History of Latin. Approximate distribution of languages in Iron Age Italy during the 6th century BC. Latin is confined to Latium, a small region on the coast of west central Italy, hemmed in by other Italic peoples on the east and south and the powerful Etruscan civilization on the north. Latin is a member of the broad family of Italic languages. Its alphabet, the Latin alphabet, emerged from the Old Italic alphabets, which in turn were derived from the Greek and Phoenician scripts. Historical Latin came from the prehistoric language of the Latium region, specifically around the River Tiber, where Roman civilization first developed.
How and when Latin came to be spoken by the Romans are questions that have long been debated. Various influences on Latin of Celtic dialects in northern Italy, the non-Indo-European Etruscan language in Central Italy, and the Greek of southern Italy have been detected, but when these influences entered the native Latin is not known for certain. Origins[edit] Old Latin[edit] History of Latin. Polish language. Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages,[4] used throughout Poland (being that country's official language) and by Polish minorities in other countries. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has several additions to the letters of the basic Latin script. Despite the pressure of non-Polish administrations in Poland (during the 19th and early 20th centuries) resulting from Partitions of Poland, who often attempted to suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has developed over the centuries, and the language is currently the largest, in terms of speakers, of the West Slavic group.
It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian and ahead of Ukrainian.[5][6] Geographic distribution[edit] Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country; nearly 97% of Poland's citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. Geographic language distribution maps of Poland from pre-WWII to present. UK Quotations - Source of Famous Quotes. History of the Irish language. Early history[edit] The history of the Irish language begins with the arrival of speakers of Celtic languages in Ireland. This predates the recorded history of the island and is an open question, debated by linguists and archaeologists. Some scholars put the earliest date at ca. 1200 BC,[2] while others posit dates between 2600 and 2000 BC.[3] Primitive Irish[edit] The earliest written form of the Irish language is known to linguists as Primitive Irish.[4] Primitive Irish is known only from fragments, mostly personal names,[5] inscribed on stone in the Ogham alphabet.
Old Irish[edit] Old Irish first appears in the margins of Latin manuscripts as early as the 6th century. Middle Irish[edit] Middle Irish is the form of Irish used from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English. Early Modern Irish[edit] Queen Elizabeth I encouraged the use of Irish even in the Pale with a view to promoting the reformed religion. Scottish Gaelic. Scottish Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic: Gàidhlig; [ˈkaːlikʲ] listen ), sometimes also called Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Old Irish. The 2001 census of Scotland showed that a total of 58,652 (1.2% of the Scottish population aged over three years old)[7] in Scotland could speak Gaelic at that time,[8] with the Outer Hebrides being the main stronghold of the language.
The census results indicate a decline of 7,300 Gaelic speakers from 1991. Despite this decline, revival efforts exist and the number of younger speakers of the language has increased.[9] Outside of Scotland, dialects of the language known as Canadian Gaelic exist in Canada on Cape Breton Island, Glengarry County in present-day Eastern Ontario and isolated areas of the Nova Scotia mainland. Nomenclature[edit] History[edit] English-speaking zone. Urban Dictionary, February 5: Pittsburgh Left. Welsh language. Welsh (Cymraeg or y Gymraeg, pronounced [kəmˈrɑːɨɡ, ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]) is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina).[9] Historically it has also been known in English as "the British tongue",[10] "Cambrian",[11] "Cambric"[12] and "Cymric".[13] The 2011 UK Census counted almost 3 million residents of Wales.
Of these, 73% (2.2 million) reported having no Welsh language skills. A greeting in Welsh is one of 55 languages included on the Voyager Golden Record chosen to be representative of Earth in NASA's Voyager program launched in 1977.[17] The greetings are unique to each language, with the Welsh greeting being Iechyd da i chwi yn awr ac yn oesoedd, which translates into English as "Good health to you now and forever".[18] History[edit] Distribution of Welsh speakers[edit] Trilingual (Spanish, Welsh and English) sign in Argentina Official status[edit]
Top 10 Most Spoken Languages In The World. Our World Language is perhaps the most important function of the human body – it allows us to get sustenance as a child, it allows us to get virtually anything we want as an adult, and it allows us many hours of entertainment through literature, radio, music, and films. This list (in order of least to most spoken) summarizes the most important languages in use today.
Number of speakers: 129 million Often called the most romantic language in the world, French is spoken in tons of countries, including Belgium, Canada, Rwanda, Cameroon, and Haiti. Oh, and France too. We’re actually very lucky that French is so popular, because without it, we might have been stuck with Dutch Toast, Dutch Fries, and Dutch kissing (ew!). To say “hello” in French, say “Bonjour” (bone-JOOR). Number of speakers: 159 million Malay-Indonesian is spoken – surprise – in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Indonesia is a fascinating place; a nation made up of over 13,000 islands it is the sixth most populated country in the world. List of languages by number of native speakers. Current distribution of human language families The following tables list languages of the world with the largest number of native speakers, as estimated in various ways at different times by various sources. Since the definition of a single language is to some extent arbitrary, some mutually intelligible idioms with separate national standards or self-identification have been listed together, including Indonesian and Malay; Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian; etc.
Half of the world's population speak the 13 most spoken languages, the other half speak the rest. For a list of languages with the smallest numbers of native speakers, please see Lists of endangered languages. Nationalencyklopedin (2007) The following table contains the top 100 languages by estimated number of speakers in the 2007 edition of Nationalencyklopedin. Note: Languages with an asterisk (*) have been updated with figures from the 2010 edition of the Nationalencyklopedin. Ethnologue (2013, 17th edition) See also References. History of French. History of the English language. English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects, brought to Britain by Germanic invaders and/or settlers from the places which are now called North West Germany and the Netherlands. It uses a vocabulary unlike other European languages of the same era. A large portion of the modern English vocabulary came from the Anglo-Norman languages.
English is considered a "borrowing" language. Middle English differed from Old English because of two invasions which occurred during the Middle Ages. The 1st invasion was by peoples who spoke North Germanic languages. Proto-English[edit] The languages of Germanic peoples gave rise to the English language (the best known are the Angles, Saxons, Frisii, Jutes and possibly some Franks, who traded, fought with and lived alongside the Latin-speaking peoples of the Roman Empire in the centuries-long process of the Germanic peoples' expansion into Western Europe during the Migration Period). Translate. Origin of language. The origin of language in the human species has been the topic of scholarly discussions for several centuries.
In spite of this, there is no consensus on the ultimate origin or age of human language. One problem makes the topic difficult to study: the lack of direct evidence. Consequently, scholars wishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from other kinds of evidence such as the fossil record or from archaeological evidence, from contemporary language diversity, from studies of language acquisition, and from comparisons between human language and systems of communication existing among other animals, particularly other primