of classical music, who lived predominantly in Vienna, Austria. Beethoven is widely regarded as one of history's supreme composers, and he produced notable works even after losing his hearing. He was one of the greatest figures in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in music. His reputation has inspired — and in many cases intimidated — composers, musicians, and audiences who were to come after him.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Greetings	(Die) Begrüßungen
Hi/Hello	Hi/Hallo
Hey	Grüß dich!
Morning!	Morgen!
Good morning	Guten Morgen
Good day	Guten Tag
Good evening	Guten Abend
Good night	Gute Nacht
Good-byes	Abschied
Later!	Tschüß!
Later!	Tschau!
Goodbye!	Auf Wiedersehen!
See you soon!	Bis bald!
Basic Phrases	Grundlegende Phrasen
Do you speak English/German/Dutch?	Sprechen Sie Englisch/Deutsch/Holländisch?
Where is the bathroom?	Wo ist die Toilette, bitte?
Excuse me	Entschuldigung
How are you?	Wie geht's?
I am good/bad/horrible/okay.	Mir geht es gut/schlecht/schrecklich/okay.
What's Happening?	Was ist passiert?
What's Up?	Was ist los?
I like ...	Ich mag ...
I don't like ...	Ich mag ... nicht.
I love you.	Ich liebe Dich.
My name is ...	Ich heiße.../Mein Name ist...
I am...	Ich bin...
I am a...	Ich bin ein...
This is good/bad/not bad	Das ist gut/schlecht/nicht schlecht
This is big/small/wonderful	Das ist groß/klein/wunderbar
This is to much/enough	Das ist zu viel/genug
What is this?	Was ist das?
I'd like that!	Ich möchte dieses!

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

At Christmas time, you might like to sing Christmas carols about your tree. The Germans do, too. They have a song called "O Tannenbaum" which has also been translated into English. The song was first written by Ernst Anschütz in 1824.

Here is the original German song, O Tannenbaum:

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie grün sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Dein Kleid will mich' was lehren:
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Trost und Kraft zu jeder Zeit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Das soll dein Kleid mich lehren.

It is known as "O Christmas Tree" in English and is a very famous song. Here is the English version of the song:

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!
How are thy leaves so verdant!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How are thy leaves so verdant!
Not only in the summertime,
But even in winter is thy prime.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How are thy leaves so verdant!

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Much pleasure doth thou bring me!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Much pleasure doth thou bring me!
For every year the Christmas tree,
Brings to us all both joy and glee.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Much pleasure doth thou bring me!

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Thy candles shine out brightly!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Thy candles shine out brightly!
Each bough doth hold its tiny light,
That makes each toy to sparkle bright.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Thy candles shine out brightly!

[edit] References

[edit] Hebrew

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Hebrew uses a right-to-left abjad system. The Hebrew alphabet consists of twenty-two letters and five final letters, and is derived from the Aramaic alphabet, which in its turn came from the Phoenician alphabet, the source of most writing systems known today. In Hebrew (and other Semitic) writing, most vowels are optionally written as diacritics.

diacritic — a mark added to a letter to change the way it is pronounced.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Approximately 10 million people speak Hebrew. (About 7 million of them live in Israel.)

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Modern Hebrew is spoken by many people all over the world and is the main language of Israel where it is the official language. Other countries with significant Hebrew speaking populations include Argentina, Belgium, The Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, Canada, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, Panama, United States and Uruguay.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Hebrew is a very old language with ancestral links to Aramaic and Arabic. It was the language used to write most of the Jewish Bible, and was spoken in the Middle East. Hebrew stopped being a spoken everyday language when it was replaced by Aramaic, but continued to be used in the reading of the Jewish Bible texts and prayers. By the modern period, Hebrew had ceased to be the mother tongue of the Jewish people because many Jews had left Israel for other countries in the Middle East and Europe and had adopted the languages of their new countries. In Germany, Yiddish, a language based on German but mixed with many Hebrew, Russian and Polish words, arose and became popular. Judeo-Arabic also arose among some Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa, although many Jews in these lands, including those still living in the Land of Israel, used Arabic exclusively. Hebrew remained exclusively the language for religious purposes until it was revived by Eliezer ben-Yehuda at the beginning of the 20th century. Ben-Yehuda began to compile a dictionary which still bears his name today. His children grew up tutored by their father and became the first native speakers of the Hebrew language in the modern period.

Modern Hebrew, like ancient Hebrew, is written without vowels. Written Hebrew vowel symbols were invented by a group of Hebrew scholars named the Massoretes, who lived around Tiberias at the Sea of Galilee during the 10th century CE. The square script, familiar in modern Hebrew, also grew from this 10th century CE period. Hebrew script has evolved through the centuries, from the paleo script to the Qumran distinctive script to cursive script and finally to the modern square script.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

The most famous text in the world, the Bible, was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Many religious believers believe that the Bible was inspired directly by God, so they would say that God is a very famous author in Hebrew. Another famous author in Hebrew is the Nobel Prize laureate S. Y. Agnon (pronounced Shay Agnon).

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Greetings	ברכות
Hi/Hello	היי/שלום (Hi/Shalom)
Good morning	בוקר טוב (Boker Tov)
Good day	יום טוב (Yom Tov)
Good evening	ערב טוב (Erev Tov)
Good night	לילה טוב (Laila Tov)
Good-byes	להתראות
Goodbye!	להתראות (Lehitraot, sometimes shortened to "להית" — "Lehit")
See you soon!	ניתראה בקרוב (Nitrahe Bekarov)
Congratulations	מזל טוב (Mazal Tov)
Basic Phrases	ביטויים בסיסיים
Do you speak English/German/Hebrew?	האם אתה מדבר אנגלית/גרמנית/עברית? (Hahim Ata Medaber Anglit/Germanit/Ivrit?)
Where is the bathroom?	איפה השירותים? (Eifo Hasherutim?)
Excuse me	סליחה (Slikha)
How are you?	מה שלומך? (Ma Shlomkha?)
Everything is fine.	הכול בסדר (Hakol Beseder)
What's Happening?	מה קורה? (Ma Kore?)
What's Up?	מה נשמע/מה המצב? (Ma Nishma/Ma Hamatzav?)
I like ...	אני אוהב... (Ani Ohev...)
I don't like ...	אני לא אוהב... (Ani Lo Ohev...)
My name is ...	שמי הוא.../קוראים לי... (Shmi Hu/Korim Li)
I am...	אני... (Ani...)
Simple Words	מילים פשוטות
Yes	כן (Ken)
No	לא (Lo)
Mother	אמא (Ima)
Father	אבא (Aba)
Dog	כלב (Kelev)
Cat	חתול (Khatul)
Car	מכונית (Mekhonit)
Hot	חם (Kham)
Cold	קר (Kar)

the sound of 'kh' is like a 'h' coming from the back of your throat

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] Little Yonatan

Hebrew Characters	Pronunciation	English
יונתן הקטן רץ בבוקר אל הגן הוא טיפס על העץ אפרוחים חיפש אוי ואבוי לו לשובב חור גדול במכנסיו מן העץ התגלגל ועונשו קיבל	Yonatan hakatan Rats baboker el hagan Hu tipes al ha'ets Efrokhim khipes Oi vavoi lo lashovav Khor gadol bemihnasav Min ha'ets hitgilgel V'onsho kibel	Little Jonathan Ran to the park in the morning He climbed up the tree Looking for baby birds Too bad for the rascal There's a big hole in his pants From the tree he tumbled And got his punishment

[edit] A song for the Rain

Hebrew Characters	Pronunciation	English
גשם, גשם משמיים כל היום טיפות המים טיף-טיף-טף טיף-טיף-טף מחאו כף אל כף	Geshem, geshem mishamaim Kol hayom tipot hamaim Tif-Tif-Taf Tif-Tif-Taf Makhau kaf el kaf	Rain drops, Rain drops from the sky All day long the Rain drops Tif-Tif-Taf* Tif-Tif-Taf Clap your hands together

* Tif-Tif-Taf — the sound of Rain drops in Hebrew.

[edit] References

[edit] Hindi

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

An example of the script used for Hindi from the 1750s

Hindi does not use Latin characters like the English you are reading, but instead uses a script called devanagari. Devanagari is a type of writing system, called an abugida, where the base character is a syllable that includes a consonant and a vowel. The first consonant in devanagari is क, which stands for the sound "ka". The character can be changed to use different vowels. For example का कि की कु कू के कै को कौ are the k character with each of the main vowels in Hindi. There is also a different form of the vowels when they appear at the beginning of a word or as the second of a pair of vowels. The basic vowels are अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ए ऐ ओ and औ.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

There are varying estimates for how many people speak Hindi. It is estimated to be between the second and fourth most commonly spoken language in the world. The number of native speakers varies depending on whether or not very closely related dialects are counted. Estimates range from 340 million to 500 million speakers, and as many as 800 million people can understand the language. Hindi is also closely related to the language Urdu, and in everyday conversations, speakers of both languages can usually understand each other. There are 60 to 100 million speakers of Urdu.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

The areas of India where Hindi is most prevalent

Almost all speakers of Hindi live in India or Nepal, though Hindi can be found all over the world where its speakers have moved to. Countries outside of India and Nepal with a significant number of speakers are South Africa, Mauritius, the United Kingdom, the United States, Yemen, and Uganda.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Hindi has its roots in the ancient language of Sanskrit. The spoken language changed over the centuries from the Old Indo-Aryan such as Sanskrit to Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit languages. During its changes, Middle Indo-Aryan became known as Apabhramshas (according to many researchers), which sometime around 1000 A.D. were developing into the dialects and languages of today's northern India, including Hindi. Hindi contains plenty of words from Persian and Arabic origins, coming from the Persian people that ruled much of northern India for centuries.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Tulsidas wrote twelve books and is considered the greatest and most famous of Hindi poets. He lived from 1532 to 1623. Premchand is one of the greatest literary figures of modern Hindi and Urdu literature. He lived from 1880 to 1936. Most of the early Hindi literature was in verse form, like poetry.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Hindi word — Latin version of the word — English translation

नमस्ते — namaste — hello, good morning, afternoon, etc, and goodbye.
आप कैसे हैं? — aap kaise hain? — How are you?
मैं ठीक हूँ, और आप? — main Thiik hoon, aur aap? — I am fine, and you?
आपका नाम क्या है? — aapka naam kyaa hai? — What is your name?
मेरा नाम सुनील है — meraa naam Suniil hai. — My name is Sunil.

The word order in Hindi sentences is different than in English. In Hindi the verb usually comes last in the sentence. For example in the sentence given above for "What is your name?", the order the words are actually said in Hindi is "your name what is". Aapka means "your", naam means "name", kyaa means "what", and hai means "is". With practice this difference isn't very hard to get used to.

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] मछली जल की रानी है

Fish is the queen of water

In Devanagri

मछली जल की रानी है,

जीवन उसका पानी है,

हाथ लगाओ तो ये डर जाएगी,

बाहर निकालो तो ये मर जाएगी।

In Latin

Machhli jal ki raani hai,

jeevan uskaa paani hai,

haath lagaao to ye dar jaayegi,

baahar nikaalo to ye mar jaayegi.

Translation

Fish is the queen of water,

Her life is water,

touch her (with your hand) and she will get scared,

take her out and she will die.

[edit] Japanese

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Japanese uses three different writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are read phonetically; each symbol represents a specific syllable. Hiragana is used for Japanese words, while katakana is used for foreign words of foreign origin that were integrated into the Japanese language.

basic hiragana: あ (a), い (i), う (u), え (e), お (o), か (ka), き (ki), く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko), さ (sa), し (shi), す (su), せ (se), そ (so), た (ta), ち (chi), つ (tsu), て (te), と (to), な (na), に (ni), ぬ (nu), ね (ne), の (no), は (ha), ひ (hi), ふ (fu), へ (he), ほ (ho), ま (ma), み (mi), む (mu), め (me), も (mo), や (ya), ゆ (yu), よ (yo), ら (ra), り (ri), る (ru), れ (re), ろ (ro), わ (wa), を (wo), ん (n)

Kanji are pictograms, with each character having a specific meaning, like in Chinese. In fact, Many Japanese kanji characters have the same meaning as, and are either identical or similar in appearance, to the Chinese characters. The Japanese government has designated almost 2000 kanji for standard use; high school students in Japan must know all of the standard characters before they graduate.

kanji examples: 大 (big), 女 (woman), 男 (man), 雪 (snow), 馬 (horse), 赤 (red)

Romaji is the system used to write Japanese words using the Roman alphabet, like the words on this page (hiragana, katakana, kanji, romaji), and is used to help English-speaking Japanese learners learn how to read and pronounce Japanese.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

The Japanese language has 127 million native speakers, plus 1 million other speakers that learned Japanese as a secondary language.

native speaker — someone who learned to speak a language as a child.

secondary language — any language that a person learns to speak after the first language that they learned at home.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Japanese is primarily spoken in Japan, but is also spoken in Hawaii, Guam, and other parts of the United States, mostly along the Pacific Ocean; in South America, mainly in Peru and Brazil; and on many Pacific islands.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

At first glance, it would be easy to think that Japanese is closely related to Chinese. The kanji characters were all adopted from Chinese, and the kana (hiragana and katakana) were developed from the kanji. However, Japanese is actually a very different language from Chinese. Before the 5th century, Japanese had no written form, but because of contact with China, Japan adapted the writing system of Chinese to the Japanese language.

The origins of the Japanese language itself are lost to history. Some people believe that it's related to Korean, but this is uncertain. Perhaps one day more information on the history of this language will be discovered.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Murasaki Shikibu (c.973–c.1014), authored The Tale of Genji, one of the earliest novels in the world.

Miyamoto Musashi (c.1584–1645), a samurai who wrote The Book of Five Rings.

Matsuo Bashō (c.1644–1694), a master of the poetry form of haiku.

Kyokutei Bakin (1767–1848), the author of Nansō satomi hakkenden or The Legend of the Eight Dog Warriors.

Shusaku Endo (1923–1996) was a writer whose inspiration and motivation came from being a Japanese Catholic.

Koji Suzuki (b. 1957) is a writer of horror novels and short stories. Many of these have been translated into other languages, including his most famous work, Ring. Many of his books have been made into films in many languages, including English, Japanese and Korean.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Basic Greetings:

おはようございます! - Ohayō gozaimas! - "Good morning!"
こんにちは! - Konnichiwa! - "Good afternoon!"
さようなら! - Sayōnara! - "Good bye!"
また明日! - Mata ashta! - "See you tomorrow!"

Simple Words:

はい - hai - "yes"
いいえ - iie - "no"
猫 - neko - "cat"
犬 - inu - "dog"
日本 - Nihon - "Japan"
日本語 - Nihongo - "Japanese language"
月 - tsuki - "moon"
絵 - e - "picture"
愛　- ai - "love"

Numbers:

一 - ichi
二 - ni
三 - san
四 - yon (shi)
五 - go
六 - roku
七 - nana (shichi)
八 - hachi
九 - kyū
十 - jū

Courtesies:

すみません - Sumimasen - "Excuse me."
ありがとうございます - Arigatō gozaimas - "Thank you."
ごめんなさい - Gomen nasai - "I'm sorry."
大丈夫ですか? - Daijōbu des ka - "Are you okay?"

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

桜　桜	さくら　さくら	Sakura, Sakura	Cherry Blossom
桜　桜野山も里も見わたすかぎりかすみか雲か朝日ににおう桜　桜花ざかり桜　桜やよいの空は見わたすかぎりかすみか雲かにおいぞいずるいざや　いざや見にゆかん	さくら　さくらのやま　も　さと　もみわたす　かぎりかすみ　か　くも　かあさひ　に　におうさくら　さくらはな　ざかりさくら　さくらやよい　の　そら　はみわたす　かぎりかすみ　か　くも　かにおい　ぞ　いずるいざや　いざやみに　ゆ　かん	Sakura sakura Noyama mo sato mo Miwatasu kagiri Kasumi ka kumo ka Asahi ni niou Sakura sakura Hana zakari Sakura sakura Yayoi no sora wa Miwatasu kagiri Kasumi ka kumo ka Nioi zo izuru Izaya izaya Mini yu kan	Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms, On mountains and in villages, As far as you can see. They look like a mist, or clouds, Fragrant in the morning sun. Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms, They’re in full bloom. Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms, Across the April skies, As far as you can see. They look like a mist, or clouds, Blooming fragrantly. Let's go! Let's go! Let's go see them!

You can hear the tune at http://www.isc.toyama-u.ac.jp/~hamada/song/sakura/sakura_e.html

[edit] Korean

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

A statue of King Sejong

One thing unique about the Korean language is the Hangeul ("han-guhl") alphabet. While Chinese uses a complex character for each word, and Japanese mixes two syllabaries (each character of the alphabet representing a syllable rather than a single sound) with complex Chinese characters, the Hangeul alphabet uses actual letters, each one with its own sound. Hangeul letters are arranged to make syllables in Korean words.

Hangeul is the only purposely invented alphabet in popular daily use. The alphabet was invented in 1444 during the reign of King Sejong (1418 – 1450). King Sejong was the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty and is one of the most highly regarded. He originally named the Hangeul alphabet Hunmin Jeongeum, which means "the correct sounds for the instruction of the people".

[edit] How many people speak this language?

There are between 67 and 78 million Korean speakers around the world. It is one of the top 20 most spoken languages in the world.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Korean is spoken primarily in North and South Korea, in the northeastern parts of China, and in Japan. However, there are large Korean speaking communities in many major cities around the world.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Korean is a very old language. Unfortunately, researchers are still not sure of how it evolved. Some researchers think that it shared a common history with Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages. Other researchers think that it may have evolved with Japanese from Austronesian (Australian and South East Asian) languages. One thing is sure though, it is not a variation of Chinese.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

One famous author is Soon-Won Hwang. He was born in 1915 in Pyoungannam-do, and graduated from Waseda University with a degree in English Literature in 1939. He taught at Seoul Middle High School and also in the College of Liberal Arts and Science of Kyung-Hee University. He was a member and senior member of the Art Institute. He was awarded the "Asia Free Literature Award", "Art Institute Award", "First of March Culture Award", "Kookmin Medal Dongbaekjang", "Korea Literature Award Main Award", and the first "Inchon Award (Literature Section)".

His works include the poems "Singing Loudly" and "Antique"; short stories such as "Swamp", "Dog of Neck Cross Village", "Crane", "Lost People", "Time Only For You and Me", and "Mask"; and the novels "Descendant of Cain", "Grafting of Human", "Trees, Standing on the Slope", "The Sun and the Moon", and "The Die of Gods". 12 volumes of "The Complete Works of Soon Won Hwang" were published in 1985.

[edit] Basic Korean

Language Structure:

There are 14 primitive consonants and 10 vowels in Korean.

14 consonants: ㄱ (g), ㄴ (n), ㄷ (d), ㄹ (r), ㅁ (m), ㅂ (b), ㅅ (s), ㅇ (ng), ㅈ (j), ㅊ (ch), ㅋ (k), ㅌ (t), ㅍ (p), ㅎ (h)

10 vowels: ㅏ (a), ㅑ (ya), ㅓ (eo), ㅕ (yeo), ㅗ (o), ㅛ (yo), ㅜ (u), ㅠ (yu), ㅡ (eu), ㅣ (i)

[edit] Numerals

1 일 (il)
2 이 (i, like "ee")
3 삼 (sam)
4 사 (sa)
5 오 (o)
6 육 (yuk)
7 칠 (chil)
8 팔 (pal)
9 구 (gu)
10 십 (ship)
11 십 일 (ship il)
20 이 십 (i ("ee") ship)
30 삼 십 (sam ship)
40 사 십 (sa ship)
50 오 십 (o ship)
60 육 십 (yuk ship)
70 칠 십 (chil ship)
80 팔 십 (pal ship)
90 구 십 (gu ship)
100 백 (baek)
1000 천 (cheon)
10000 만 (man)
100000 십만 (ship man)
1000000 백만 (baek man)
10000000 천만 (cheon man)
100000000 일억 (il eok)

[edit] Basic Expressions

안녕하세요? (annyeong-haseyo?, or to a close friend: 안녕? annyeong?) - "Hello?"
안녕히 가세요. (annyeong-hi ("hee") gaseyo, or to a close friend: 안녕, annyeong) - "Good bye"
잘 가세요. (jal gaseyo, or to a close friend 잘 가, jal ga) - "Good bye)
고맙습니다 (go-map-seumnida, or to a close friend: go ma wor) - "Thank you"
천만에요 (cheonman-haeyo, or 괜찮습니다, gwaenchan-seumnida) - "You are welcome"
미안합니다 (mi-an-hamnida, or to a close friend: 미언해, mi-an-hae) - "I am sorry"
괜찮습니다 (gwaenchan-seumnida, or to a close friend: 괜찮아, gwaenchan-a) - "That is all right."
안녕히 주무셨어요? [honorific form] (annyeong-hi ("hee") jumusheosseoyo?, or to a close friend, jal ja sir?) - "Good evening" or "Good night"
잘 잤어요? [formal] (jal jass-eoyo?) - "Good morning" or "Did you sleep well?"
사랑해요 (sarang-haeyo, or to a close friend, 사랑해, sarang-hae) - "I love you"

[edit] Common words

사람 (sa-ram) - person
남자 (nam-ja) - man
소년 (so-nyeon) - boy
여자 (yeo-ja) - woman
소녀 (so-nyeo) - girl
사과 (sa-gwa) - apple
닭 (dak) - chicken
말 (mal) - horse
감자 (gam-ja) - potato

[edit] Adjectives

좋아요 (joh-a-yo) - good
나빠요 (nappa-yo) - bad

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Aegugka (The national anthem for both North and South Korea)

Korean	English
동해 물과 백두산이 마르고 닳도록 하느님이 보우하사 우리나라 만세	Until the day when the East Sea's waters and Mt. Baekdu are dry and worn away, Heaven protect and preserve us. Long live our nation!
남산 위에 저 소나무 철갑을 두른 듯 바람서리 불변함은 우리 기상일세	The pinetree atop Namsan stands firmly unchanged under wind and frost as if wrapped in armour, as is our resilient spirit.
가을 하늘 공활한데 높고 구름 없이 밝은 달은 우리 가슴 일편단심일세	Autumn sky is void and vast, high and cloudless, the bright moon is our heart, undivided and true.
이 기상과 이 맘으로 충성을 다하여 괴로우나 즐거우나 나라 사랑하세	With this spirit and this mind, give all loyalty, in suffering or in joy, love the country.
무궁화 삼천 리 화려 강산 대한 사람 대한으로 길이 보전하세	Three thousand Li of splendid rivers and mountains, filled with Roses of Sharon; Great Korean People, stay true to the Great Korean way.

[edit] Latin

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Where the Latin Alphabet is used today

Latin uses what is today called the Latin Alphabet. This alphabet is thought by many historians to have been a modified version of the ancient Greek alphabet, which in turn is also a variation of ancient Phoenician writing.

The Latin alphabet is the basis for most European languages and for many other languages around the world, which is why it may look familiar to you if you are reading this in English.

One important difference is that lowercase letters were not usually used in writing classical Latin. Another difference is that the Romans did not use our letters J, U, and W. These letters developed later, as variants of I and V. Because of this, Julius Caesar's name would have been written IVLIVS CAESAR.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

The Latin language is today considered as a dead language.

The meaning of "dead language" is unclear in this case, but it is commonly taken to mean that there is no one left speaking it as their mother tongue.

Although it is technically possible for people who have learned Latin to speak it, it is considered an unusual thing to do, and normally two such people will use Latin to understand each other only if they have no other language in common.

Still, Latin is sometimes needed to be a linguist or a scientist. It is still the official language of one country: the Vatican. Some people also use Latin to translate writing on Roman or ancient artifacts. There are also Conventiculums [pl. Conventicula](conventions) where people may have Latin conversations.

Linguists may need to know Latin as it is one of the roots of nearly all modern European languages. Scientists normally use Latin, along with Greek, to name new species or chemicals.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

The Vatican City has Latin as its official language, even though the language is considered extinct. Two thousand years ago, Latin was spoken throughout the Roman Empire, which extended at its height from Portugal to Iraq and from Britain to North Africa. During the Middle Ages and the early modern era, Latin was the predominant language of the Roman Catholic Church and of universities in western Europe. It still is the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Many Latin words and phrases are still used in the fields of law, science and medicine. For example, et cetera comes from Latin, meaning "and so on so forth".

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Latin is a member of the family of Italic languages, and its alphabet, the Latin alphabet, is based on the Old Italic alphabet, which is in turn derived from the Greek alphabet. The English alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. Latin was first brought to the Italian peninsula in the 9th or 8th century B.C. by migrants from the north, who settled in the Latium region, specifically around the River Tiber, where the Roman civilization first developed. Latin was influenced by the Celtic dialects and the non-Indo-European Etruscan language in northern Italy, and by Greek in southern Italy.

Although surviving Latin literature consists almost entirely of Classical Latin, a language from the 1st century B.C., this language progressed into Vulgar Latin, which significantly differed from Classical Latin in grammar, vocabulary, and eventually pronunciation. Although Latin remained the main written language of the Roman Empire, Greek came to be the language spoken by the well-educated elite, as most of the literature studied by Romans was written in Greek. In the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which became the Byzantine Empire, Greek eventually supplanted Latin as both the written and spoken language. In the western half, Latin was always the major language.

[edit] Some famous people who spoke this language

Julius Caesar — A famous military general who later went on to be the first emperor of Rome. He wrote down accounts of all of his battles in the Gallic Wars.
Suetonius — A historian who is probably most famous for his biographies The Twelve Caesars, the first twelve rulers of the Roman Empire.
Virgil — A poet who wrote the Aeneid, a book on the founding of the city of Rome (based partly on legend).
Cicero — Probably the best Roman orator, well-known for his work in politics and law.
Livy — An author of Ab Urbe Condita, a history of Rome as a city. His writings are very convoluted — most of his sentences and phrases have some sort of subordination to them.
Catullus — A poet who writes about and to his friends, about his girlfriend, to insult others, or to give condolences.
J.R.R. Tolkien — A famous author in the 20th century who wrote The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Salvē! — Hello
Valē! — Goodbye
Veni, vidi, vici — I came, I saw, I conquered
Per Ardua, ad Astra — Through hard work, to the stars
Exempli Gratia (In English today we write "e.g.") — For the sake of an example, an example
Id Est (In English today we write "i.e.") — That is
Nota Bene (In English today we write "n.b.") — Note well
Et — And
Tu — You
Quid tibi nomen est? — What is your name?
Mihi nomen est Paulum. — My name is Paul.
Unde venis? — Where do you come from? (lit. From where do you come?)
E Britannia venio. — I come from Britain.
Gratias (tibi) ago. — Thank you (lit. I give thanks (to you))
Et cetera (In English today we write "etc.") — And other things
Purgamentum — Rubbish
Cave Canem — Beware of Dog
Vox Populi — The voice of the people.

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

The poet Ovid was banished from Rome in 8 AD by Augustus, Julius Caesar's great-nephew. This is the first 2 lines of the poem Tristia (meaning "Sorrows"), which Ovid wrote to express his sadness about his banishment.

In Latin:

Parue — nec inuideo — sine me, liber, ibis in urbem:
ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!

In English:

You will go, my little book, without me to the city, but I don't envy you.
Go on — go to the city forbidden to me — forbidden to your master.

This song by an unknown poet from the 16th Century was popular with students some time ago when everybody had to learn Latin at school:

In Latin:

Flevit lepus parvulus
clamans altis vocibus:
Quid feci hominibus,
quod me sequuntur canibus?
Neque in horto fui
neque holus comedi.

In English:

Wept the little rabbit,
shouting with high voice:
What did I do to the humans,
that they chase me with dogs?
I was not in the garden,
and I did not eat the vegetables

[edit] Mandarin Chinese

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

All Chinese dialects including Mandarin are written with hànzì, a picture-like writing system. However, many English-speaking students learn to pronounce Chinese (or "zhōngwén") using a Romanization system called Pinyin. See below for some examples.

So how do characters work? Does Chinese have an alphabet? No, Chinese does not have an alphabet. They do use radicals, which will be explained below. Characters however, are written with strokes, or different lines. There are three types of characters: pictographic, ideographic, and picto-phonetic. Pictographic characters are just what they sound like, they try to represent a thing or action as a picture. For example, the character for sun (rì -which sounds like "rurr") was originally a circle with a dot in the center, an attempt to draw a sun. The modern character is a vertical rectangle divided in half by a horizontal line. It is a 4 stroke character.

alphabet — all the letters of a language.

character — a letter, number, or punctuation mark.

Ideographic characters are used for things that are a bit more difficult to describe than with just a drawing. Love, hate, anger, happiness, goodness — all of these are very hard to capture in a simple picture. Ideographic characters try to address this problem by combining different pictures to convey meaning. Going back to the goodness example, the Chinese character for goodness, “hǎo”, is depicted using two separate characters, a woman and a child, combined into one character.

Picto-phonetic characters combine a meaning radical which hints at the meaning of a character with a sound radical which hints at the pronunciation of the character. "Grass" for example is written as the character for "early" (which sounds like "grass" in Chinese) with a radical meaning "grass" above it. A reader can look at the grass radical and guess or recall the meaning while looking at the sound radical and guess or recall how it is pronounced.

Radicals are the closest thing that Chinese has to what English speakers would call an alphabet. Radicals, like an alphabet, allow speakers to reuse portions of the language. And since Chinese has some 10,000 plus characters in usage, radicals become very useful to allow for fast memorization of a character. Characters will get some of their meaning and/or sound from a radical (like picto-phonetic characters). You can imagine radicals as a foundation, or base, of the Chinese written language.

Radicals are kind of like the different symbols used in public signs. A "no smoking sign" is a cigarette that has been crossed out, a "no dogs allowed" sign has a dog that has been crossed out. We can reuse the meaning of the crossed out symbol to create new signs and guess at the meaning of new signs we have never seen before. In the same way Chinese characters that have to do with children may have have the radical for "child" in them, and characters that have to do with actions or things done with the hand may have the radical for "hand" while the rest of the character hints at the pronunciation.

Are there different ways of writing Chinese? Yes, there are two main ways of writing Chinese, simplified and traditional. Simplified was invented by the PRC (People’s Republic of China) to increase literacy, or reading levels in China. Traditional is as you can guess, the “traditional” way of writing Chinese. It is used in places such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. It is also used in traditional texts, paintings, genealogical charts, food packaging, and more! If you want to live in China, it is handy to know both simplified and traditional, as you are likely to run across both forms.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Mandarin Chinese is the most common language in the world. In fact, over 800 million people speak this dialect of Chinese. That's more than one out of every seven people! However, like most languages, there are many other dialects, such as Min Nan, Shanghainese, and Cantonese.

dialect — one form of a language; sometimes different regions of a country develop slightly different forms of a language, called dialects.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Chinese is mostly spoken is the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau) and Taiwan. It is also one of the four official languages of Singapore (together with English, Malay, and Tamil), and is also spoken among the people of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

China has a history of five thousand years of continuous civilization, so it is probable that the Chinese language is at least as old as this. Archeologists have found Chinese pictographic writing on pottery, bones and turtle shells from as long ago as the Shang dynasty, over 3000 years ago. By the time of the Qin dynasty, 2000 years ago, Chinese writing had been standardized and it has changed very little since then.

Because Chinese is not an alphabetic language, it is hard to know exactly what the language sounded like in the distant past.

There are now five main spoken dialects of Chinese including Mandarin, Wu dialect, Yue dialect, and Cantonese. These are as different from each other as English and German and could be thought of as separate languages - but speakers of all the dialects use the same writing system.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Poets and Ci authors (in order of fame):

李白Li, Bai

杜甫Du, Fu

蘇軾Su, Shi

李清照Li, Qingzhao

王维Wang, Wei

屈原Qu, Yuan

曹操Cao, Cao

陶渊明Tao, Yuanming

Authors (in chronological order of birth):

孙子Sunzi (author of "The Art of War")

老子Laozi (founder of Taoism)

孔子Confucius (most influential philosopher in Korean, Chinese and Japanese societies)

陸機Lu, Ji (author of "On Literature," a piece of literature criticism)

劉勰Liu, Xie (author of "Carving of a Dragon by a Literary Mind," a piece on literature aesthetics)

陈独秀Chen, Duxiu (one of the main promoters of modern written Chinese language)

鲁迅Lu, Xun (one of the most influential writers of the 20th century)

胡适Hu, Shi (one of the main promoters of modern written Chinese language)

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Basic Greetings:

你好！- Ni hao! - "Hello!"
再見!/ 再见!- Zaijian! - "Good bye"
明天見！/ 明天见!- Mingtian jian! - "See you tomorrow!"
我的名字是霖達。/ 我的名字是霖达。- Wo de ming zi shi Linda. - "My name is Linda."
我叫霖達。/ 我叫霖达。- Wo jiao Linda. - "I am Linda."
很高興認識你。/ 很高兴认识你。- Hen gaoxing renshi ni - Nice to meet you.

Courtesies:

請您/请您 - Qing nin - "Please... / Could you..."
謝謝/谢谢 - Xie xie - "Thank you."
不客氣/不客气 - Bu keqi - "You're welcome."
對不起/对不起 - Dui bu qi - "Sorry."
真對不起/真对不起 - Zhen dui bu qi - "I'm very sorry."
沒關係/没关系 - Mei guanxi - "No problem, don't worry about it."

Listen to some Chinese words! Interested in hearing Chinese? Check out this site, [2], which has great aural coverage of the language along with examples of both Pinyin and simplified/traditional characters.

(Traditional Characters followed by Simplified Characters)

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] Big Head

Characters (Simplified)	Characters (Traditional)	Pronunciation	English
大头大头下雨不愁你有雨伞我有大头	大頭大頭下雨不愁你有雨傘我有大頭	Dà tóu dà tóu Xià yǔ bù chóu Nǐ yǒu yǔ sǎn Wǒ yǒu dà tóu	Big head, big head When it rains there is nothing to dread You have an umbrella I have a big head

[edit] Marathi

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Marathi uses the devanagri writing system, which is used in other languages such as Hindi and Sanskrit. Traditionally, the Modi script was used, but it was very difficult to use for printing and therefore the devanagri script was adopted and is now the standard writing system for Marathi.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Approximately 90 million people speak Marathi all over the world. Since it is similar to Hindi and other Indian languages in general, it is possible for many non-Marathi speaking Indians to understand some basic phrases and sentences in Marathi, especially speakers of Gujarati and Konkani.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Marathi is spoken in the Maharashtra state of India. Marathi is also the official language of the state and is considered as one of the eighteen official languages of India. Now, Marathi is also spoken in Maharashtrian communities all over the world.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Marathi was formed as a combination of Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, with more influence from Sanskrit. The exact origin of the language is unknown, though records in this language date back to the eighth century. It is clear that Marathi became extensively used in the thirteenth century onwards. The celebrated Maratha kind Shivaji Bhonsale greatly encouraged the spread and use of Marathi, which was the language of his people. It was during Shivaji's time that some of the greatest Marathi works were written, and Marathi literature advanced and developed since his reign.

After the British colonized India, many English words and phrases entered Marathi usage. Even though there are Sanskrit and Marathi replacements, many Marathi-speakers prefer to use English words sometimes, such as "police", "T.V.", "computer", "radio", "fridge (or refrigerator)", etc. This use of English words, however, is significantly lesser in rural dialects and in scholarly contexts.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Many books have been written in Marathi, on various topics. Tukaram, a Maharashtrian Saint, wrote abhangas, or small poems that discouraged evil practices. Other famous authors include B.B.Borkar, Pralhad Keshav Atre, Hari Apte, Vishnu Khandekar, Balchandra Nemade, P.L. Deshpande, Tarabai Shinde, V.V. Shirwadkar, and Narendra Jadhav.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Marathi word - Latin version of the word - English translation

नमस्कार - namaskaar - hello, good morning, afternoon, etc, and goodbye.
तुम्ही कशे आहात? - tumhi kashe aahaat? - How are you?
मी ठीक आहे, आणि तुम्ही? - mee theek aahe, aani tumhi? - I am fine, and you?
तुमच नाव काय आहे? - tumcha naav kaay aahe? - What is your name?
माझ नाव राहुल आहे. - maazha naav Rahul aahe. - My name is Rahul.

The word order in Marathi sentences is different than in English. In Marathi the verb usually comes last in the sentence. For example in the sentence given above for "What is your name?", the order the words are actually said in Marathi is "your name what is". "tumcha" means your, "naav" means name, "kaay" means what, and "aahe" means is.

[edit] Colours

Marathi Word - Latin Version - English Translation

पांढरा - paandhraa - White
काळा - kaalaa - Black
पिवळा - pivlaa - Yellow
हिरवा - hirvaa - Green
निळा - nilaa - Blue
लाल - laal - Red
जांभळा - jaambhlaa - Violet/Purple

[edit] Numbers

English Number. Marathi Number (Latin Version), Representation

0. शून्य (shoonya) ०
1. एक (ek) १
2. दोन (don) २
3. तीन (teen) ३
4. चार (chaar) ४
5. पाच (paach) ५
6. सहा (sahaa) ६
7. सात (saat) ७
8. आठ (aatth) ८
9. नऊ (nau) ९
10. दहा (dahaa) १०

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] येरे येरे पावसा

In Devanagri Script

येरे येरे पावसा, तुला देतो पैसा
पैसा झाला खोटा, पाऊस आला मोठा
ये ग ये ग सरी, माझे मडके भरी
सर आली धाउन,
मडके गेले वाहुन!

In Latin Script

Yere yere pavsa, tula deto paisa
paisa zhala khota, paoos ala motha
ye ga ye ga saree, majhe madke bhari
sar ali dhaoon
madke gele wahoon

Translation

Rain rain, come here, i'll give you a coin
the coin became fake, the rain came with a rage,
Shower Shower (of rain), come here, fill my pots for me
the shower came running,
my pots were washed away.

[edit] Nahuatl

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Before the Spanish colonization of Mexico, Nahuatl was not actually written. When a text needed to be written, a special style of drawing that followed specific rules was used. Those drawings often served more as reminders than actual written stories.

After the arrival of the Spaniards, Spanish was written in a variant of the Spanish script that is still usually used today.

cu is pronounced like qu in queen.It is written uc at the end of words or before a consonant.
qu, c, s, z
hu is pronounced like w. It is written uh at the end of words or before a consonant.
h
'
tl
x
ch
tz

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Approximatively 1.7 million speak Nahuatl as a native language.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Distribution of Nahuatl speakers.

Nahuatl is spoken in Mexico. Its speakers are found in a large part of the country, but are mostly concentrated West and Southwest of Mexico City, in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Guerrero, and Hidalgo.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Nahuatl is known to have been spoken for nearly a millennium. Classical Nahuatl was a language of administration and culture. After the arrival of the Spanish, Nahuatl, unlike several Native American languages, was frequently written for communication, and literate Aztecs and Spaniards transcribed legends,songs and poetry, as well as letters to lords. Since the classical Nahuatl era, the dialects of Nahuatl have become quite different, and many are now considered languages separate from each others, although the term "Nahuatl" is still used to describe the group.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

A painting of Nezahualpilli

Nezahualpilli was ruler of the city state Texcoco from 1473 to 1515 but was also a poet. Unfortunately only one of his poems still exist. It is called "Icuic Nezahualpilli yc tlamato huexotzinco" ("Song of Nezahualpilli during the war with Huexotzinco").

There are other poems and poets who wrote in Nahuatl but unfortunately no one is sure who the poets were that wrote the poems that are still in existence.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

calli: house
cihuātl: woman
cochi: to sleep
cualli: good, something good
cuīcatl: song
ehēcatl: wind
itta: to see
miqui: to die
oquichtli: man
tlahtoa: to speak
ce: one
ome: two
eyi: three
nahui: four
macuilli: five
chicuace: six
chicome: seven
chicueyi: eight
chiconahui: nine
ma'tlactli: ten
ni mits neki: i love you
ahuacatl: avocado
xipotli: a dried (red) jalapeno

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Quititi, quititi, quiti tocoto, tocoti tocoto tocoti zan ic mocueptiuh.

1. Ma xochicuicoya ma ichtoa nichuana ayyahue teyhuinti xochitl ao ya noyehcoc ye nica poyoma xahuallan timaliuhtihuitz ay yo.

2. Ma xochitl oyecoc ye nican ayyahuc can tlaahuixochitla moyahuaya motzetzeloa ancazo yehuatl in nepapaxochitl ayyo. Zan commoni huchuetl ma ya netotilo.

3. Yn quetzal poyomatl ayc ihcuilihuic noyol nicuicanitl in xochitl ayan tzetzelihui ya ancuel ni cuiya ma xonahuacan ayio zan noyolitic ontlapanion cuicaxochitl nicyamoyahuaya yxoochitla.

4. Cuicatl ya ninoquinilotehuaz in quemmanian xochineneliuhtiaz noyollo yehuan tepilhuan oonteteuctin in ca yio.

5. Zan ye ic nichoca in quemanian zan nicaya ihtoa noxochiteyo nocuicatoca nictlalitehuaz in quemanian xochineneliuhtiaz, etc.

Quititi, quititi, quiti tocoto, tocoti, tocoto, tocoti, then it is to turn back again.

1. Let me pluck flowers, let me see them, let me gather the really intoxicating flowers; the flowers are ready, many colored, varied in hue, for our enjoyment.

2. The flowers are ready here in this retired spot, this spot of fragrant flowers, many sorts of flowers are poured down and scattered about; let the drum be ready for the dance.

3. I the singer take and pour down before you from my soul the beautiful poyomatl, not to be painted, and other flowers; let us rejoice, while I alone within my soul disclose the songs of flowers, and scatter them abroad in the place of flowers.

4. I shall leave my songs in order that sometime I may mingle the flowers of my heart with the children and the nobles.

5. I weep sometimes as I see that I must leave the earth and my flowers and songs, that sometime these flowers will be vain and useless.

[edit] References

Launey, Michel : Introduction à la langue et à la littérature aztèques. Paris 1980
Nahuatl, Wikipedia, 20 September 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nahuatl&oldid=158862825
Classical Nahuatl, Wikipedia, 20 September 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Classical_Nahuatl&oldid=158889994
Classical Nahuatl grammar, Wikipedia, 20 September 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Classical_Nahuatl_grammar&oldid=158861043
Ancient Nahuatl Poetry by Daniel Garrison Brinton, Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12219/12219-h/12219-h.htm

[edit] Norwegian

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Norwegian uses all 26 letters in English, along with the letters Æ, Ø, and Å. However, the letters c, q, w, x, and z are only used in loanwords.

There are two types of written Norwegian: Bokmål and Nynorsk. In 2005, about 86.3% of native Norwegians use Bokmål, 5.5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7.5% only use Nynorsk. This means that about 91.8% of Norwegians use Bokmål, while only 15% use Nynorsk.

loanword — a word in a language that comes from a word that is not from that language. For English, café is a loanword, since it was originally from French.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

About 4.7 million, or 4,700,700, people speak Norwegian, making it the 144th highest language in number of speakers.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Norwegian is an official language of Norway and the Nordic Council. The Nordic Council is a group of countries from Northern Europe. It is similar to the European Union.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Norwegian comes from an ancient language called Old Norse. In 782, King Harald Fairhair united Norway. Christianity came to Norway around 1030. Christianity brought with it the Latin alphabet, which is the one used today. Before then, a runic alphabet was used. In the 800s, Old Norse began to seperate into Eastern and Western dialects. Eventually, Western Norse changed and changed until it became Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian around the year 1300. From 1350 to 1525, Old Norwegian changed more until it turned into Middle and then Modern Norwegian, the kind used today.

runic — having to do with runes. Some runic letters that still exist today are the Icelandic letters Þ and Ð. These letters are not used in Norwegian, however.

dialect — a variety of a language. Standard Østnorsk is the kind of Norwegian taught to people who are learning it as a second language.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Some famous Norwegian writers are Henrik Wergeland, Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, and Sigrid Unset. Hamsun and Unset even got Nobel Prizes for their works!

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Hilsener	Greetings
Hallo	Hallo
Hei	Hi
God dag	Good day
God kveld	Good night
God morgen	Good morning
Hvordan har du det?	How are you?
Ha det bra	Good-bye
Vi snakkes i morgen	See you tomorrow
Grunnfraser	Basic phrases
Takk skal du ha	Thank you
Ingen årsak	You are welcome
Beklager	Sorry
Unnskyld	Excuse me
Snakker du engelsk/norsk?	Do you speak English/Norwegian?
Hvor er toalettet?	Where is the bathroom?
Jeg liker...	I like...
Jeg liker ikke...	I don't like...
Jeg heter...	My name is...

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Kongesangen (The Norwegian royal anthem)

Norwegian	English
Gud sign vår konge god! Sign ham med kraft og mot sign hjem og slott! Lys for ham ved din Ånd, knytt med din sterke hånd hellige troskapsbånd om folk og drott!	God bless our good king! Bless him with strength and courage, bless home and palace! Guide him with Your Spirit, tie with Your strong Hand holy bands of allegiance around people and sovereign!
Høyt sverger Norges mann hver i sitt kall, sin stand, troskap sin drott. Trofast i liv og død, tapper i krig og nød, alltid vårt Norge lød Gud og sin drott.	Loudly swear men of Norway each in his calling, his station, loyalty to the sovereign. Loyal in life and death, courageous in war and need, always our Norway obeyed God and its sovereign.

[edit] References

Norwegian language on the English Wikipedia.
Nordic Council on the English Wikipedia.
Norwegian literature on the English Wikipedia.
Kongesangen on the English Wikipedia.

[edit] Polish

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

The Polish language is written in its own version of the Latin alphabet, like English. Unlike English, however, Polish does not have the letters Q, V, and X. The Polish alphabet also uses four diacritics. These are the kreska ("dash"), the ogonek ("tail"), the kropka ("dot"), and the stroke.

Letters having a kreska in Polish include:

Ć or ć (like the "ch" sound in "chocolate"),
Ń or ń (like "yn"),
Ó or ó (like the "oo" sound in "wood", just like Polish u),
Ś or ś (like the "sh" in "ship"),
Ź or ź (a unique "zh" sound).

The letters with an ogonek are both nasal vowels:

ą and
ę.

The letter Ż or ż (like "zh" but different from the Ź sound above) has a dot, and the letter Ł or ł (pronounced like "w" as in "wind") has a stroke.

Because of these differences, Polish has 32 letters. That's six more than in English! The Polish alphabet is:

Upper case	A	Ą	B	C	Ć	D	E	Ę	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	Ł	M	N	Ń	O	Ó	P	R	S	Ś	T	U	W	Y	Z	Ź	Ż
Lower case	a	ą	b	c	ć	d	e	ę	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	ł	m	n	ń	o	ó	p	r	s	ś	t	u	w	y	z	ź	ż

Polish has also digraphs:

Ch or ch (like the "ch" in "loch", just like Polish H)
Cz or cz (like the "ch" in "chocolate" but different from the Ć sound above)
Rz or rz (readen just like Ż)
Sz or sz (like the "sh" in "ship" but different from the Ś sound above)

diacritic — a mark added to a letter to change the way it is pronounced. For example, when a "kreska" is added to the Polish letter "C", its pronunciation changes from a "ts" sound (as in "boots") to a "ch" sound as in "chocolate".

nasal vowel — a vowel which is so called because it sounds like it is being said while the nose is blocked (hence "nasal").

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Polish has 46 million speakers. Of these, 38 million live in Poland, while the rest live in countries all over the world. Around 10% of the EU population speak Polish.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

As the place where it was first spoken, Polish is mainly spoken in Poland. There are also large numbers of Polish speakers in neighbouring countries such as Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine, as well as important Polish-speaking communities in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Polish is an official language of the European Union.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

The history of Polish is closely linked to Mieszko I, the first Duke of Poland.

Like most languages in the countries around Poland, the Polish language comes from the very old Proto-Slavic language, a dead language once spoken around central and eastern Europe. The Polish language as we know it today began to take shape around the 10th century, when Poland started to become a distinct state. In particular, the history of the language is tied in with that of Mieszko I, the first Polish Duke, who united various Slavic tribes in the region that shared a similar culture and language. After Poland became Christian in 966, the new country adopted the Latin alphabet for its language. Before then, the language had no writing system, and only existed through people speaking it.

The earliest examples of written Polish are religious texts written by members of the Catholic Church. Non-religious examples of written Polish emerged in the Middle Ages, and the language kept changing and adding new words from other languages, such as German, Russian and Czech. Today, Polish borrows many words for English for new items that have never existed before, such as computer, which is called komputer in Polish!

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Adam Mickiewicz, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Stanisław Lem, Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Polish	listen	English
ja		I
ty		you
cześć		hello
do widzenia		goodbye
dobranoc		good night
słoń		elephant
kot		cat
Polska		Poland
imię		name

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Christmas is a very special time in Poland. One of the most popular carols sung there is the Jesus Lullaby.

In Polish:

Lulajże Jezuniu, moja perełko!
Lulaj ulubione me pieścidełko.
Lulajże, Jezuniu, lulajże, lulaj!
A Ty Go, Matulu, W płaczu utulaj.

In English:

Sleep, little Jesus, my little pearl!
Sleep, my favourite darling.
Sleep, little Jesus, in loving arms lying,
And you, Mummy, hug him while he is crying.

[edit] References

Polish language

[edit] Portuguese

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

The Portuguese language uses the Latin (Western) alphabet without the letters k, w, and y. They use six different diacritics to change the sounds that the letters make in words. Here are the different letters that are changed by diacritics: á, â, ã, à, ç, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú, ü.

Diacritic — a mark added to a letter to change the way it is pronounced.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

About two hundred and fifty million people speak Portuguese as their native language. It is the 5th most spoken language of the world. It is one of the official languages of the European Union and Mercosul.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Portuguese is spoken all over the world. Most people in Portugal and Brazil speak Portuguese as their first language. It is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Mozambique. A few hundred years ago Portugal colonized many regions around the world including Brazil, countries in Africa, Asia and Oceania. When they did this, settlers from Portugal went to the new colonies and took control of the government and business. Portuguese settlers in the new colonies continued to speak Portuguese and local people needed to learn Portuguese in order to be a part of the government or to be involved in business. These countries include Goa, East Timor, and Macao (which is now part of China). Although Portuguese is not the official language of these countries, it is still spoken by minorities.

There are also large communities of Portuguese speaking people in other parts of the world such as the United States, Andorra, Luxembourg, Jersey, Namibia and Venezuela.

Portuguese-based Creole is also spoken in different parts of the world. These include India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

colonize — to send people to govern and live in another country.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

It is one of many descendents of Latin (Ibero-Roman group). All of these languages split from Latin long ago. During the middle ages the Latin in North Portugal and Galicia (northwestern Spain) slowly became a language called Galician-Portuguese. Galician-Portuguese was a mix of Latin and some of the local pré-Roman languages: Celt, Lusitanian. It also contained influences from the invaders of the Roman Empire: Vandals, Visigoths and later Arabic invaders from northern Africa (the Moors).

Portuguese in Brazil and in other former colonies of Portugal, is spoken with a local accent and many regional words.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Luís de Camões (Portuguese, 1524 – 1580): considered by some the greatest poet of the Portuguese language.
Machado de Assis (Brazilian, 1839 – 1908): widely regarded as the most important writer of Brazilian literature.
Fernando Pessoa (Portuguese, 1888 – 1935): another great Portuguese poet.
Cecília Meireles (Brazilian, 1901 – 1934): Modernist poet.
José Saramago (Portuguese, 1922 – present): Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
Jose Cardoso Pires (Portuguese, 1925 – 1998): author of short stories, novels, plays, and political satire.
Nélida Piñon (Brazilian, 1937 – present): First woman to win the prestigious Juan Rulfo literary prize, awarded annually to a leading Latin American, Caribbean, or Iberian writer.
Paulo Coelho (Brazilian, 1947 – present)

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Português (Portuguese)	English (Inglês)
Sim	Yes
Não	No
Talvez	Maybe
Sempre	Always
Olá	Hello
Oi	Hi
Oi! Como vai?/Como estás?	Hi! How are you?
Bom dia	Good morning
Boa tarde	Good afternoon
Boa noite	Good night
(Que há?) or (O que foi?) or (Qual é?)	What's up?
Não muito.	Not much.
Agora não	Not now
Tchau or Adeus	Good-bye.
Até amanhã.	See you tomorrow.
Poderia dizer-me onde posso encontrar um banheiro (ou casa-de-banho)?	Could you tell me where I can find a bathroom?
Onde posso apanhar um táxi?	Where can I take a taxi?
Quanto custa?	How much does it cost?
Quero um copo de leite.	I want a glass of milk.
Gosto de você (de ti).	I like you.
Te amo (Amo-te).	I love you.
Obrigado (masc.) Obrigada (fem.)	Thank you.
Tenho saudades tuas	I miss you.
De nada or Não há de quê	You are welcome.
Que horas são?	What time is it?.
Por favor	Please.
Desculpa/Desculpe-me	I'm sorry.
Você or Tu	You (singular, familiar)
O senhor (male), a senhora (female)	You (singular, formal).
Vocês	You (plural).
Nós	We.
Eles (male), elas (female)	They.
Você fala inglês?	Do you speak English?
Eu não falo português	I don’t speak Portuguese.
Eu não entendo.	I do not understand
Como se diz isso em português?	How do you say this in Portuguese?
Fale mais devagar, por favor.	Speak slower, please
Repita, por favor.	Say it again, please
Você tem ......?	Do you have ......?
Eu quero	I want .....
Eu não quero .....	I don’t want .....
Eu gostaria .....	I would like .....
Onde é ....?	Where is .....?
Onde posso trocar dinheiro?	Where can I change money?
Qual é a cotação do dólar?	What is the exchange rate for the dollar?
Eu gostaria de trocar cem dólares.	I would like to change $100.00.
Meu nome é ..... or Chamo-me .....	My name is .......
Como você se chama?	What is your name?
Prazer em conhecê-lo (male). Prazer em conhecê-la (female)	Nice to meet you.
Hoje	Today.
Ontem	Yesterday.
Amanhã	Tomorrow.

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] "Cai,Cai, Balão"

Cai,Cai, Balão;
Cai,Cai, Balão;
Aqui na minha mão.;
Não cai, não;
Não cai, não;
Não cai, não;
Cai na rua do João.

in English....
"Fall, Fall, Balloon"
Fall, Fall, Balloon;
Right here in my hand.
Please don't fall;
Please don't fall;
Please don't fall;
Fall on John's street.

[edit] Quenya

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Word Arda (world) written in Tengwar script

Quenya is a constructed language invented by British author John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. His most famous books are the Lord of the Rings series and the Hobbit. Tolkien uses Quenya as well as other languages he created in many of his books. This language uses a special kind of a writing system named Tengwar. "Tengwar" in Quenya means "letters". Letters of the Tengwar script are different than those of the Roman alphabet, which is used for writing English. However, it is possible to write Quenya using the letters of the Roman alphabet, too. Quenya uses the following letters:

a, á, b, c, d, e, é, f, g, h, i, í, l, m, n, o, ó, p, q, r, s, t, u, ú, v, w, x, and y.

There are also several combinations of these letters used to represent other tengwar: ny, ty, ly, gw, nw, cw (which is usually spelled as qu), etc.

Since the Roman alphabet is not the original alphabet used for writing Quenya words, some differences may appear when two different persons write the same word using the letters of the Roman alphabet. For example, some would write cirya (ship), while the others would write kirya. You may also find the letter e having two little dots over it: ë. This does not affect the pronunciation, but is used sometimes to mark the letter e when it is final in a word: minë (one).

constructed language — a language which someone made up. This is unlike English and other natural languages whose rules and vocabulary evolved over hundreds or thousands of years.

script — a way of writing a language; a writing system.

alphabet — all the letters of a language.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

There are many people who study this language for fun. In Tolkien's stories, Quenya is spoken by some Elves and Humans in the lands named Middle-Earth and Valinor. However, very few people actually speak the language.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Tolkien has created a world just like ours, named Arda. There are many peoples living in Arda, and Quenya is the language of the Elves. Some Elvish peoples speak other languages such as Sindarin, Telerin, and Nandorin, just like how not all humans speak the same languages. The other Elvish languages are all similar to Quenya because Tolkien created them as related languages. Many human languages are related also, for example Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian are all similar because they are related languages.

People who studied Quenya for fun usually use it for writing poems and songs as it is said to be a pleasant and musical-sounding language.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

In Tolkien's stories, all the Elves at first spoke one single language, usually referred to as Primitive Elvish. Then they started a big journey from Cúvienen, where they lived at first. As the time passed, and they were moving, the language spread, and Elves began to speak it differently. This is why several different Elvish languages appeared, one of which is Quenya.

Tolkien continued to change Quenya for his entire life. He first started to work on it while he was still a young boy, and he kept improving it right up to his death. Because of this, early Quenya words and grammar were very different from the way they would end up at the end of Tolkien's life.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Quenya is usually used for writing poems, stories, and songs.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973) is the creator of Quenya and several other Elvish languages. His son, Christopher Tolkien, continued publishing Quenya-related material after his father's death.

Helge K. Fauskanger and Thorsten Renk are considered some of the best researchers of Tolkien's languages today. They wrote textbooks of Quenya and Sindarin languages, and articles about Tolkien's languages.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo - A star shines on the hour of our meeting. (In other words: "Hello.")
aran - king
tári - queen
Elda - Elf
Eldar - Elves
atto ar mamil - Dad and Mom
malta - gold
ondo - stone, rock
cár - head
masta - bread
Anar - Sun
Isil - Moon
lírë - song
laire - poem

[edit] Numbers

minë 1
atta 2
neldë 3
canta 4
lempë 5
enquë 6
otso 7
tolto 8
nertë 9
cainen 10
minquë 11
rasta 12

[edit] Colours

carnë - red
culuina - orange
fána or fánë - white (like clouds)
helwa - pale blue
laiqua - green
laurëa - golden
lossë - white (like snow)
luin - blue
malina - yellow
morë or morna - black
ninquë - white
silma - silver, shining white
sindë or sinda - grey
varnë - dark brown

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Try to learn this little song from "The Lord of the Rings" named Rhyme of Lore:

Hallë ciryar ar hallë arani
neldë lúr neldë,
man tuncet Atalantello
or i úlëa eär?
Otso eleni ar otso ondor
ar minë ninquë alda. *

* - translation to Quenya by David F. Ponessa

It sounds like this:

Halle keeryar ar halle aranee
nelde loor nelde
man toonket atalantello
or ee oolea ear
otso elenee ar otso ondor
ar meene neenkwe alda

And that means:

Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.

[edit] Russian

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

The Russian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic writing system. Legend says that two Byzantine brothers, Cyril and Methodius, created it using letters of the Greek and Hebrew alphabets in the 9th century. Cyrillic script has changed much with time, even more than the Latin script we use. Actually, modern Russians are not able to read a three-hundred-year-old book in Russian. This is not only because the language has changed, but also because they are not able to recognize many letters. The last big change of Russian script happened in 1918, and the alphabet has remained the same since.

There are a total of thirty-three letters in the modern Russian alphabet. Two of these letters do not have an actual sound; they simply change the sound of other letters in words. The Cyrillic alphabet goes as follows:

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Russian is the native language for about 145 million people. There are also about 110 million who speak it as a secondary language.

secondary language — any language that a person learns to speak after the first language that they learned at home.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Countries of the world where Russian is spoken.

Russian is, of course, spoken in Russia. It is widely spoken in Belarus and eastern Ukraine. For many years Russia was a part of a larger association called the Soviet Union. In 1991 the Soviet Union separated into several separate countries. Many of these countries, such as Latvia and Estonia, still use Russian for communication between people who speak different languages (like English in other parts of the world). There are also permanent Russian-speaking settlements in the Norwegian territory of Svalbard (Spitsbergen), which was acquired from Russia. Russian is known as what is called Lingua Franca in the countries where it remains in use regardless of whether or not a large ethnic Russian population resides there.

Russian is also spoken by the communities of Russian emigrants in the U.S.A., Israel, Germany, and many other countries.

emigrant — someone who has left the land where she/he was born and moved to another country.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

The Russian language belongs to the group of languages that are called Slavic. These languages have many commonalities, some of which are similar word roots and similar grammar. It is for this reason why scientists think that all Slavic languages originated from one Protoslavic language, that people spoke a long time ago (before 1000 A.D.). As time passed, the language spread, and people in different countries began to speak it differently. It is considered that Russian became a separate language in 14th – 15th centuries.

As Russia changed with time, so did the language. Major events in Russian history brought new features to language and literature. Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin is considered the "father" of modern literary language. He chose to write books using the way that people spoke instead of using old fashioned grammar and vocabulary like the other authors of his time. Though the Russian language is very flexible and ever-changing, Pushkin’s language stays the base and the standard of classic style.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

Russian literature is well known in the West. Possibly you've heard the names of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Brodsky. But not many people know that there are lots of wonderful children’s books in Russia.

Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799 – 1837) is one of the greatest Russian poets. He wrote books both for grown ups and for children. When he was a child, his nanny, Arina Rodionovna, told him many beautiful folk fairy tales. When he grew up, he wrote down these fairy tales in poem form. The plot of The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights is a lot like the Snow White story. In The Tale of Tsar Saltan, when the tsar chooses one of three sisters to be his queen, the others get jealous and tell lies about her. The queen and her son are sent to a faraway island, where a fairy princess helps the young prince to reunite with his father. These books became classics of Russian Children’s literature, and every child in Russia knows them by heart, just like you know Mother Goose rhymes.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828 – 1910), the author of War and Peace, is probably the most well-known Russian writer in the West. He wrote books for children too. He was very compassionate towards peasant people, and tried to help them as much as he could. He opened a school for peasant children and wrote the textbooks for it himself. He also wrote three very beautiful books about his own young years: Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth.

A lot of interesting children’s books were written in Russian in the 20th century. Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky wrote fairy tales about Bad Robber Barmaley and Kind Doctor Aibolit, Moidodyr who makes all kids wash up in the morning, and evil Tarakanishe (the Huge Roach) that terrorizes all the animals in the forest. Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak wrote Tale of a Silly Mouseling and Cat’s house. Nikolai Nosov wrote a series of books about the adventures of Neznaika (Dontknow) and his friends, living in the happy Flower city.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

(try to speak ye out as one sound.)

Привет (Privyet) - Hello (informal)
Здравствуйте (Zdrastvuytye) - Hello (formal)
Как дела? (Kak dela?) - How are you?
Меня зовут... (Menia zovut) - My name is...
Давай дружить! (Davay druzhit!) - Let's become friends!
До свидания! (Da svidaniya) - Goodbye!
Я тебя люблю! (Ya tebya lyublyu) - I love you!
Спасибо! (Spasiba) - Thank you!
Пожалуйста! (Pajalusta) - Please, you are welcome!

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Try to learn this little poem by Agnia Barto:

Уронили мишку на пол,
Оторвали мишке лапу.
Всё равно его не брошу —
Потому что он хороший.

It sounds like this:

Ooronili mishkoo na pol,
Otorvali mishke lapoo,
Vsyo ravno evo nye broshoo —
Pahtomoo shto on horoshiy.

And that means:

Teddy bear was dropped on the floor,
Teddy bear's paw got torn off.
But I will never leave him —
Because he is good.

[edit] Sanskrit

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Sanskrit is written in the Devanagari script, one of the oldest writing systems in the world. Some other languages such as Hindi and Marathi are also written in Devanagari, but Sanskrit is the first language to use this writing system. Originally Sanskrit was not a written language, and when it started being written, a number of different scripts were used initially, until Devanagari became the standard.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

A little more than two hundred thousand people in the World can speak Sanskrit very well. Sanskrit is an old language and is mostly used by priests and scholars of old texts including many religious ones. Many people know at least a little Sanskrit because of the importance it has to other Indian languages and the Hindu religion.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Sanskrit was used widely in ancient times, but nowadays there are very few areas in the World where this language is spoken. It was invented in India, and some communities in India still speak in Sanskrit. Many Asian Buddhists can also speak Sanskrit. It is found in Hindu holy writings and hymns. It is known to be used regularly in some areas in South India, though.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Sanskrit is an ancient language and is comparable to the Latin language spoken in Europe. Sanskrit is a very complex and rich language, which has served to be the source for many modern Indian languages, just like Latin is the source for European languages like French and Spanish.

Sanskrit was considered a high-level language and was spoken by officials, kings, noblemen, etc. It was difficult for the common man to comprehend Sanskrit. Sanskrit eventually became almost extinct, but it was kept alive by holy men, scholars, and Buddhists.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Many ancient writers such as Vyasa, Valmiki, Kalidasa, Bhasa, Bhartruhari, and Chanakya used Sanskrit for their writings. It is a rich language and the writers gained fame for enriching it further. The great Hindu epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, are written in Sanskrit, as are the Vedas, Upanishads, and Subhashitratnani.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Devanagari - Latin - Translation

शून्य - shoonya - Zero
एकम् - ekam - One
द्वी - dvi - Two
त्रीणि - trINi - Three
चत्वारि - chatvaari - Four
पंच - pancha - Five
षट - ShaTa - six
सप्त - sapta - seven
अष्ट - ashTa - eight
नव - nava - Nine
दश - dasha - ten
एकादश - ekaadasha - Eleven

Itranslate format - english translation

shoonya - zero
ekam - one
dvayam - two
tréëi - three
catväri - four
panca - five
ñañöa - six
sapta - seven
añöa - eight
nava - nine
daça - ten
ekädaça - eleven

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Sanskrit

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोस्त्वकर्मणि॥

-श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता (२:४७)

In English letters

karmany evadhikaras te ma phaleshu kadachana
ma karma-phala-hetur bhur ma te sango 'stv akarmani

-Shri Bhagvatgita (Chapter 2 verse 47)

English meaning

karmani—prescribed duties; eva—certainly; adhikarah—right; te—of you; ma—never; phaleshu—in the fruits; kadachana—at any time; ma—never; karma-phala—in the result of the work; hetuh—cause; bhuh—become; ma—never; te—of you; sangah—attachment; astu—be there; akarmani—in not doing.

English Translation

Your right is to work only,
But never to its fruits;
Let not the fruits of action be thy motive,
Nor let thy attachment be to inaction.

[edit] Serbian

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

The Serbian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic writing system. Legend says that two brothers, named Cyril and Methodius, created it using letters of the Greek alphabet in the 9th century. Cyrillic script has changed much with time, even more than the Roman script we use. Actually, modern Serbs are not able to read a three-hundred-year-old book in Serbian! This is not only because the language has changed, but also because they are not able to recognize many letters. The last big change of Serbian script happened in the 19th century, and the alphabet has remained the same since.

alphabet — all the letters of a language.

script — a way of writing a language; a writing system.

There are a total of thirty letters in the modern Serbian alphabet, and they are the following:

It is also possible to write Serbian using the letters of the Roman alphabet, which are used in English too, and many Serbs do so. Here is the list of Serbian Cyrillic letters compared to the Roman ones (the pronunciation is given in the brackets):

Cyrillic	Roman	Cyrillic	Roman
А	A (a)	Н	N (n)
Б	B (b)	Њ	Nj (ny)
В	V (v)	О	O (o)
Г	G (g)	П	P (p)
Д	D (d)	Р	R (r)
Ђ	Đ (dy)	С	S (s)
Е	E (e)	Т	T (t)
Ж	Ž (zh)	Ћ	Ć (ty)
З	Z (z)	У	U (oo)
И	I (ee)	Ф	F (f)
Ј	J (y)	Х	H (h)
К	K (k)	Ц	C (ts)
Л	L (l)	Ч	Č (ch)
Љ	Lj (ly)	Џ	Dž (j)
М	M (m)	Ш	Š (sh)

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Serbian is the native language for about 10 million people. There are also many people who speak it as a secondary language.

native language (mother tongue) — first language that one has learned to speak as a child; the language of his parents.

secondary language — language that one has learned other than his native language.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Countries of the world where Serbian is spoken.

Serbian is, of course, spoken in Serbia. But besides Serbia, Serbian is understood in Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, because these languages (Croatian, Montenegrin, and Bosnian) are so similar that everybody understands each others' languages. There are many Serbian-speaking communities in the USA, Western Europe, Australia, and many other countries where the Serbs have emigrated.

Yugoslavia — a union of present-day Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro that existed from 1918 until the 1990s.

to emigrate — to leave the land where one was born and move to another country.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

The Serbian language belongs to the group of languages that are called Slavonic or Slavic. These languages have many commonalities, some of which are similar word roots and similar grammar. For this reason, scientists think that all Slavonic languages originated from one common language, the so-called Protoslavonic language, that people spoke a long time ago (before 1000 A.D.). As time passed, the language spread, and people in different countries began to speak it differently. It is believed that Serbian became a separate language in 11th – 13th centuries, when the first Serbian countries were formed.

As Serbian countries changed with time, so did the language. Major events in Serbian history brought new features to language and literature. Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić is considered the "father" of the modern literary language. Though the Serbian language is very flexible and ever-changing, Vuk’s language stays the base and the standard of the classic style. Vuk's name (Вук) in Serbian means wolf! :)

Slavonic languages (Slavic languages) — a group of several closely related languages spoken primarily in Eastern, Central, and South-Eastern Europe and Nothern Asia. This group includes Serbian, Russian, Polish, Croatian, Czech, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and many other languages.

linguist — someone who studies languages.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić

Serbian literature is ancient and it has a special style. There are also lots of wonderful children’s books in Serbian.

literature — books, like the one you are reading now.

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787 – 1864) is considered "father" of the modern Serbian language. He is also famous by collecting Serbian proverbs and folk poems and tales. Here is one Serbian folk story written down by Vuk Karadžić:

The Dark Realm

People speak that once some king with his army reached the very end of the world and entered the Dark Realm, where one can't ever see anything. When they entered the Dark Realm, and walked around it, they felt some small stones under their legs, and suddenly something spoke from the dark:

Which one of you takes these stones, he will be sorry! And which one doesn't take them, he will be sorry, too!

Some of the soldiers tought:

If I am going to be sorry, then why should I take them at all?

And some:

I'll take at least one.

When they returned to the light, they saw that those stones were all pure diamonds. Then those who didn't take them were sorry because they didn't, and those who did take them were sorry because they didn't take some more.

Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (1833 – 1904) is one of the greatest Serbian poets for children. He wrote many beautiful poems. His name Zmaj (Змај) in Serbian means dragon! :) Here is one famous poem by Zmaj:

A Child And A Butterfly

Child:
Oh, my little butterfly,
Would you please just come to me!
Spread your wings and twinkle by,
Here's a rose for you to see.

Butterfly:
I would like to come and see,
I would like to twinkle by;
But, your needle might poke me
And my life might go bye-bye!

Child:
I won't do that — don't be scared —
Cross my heart so you could know.
I would only like to bend —
Count how many legs you grow.

Butterfly:
That is something I can tell
Even if I'm not close by:
I have six legs that are swell,
And now, my dear boy, bye-bye!

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Здраво (zdravo) - Hello (informal)
Добар дан (dobar dan) - Good Day (formal)
Како си? (kako see) - How are you? (informal)
Како сте? (kako ste) - How are you? (formal)
Ја се зовем... (ya se zovem) - My name is...
Довиђења! (doveedyenya) - Goodbye!
Шта је то? (shta ye to) - What is that/it?
Говорите ли енглески? (govoreete lee engleskee) - Do you speak English? (formal)
Говориш ли енглески? (govoreesh lee engleskee) - Do you speak English? (informal)
Где је купатило? (gde ye koopateelo) - Where is the bathroom?
Извините! (eezveeneete) - Excuse me! (formal)
Извини! (eezveenee) - Sorry! (informal)

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

Try to learn this little folk poem from the west of Serbia:

Љуља баба дијете,
што га не зовете?
Ми смо га звали,
шећера му дали,
а оно се љути
што је шећер жути!

It sounds like this:

Lyoolya baba deeyete,
shto ga ne zovete?
Mee smo ga zvalee,
shetyera moo dalee,
a ono se lyootee
shto ye shetyer zhootee!

And that means:

Grandma holds her little child,
Why don't you kids call him?
We did call him,
We gave him some sugar to eat,
But he was angry on us,
Because the sugar was yellow!

[edit] Spanish

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Spanish is written using the Latin alphabet, with the addition of Ñ (enye). CH (che) and LL (eye) also used to have their own places in the alphabet (a, b, c, ch, d, …, l, ll, m, n, ñ, …) as well as RR (erre, the double r indicating a rolled r). Since 1994, however, words containing the letters CH and LL have been alphabetized as though spelled with the separate letters c - h and l - l.

Spanish doesn't use letter W except in foreign words. Letter K is used very little and is mainly found in foreign words.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

There are more than 400 million people across the globe who speak Spanish as their first language. When you include non-native speakers (people who learned another language before they learned Spanish), the total increases to about 500 million.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

This language is spoken in Central and South America (except Brazil, Guyana, French Guyana, and Suriname), Mexico, and Spain. Large numbers of Spanish-speaking peoples live in the United States as well. Spanish is also spoken in several Caribbean islands including the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Some Jews living in Israel speak a dialect called Sefardi, also called Ladino.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Spanish is a member of the Romance branch of Indo-European languages, descended largely from Latin. Spanish has also been influenced by many other languages it has been in contact with, including Basque, Germanic, Arabic, several Native American languages, and other Romance languages such as French and Italian, so there are some Spanish words that don't come from Latin.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet and playwright. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, which is considered by many to be the first modern novel, one of the greatest works in Western literature, and the greatest of the Spanish language.
Gabriel José García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, widely credited with introducing the global public to magical realism. He wrote Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and others.
Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. He is best known in the English speaking world for his short stories. Many of his most popular stories concern the nature of time, infinity, mirrors, labyrinths, reality, and identity.
Ernesto Sabato is an Argentine writer best known for his existentialist novels El Túnel, On heroes and tombs, and The angel of darkness.
Julio Cortázar was an Argentine intellectual and author of several experimental novels and many short stories. Cortázar is highly regarded as a master of short stories of a fantastic bent, with the collections Bestiario (1951) and Final de Juego (1956) containing many of his best examples in the genre, including the famous "Continuidad de los Parques."
Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the penname and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and communist politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. His works have been translated into dozens of languages, and he is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. He was accomplished in a wide variety of styles, including erotically charged love poems (such as "White Hills"), surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. Some of Neruda's most beloved poems are his "Odes to Broken Things," collected in several volumes. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez has called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language". In 1971, Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversial award because of his political activism.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Respuestas	Responses
Sí	Yes
No	No
Tal vez, quizás	Probably, perhaps
Saludos	Greetings
Hola	Hello
Buenos días	Good morning
Buenas tardes	Good afternoon
Buenas noches	Good night
¿Qué hay de nuevo?, ¿Qué hay?, ¿Qué onda?, ¿Qué pasa?	What's up?
No mucho.	Not much.
Nada.	Nothing.
Despedidas	Good-byes
Adiós.	Good-bye.
Hasta luego.	See you later.
Hasta mañana.	See you tomorrow.
Hasta la vista.	See you later.
Hablamos (translated 'Nos mantendremos en contacto').	Keep in touch.
Te veo pronto.	See you soon.
Frases útiles	Useful phrases
¿Podría decirme dónde puedo encontrar un baño? (polite) ¿Dónde hay un baño?	Could you tell me where I can find a bathroom? Where is the bathroom?.
¿Cuánto cuesta?, ¿Cuánto es?	How much does it cost?
Quiero leche por favor.	I want milk please.
Gracias.	Thanks.
Me caes bien.	I like you.
Te quiero, Te amo.	lit. I want you, I love you
Mi perro se comió mi tarea.	My dog ate my homework.
...Por favor...	...Please...
De nada.	You're welcome.

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] Hola, amigos como están?

Hola, amiguitos como están?

(Spanish)
Hola, amigos como están?
Hoy vamos a jugar
luego vamos a cantar
y entonces nosotros podemos salir a casa.

Hello, How Are You My Friends?

(English)
Hello, how are you my friends?
Today we are going to play
then we are going to sing
and then we can go home..

[edit] Estrellita

Estrellita

(Spanish)
Estrellita, donde estás?
Me pregunto que serás.
En el cielo y en el mar,
Un diamante de verdad.
Estrellita, donde estás?
Me pregunto que serás....

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

(English)
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

(Literal English)
Where are you, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
In the sky and in the sea,
Truly like a diamond.
Where are you, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

[edit] La Pequeñita Araña

La Pequeñita Araña

(Spanish)
La pequeñita araña subió, subió, subió.
Bajó la lluvia, y se la llevó.
Salió el sol, y todo secó,
Y la pequeñita araña subió, subió, subió.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

(English)
Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun-shine and dried up all the rain,
And itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.

The Cute Little Spider

(Literal English)
The cute little spider climbed up, climbed up, climbed up.
Down came the rain and she was carried away.
Out came the sun and it dried everything,
And the cute little spider climbed up, climbed up, climbed up.

[edit] Un elefante

Un elefante

(Spanish)
Un elefante
Se balanceaba
Sobre la tela de una araña.
Como veía
que no se caía,
Fue a llamar a otro elefante.

Dos elefantes
Se balanceaban
Sobre la tela de una araña.
Como veían
que no se caían,
Fueron a llamar otro elefante.

Tres elefantes...
(Y asi...)

One Elephant

(English)
One elephant
Was balancing
On a spider web.
Since he saw
That it didn't fall
He went to call another elephant.

Two elephants
Were balancing
On a spider web.
Since they saw
That they didn't fall
They went to call another elephant.

Three elephants...
(And so on...)

[edit] Swahili

[edit] Tamil

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Tamil uses a script called வட்டெழத்து (vatteluthu, or "rounded letters"). This is a script with mainly round shapes, optimized for writing on dried palm leaves, which were traditionally used as a form of paper.

Just like the Latin alphabet commonly used to write English, the Tamil script has letters representing vowels and consonants. In addition, unlike the Latin alphabet, there are letters representing combinations of letters and vowels. For example, ப corresponds to the English letter P. ஓ corresponds to the English letter O. And போ corresponds to the English letters po.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Over 66 million people speak Tamil as their native language and an estimated 11 million speak it as a secondary language.

native language — the first language that a person learnt as a child.

secondary language — any language that a person learns to speak after the first language that they learned at home.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961).

Most Tamil speakers live in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore. Tamil is recognized as an official language in India, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. Within India, Tamil is spoken mainly in Tamil Nadu, a state in India. Emigrant Tamil speakers live all over the world and have taken their language with them to their new communities.

emigrant — someone who has moved from the area where they were born to another country or region.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Some of the oldest Tamil writing can be seen in rock inscriptions from 200BC. The oldest work of Tamil literature, called தொல்காப்பியம் (tholkaappiyam, or "ancient vault"), was written sometime between 300BC and 1000AD. This work is a grammar book for Tamil.

Tamil has always been spoken by people of the Tamil culture in India since antiquity; the history of the language (and of the similar south Indian languages belonging to the Dravidian family of languages) before this is not clear. Tamil literature was developed during the classical period by literature events hosted at the historic Tamil city of Madurai by different Tamil kings.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

திருவள்ளுவர்(thiruvalluvar) is a popular Tamil poet, who wrote the திருக்குறள் (thirukkural). It is a collection of philosophical and practical advice, and has been widely translated to the languages of the world.

Ancient poets of note are இளங்கோ அடிகள் (ilango adigal), ஔவையார் (ouvaiyaar), கனியன் பூங்குன்றனார் (kaniyan poonguntranaar).

Some popular, late poets of the past two centuries include பாரதியார் (baaradhiyaar) and கண்ண‌தாசன் (kannadhaasan)

Popular current poets include வைரமுத்து (vairamuthu), வாலி (vaali)

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Hello: vanakkam வண‌க்கம்
Good-bye: paarkkalaam பார்க்கலாம் (literally "let us see [each other again]")
Mother: ammaa அம்மா
Street: theru தெரு
School: palli பள்ளி
Fire: thee தீ
Sound: oli ஒலி
Song: paattu பாட்டு
Jasmine: mullai முல்லை and malligai மல்லிகை
Rice: arisi அரிசி (the English word 'rice' is derived from this Tamil word)
Cooked Rice: soaru சோறு
Father: appa அபபா
Hunger: Pasi பசி
Love: Anbu அன்பு

A typical greeting:
How are you? eppadi irukkeenga? எப்படி இருக்கீங்க?
I'm quite fine : nallaave irukken நல்லாவே இருக்கேன்

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] Tamil text

குறிஞ்சி - தலைவன் கூற்று

யாயும் ஞாயும் யாரா கியரோ
எந்தையும் நுந்தையும் எம்முறைக் கேளிர்
யானும் நீயும் எவ்வழி யறிதும்
செம்புலப் பெயனீர் போல
அன்புடை நெஞ்சம் தாங்கலந் தனவே.

-- செம்புலப் பெயனீரார்

[edit] Transliteration

kurinchi - thalaivan kootru

yaayum ngaayum yaaraa giyaro?
endhaiyum tnundhaiyum emmurai kelir?
yaanum tneeyum evvali yaridhum,
chembulap peyaneer pola
anbudai tnencham thaangalandh thanave.

-- chembulap peyaneeraar

[edit] Translation

In hilly lands - The hero speaks

What could my mother be
to yours? What kin is my father
to yours anyway? And how
Did you and I meet ever?
But in love
our hearts have mingled
as red earth and pouring rain
-- chembulap peyaneeraar (a nickname meaning "[one who sang of] red earth and pouring rain")
Translated by AK Ramanujan (kurunthogai குறுந்தொகை - poem 40)
A poem from the Eight Anthologies எட்டுத்தொகை collection.

[edit] Turkish

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

Turkish uses the Latin alphabet, just like English. However, the alphabet is slightly different.

This is the Turkish alphabet: Aa Bb Cc Çç Dd Ee Ff Gg Ğğ Hh Iı İi Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Öö Pp Rr Ss Şş Tt Uu Üü Vv Yy Zz

All the bold letters sound different from English, and you may have also noticed that Turkish doesn't have the letters Qq, Ww or Xx. Cc sounds like the j in jam. Çç sounds like the ch in chocolate Ğğ doesn't have a sound, but just lengthens the vowel before it. Iı does not sound like an English i, as a matter of fact, it doesn't even have an English equivalent. To make this sound, imagine a British person saying urgh, but a shorter version of it. That's an ı. Just don't forget, it's dotless! İi, however, is dotted, including the capital letters! It sounds like ee but shorter. Jj sounds like the weird s sound in Asia. Öö sounds just like the German ö. A close English equivalent is the i in bird. Şş sounds like the sh in shake Üü sounds like the ou in you.

equivalent — equal in value, measure, force, effect, significance, etc.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

Turkish is the native language of about 70 million people, but worldwide about 100 million people can speak Turkish altogether.

native speaker — someone who learned to speak a language as a child.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

A map showing the number of Turkish speakers in each country.

Turkish is the official language of the Republic of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Turkish is also spoken within communities of the Former Yougoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) where at least 20% of the local population speak it. Turkish is spoken by 2 million people in Germany due to a huge Turkish population living there. About 800,000 people in Bulgaria and over a million people in France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America also speak Turkish. There are also small communities of Turkish speakers found in Greece, Russia and Azerbaijan.

migrant — a person who moves (or has already moved) from one place to another.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

The earliest forms of the Turkish language were written in Orkhon script.

Atatürk teaching the new Turkish alphabet to the Turkish public.

During the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish language was influenced mainly by Arabic and Persian. The primary writing system was based on Arabic and Persian script. Due to the difficulty of learning the language only about 10% of the Ottoman Turkish population were literate.

However, in 1928, modern Turkey's greatest hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, had changed many things about the Turkish language. He changed the writing system to a Turkish variant of the Latin alphabet (without the letters Q, W or X, and added the letters Ö from Swedish, Ç from Albanian, Ş from Romanian, and Ü from German; and also added the letters Ğ, I, and İ to represent certain sounds which weren't present in any other Latin-based languages at the time), and replaced many old Turkish words with new loanwords.

The change of the writing system heavily benefited Turkey's youth, and during the 1930s, the literacy rate shot up to 70%. Today, the overall literacy rate for both males and females is approximately 87%.

literate — Someone who is literate knows how to read and write.

youth — a young person/people.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Nasreddin Hoca riding a donkey.

Turkish literature is very rich, and stretches back even before the time of the Ottomans.

An example of a pre-Ottoman literary figure is Nasreddin Hoca, who is famous for his funny stories. Nobody really knows whether he existed or not, but there is a lot of proof. His tomb (which, although has a door with a huge padlock on it in front of the tomb, has no walls), can even be found in the town of Akşehir in Turkey.

An example of an Ottoman literary figure is Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu, but everyone just calls him Aşık Veysel. He was a famous minstrel and a poet. As a child, he became blind in both eyes. His father gave him a saz, a Turkish instrument, and recited many poems to him. As he was growing up, he devoted himself to playing the saz and singing songs, and ended up becoming a saz virtuoso. Unfortunately he had a very tough life (in addition to being blind, almost his entire family died, and his wife ran away with another man). His songs are like poems and mostly sad, but are very beautiful and touching.

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, Turkey underwent a huge modernization process, making it the most Westernized country in the Islamic world. Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey's most successful authors, has also written many successful books, such as Kar (Snow), and Benim Adım Kırmızı (My Name is Red). In 2006, he became the first Turk to win the Nobel Prize, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

literature — books, like the one you are reading now.

literary — someone or something linked to literature.

minstrel — a poet and musician who sings or recites while playing a stringed instrument.

virtuoso — someone who has special knowledge in or is very skilled at something.

Ottoman — a Turkish dynasty that ruled the Ottoman Empire from the 1300's until the end of World War I.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Cevaplar	Responses
Evet.	Yes.
Hayır.	No.
Belki.	Maybe.
Selamlar	Greetings
Merhaba.	Hello.
Günaydın.	Good morning.
Tünaydın. (rare), İyi öğlenler	Good afternoon.
İyi akşamlar.	Good evening
İyi geceler.	Good night.
Ne var ne yok?	What's up?
Vedalar	Good-byes
Güle güle.	Good-bye.
Görüşmek üzere.	See you later.
Yarın görüşürüz.	See you tomorrow.
Görüşürüz.	See you soon.
Yararlı ibareler	Useful phrases
İngilizce biliyor musunuz?	Do you speak English? (formal)
İngilizce biliyor musun?	Do you speak English? (informal)
Tuvaletler nerede?	Where are the toilets?
Lütfen.	Please.
Teşekkür ederim.	Thank you.
Benim adım...	My name is...
Özür dilerim!	Sorry!
Şerefe!	Cheers!

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] Delivering a khutba

Once, Nasreddin was invited to deliver a khutba. When he got on the minbar (pulpit), he asked "Do you know what I am going to say?" The audience replied "NO", so he announced "I have no desire to speak to people who don't even know what I will be talking about" and he left. The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day. This time when he asked the same question, the people replied "YES". So Nasreddin said, "Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won't waste any more of your time" and he left. Now the people were really perplexed. They decided to try one more time and once again invited the Mullah to speak the following week. Once again he asked the same question - "Do you know what I am going to say?" Now the people were prepared and so half of them answered "YES" while the other half replied "NO". So Nasreddin said "The half who know what I am going to say, tell it to the other half" and he left!

— by Nasreddin Hoca

[edit] Mini Bir Kuş

Mini Bir Kuş is a Turkish nursery rhyme. This is the Turkish version of it:

Mini mini bir kuş donmuştu
Pencereme konmuştu
Aldım onu içeriye
Cik Cik Cik Cik Ötsün diye
Pır pır ederken canlandı
Ellerim bak boş kaldı

This is the translated version into English:

A tiny tiny bird got frozen
It perched on to my window
I took it inside
So that it could sing like jick jick jick jick
When it heard a purring sound it got excited
Look at my hands they're empty now

It sounds silly in English because the lines don't rhyme, unlike in Turkish.

[edit] References

Turkish Wikibook

[edit] Urdu

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

The Urdū alphabet, with names in the Devanāgarī and Latin alphabets

Urdu is written in the Perso-Arabic Script, and has many letters common with Arabic and Persian. It is written from right to left. However, Urdu is often written in the Latin alphabet in text messaging and e-mails.

[edit] How many people speak this language?

There are estimated to be about 60 million native speakers of Urdu and an additional 40 million people who can speak it as a secondary language. It is also closely related to the language Hindi, and speakers of the everyday forms of the languages can usually understand each other.

native speaker — someone who learned to speak a language as a child.

secondary language — any language that a person learns to speak after the first language that they learned at home.

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

Urdu is widely spoken in Pakistan and India, though it also has large number of speakers in the Middle East, United Kingdom, and North America.

[edit] What is the history of this language?

Urdu is believed to have evolved from contact between the local Indo-Aryan speaking population and the people of the Persian/Arabic speaking Mughal Empire who ruled the Indian sub-continent for 500 years. Urdu evolved in the Indian sub-continent from various local dialects such as Prakrit and Brij Bhasha with outside influences from the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish languages.

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

Urdu is rich in both prose and poetry. Some famous poets who wrote in Urdu are Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir, and Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

Urdu word	Latin version	English translation
آداب	Aadab	Greetings!
شکریہ	Shukriya	Thank you.
برائے مہربانی	baraey meherbani	Please
معاف کیجئے	maaf keejiye	Sorry
شب بخیر	shab Bakhair	Good Night
آپ کیسے ہیں؟	aap kaise hain?	How are you?
میں بخیر ہوں	main bakhair hoon	I am fine.
آپ کا نام کیا ہے؟	aapka naam kyaa hai?	What is your name?
میرا نام صائمہ ہے	meraa naam Saima hai	My name is Saima.

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

In Urdu

میں اکیلا ہی چلا تھا جانب منزل مگر .

لوگ ساتھ آتے گئے اور کارواں بنتا گیا

Latin Version

main akela hi chala tha jaanib-e-manzil magar

log saath aate gaye aur kaaravaan bantaa gayaa

Translation

I had started all alone towards the destination but

People kept joining and it became a caravan.

[edit] Glossary

alphabet — all the letters of a language.

character — a letter, number, or punctuation mark.

colonization — going to and conquering other countries; a way of spreading a language. Because England colonized America, the people of America now speak English.

colonize — to send people to govern and live in another country.

consonant — all letters except vowels.

constructed language — a language made up scientifically.

diacritic — a mark above, below, or around a letter that changes how it's said. It sometimes even makes a new letter.

dialect — one form of a language; sometimes different regions of a country develop slightly different forms of a language, called dialects.

digraph — when two letters are used to show one sound.

emigrant — someone who have left the land where he was born and moved to another country.

eszett — a letter which is only found in the German alphabet; it looks like this: ß.

equivalent — equal in value, measure, force, effect, significance, etc.

fluency — being able to speak a language without any trouble.

infinitive — a tenseless form of a verb; it is not used for a specific period of time.

inflection — the way words change form to show things like singular/plural or past/present/future.

language development — the steady growth and change of a language. Languages took over a thousand years to get to what we speak today.

linguist — someone who studies languages.

literary — someone or something linked to literature.

literate — someone who is literate knows how to read and write.

literature — books, like the one you are reading now.

migrant — a person who moves (or has already moved) from one place to another.

minority language — a language spoken by a minority of the population of a country.

minstrel — a poet and musician who sings or recites while playing a stringed instrument.

mood — a certain way of saying something; these can be orders, possible actions, or regular speech.

native speaker — someone who learned to speak a language as a child.

phomeme — one of the basic sounds out of which words are made.

prose — writing in sentence form; the opposite of verse.

secondary language — any language that a person learns to speak after the first language that they learned at home.

speech — "speaking".

tense — a form of a verb that describes a time for an action; for example, "I went," "I am going", and "I will go" are in past, present, and future tense. They are different tenses because they describe different times when I did the action of going.

trigraph — when three letters are used to show one sound.

umlauts — dots, which can be placed above three of the vowels in German, and which change the sound of them. They look like this: Ää, Öö, Üü.

verb — a word that describes an action.

vernacular — the native language of a country.

verse — writing in poetic form; writing not in sentences.

virtuoso — someone who has special knowledge in or is very skilled at something.

vowel — A, E, I, O, U in English.

youth — a young person/people.

[edit] Authors

Robert Horning - began the book;
Ryan Cunningham - idioma inglais/English language; editing; spelling; accuracy.
Michael Ayoub - Polish language;
George D. Božović - Serbian and Quenya languages;
Bronwyn Gannan - literature and history corners;
Girish - Hindi, Marathi, and Sanskrit languages;
Jesse Hannah - Japanese language;
Benjamin Aaron Horowitz - Arabic language;
ImageObserver - Russian language;
David Johncock - English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Esperanto languages;
Markus Koljonen – Finnish language;
Limetom - Irish, Latin, and Persian languages;
Michistraße - Afrikaans language;
Miso - Japanese language;
Rahul "Sabretooth" Shirke - Marathi, Sanskrit, and Hindi languages.
Randy Wilson - Organization, proofing, editing.
Justin Silvestre - Tagalog language.
Xania - Manx Gaelic and Slovenian languages
Mayur Polepalli - Telegu language
Onur - Turkish language.
Bart Niday - Editing, Georgian, small sections of many languages.
Robert Doyle - Added to the Irish language.
Laleena - Irish and Latin mostly.
Mouse is back - Created Norwegian.
Rmawhorter - Editing, proofing, continuity between articles, Swahili, refining various articles.

[edit] Legal Stuff - The Small Print

Version 1.2, November 2002

Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

0. PREAMBLE

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.

1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you". You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law.

A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.

A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.

The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.

The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.

A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that is not "Transparent" is called "Opaque".

Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only.

The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

A section "Entitled XYZ" means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such as "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", "Endorsements", or "History".) To "Preserve the Title" of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains a section "Entitled XYZ" according to this definition.

The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.

2. VERBATIM COPYING

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.

3. COPYING IN QUANTITY

If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.

If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.

It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

4. MODIFICATIONS

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.

B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.

C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.

D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.

E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.

F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.

G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.

H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.

I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.

J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the "History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.

K. For any section Entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.

L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.

M. Delete any section Entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.

N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.

O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.

If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

You may add a section Entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.

The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections Entitled "Acknowledgements", and any sections Entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections Entitled "Endorsements."

6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.

If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.

8. TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of this License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.

If a section in the Document is Entitled "Acknowledgements", "Dedications", or "History", the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.

9. TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.

Wikijunior:Languages/Print version

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

[edit] Contents

[edit] Introduction

[edit] Just what is a language?

[edit] What is not a language?

[edit] Who came up with the languages?

[edit] What is grammar? Why is it important?

[edit] Why not just use one language?

[edit] My friends and I would like to have a secret language

[edit] Constructed languages

[edit] Unusual languages

[edit] Arabic

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

[edit] How many people speak this language?

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] References

[edit] Bengali

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

[edit] How many people speak this language

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] References

[edit] Catalan

[edit] What writing system does this language use?

[edit] How many people speak this language?

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

[edit] Are there words in English of Catalan origin?

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] References

[edit] Dutch

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

[edit] How many people speak this language?

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] References

[edit] English

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

[edit] How many people speak this language?

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

[edit] Some famous authors or poets who speak this language

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] References

[edit] Estonian

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

[edit] How many people speak this language?

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

[edit] Interesting fact

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] French

[edit] What writing system(s) does this language use?

[edit] How many people speak this language?

[edit] Where is this language spoken?

[edit] What is the history of this language?

[edit] Who are some famous authors or poets in this language?

[edit] What are some basic words in this language that I can learn?

[edit] What is a simple song/poem/story that I can learn in this language?

[edit] Petit Papa Noël

[edit] Dame Tartine

[edit] Frère Jacques

[edit] References

[edit] German

[edit] What writing system(s) does German use?

[edit] मछली जल की रानी है

Fish is the queen of water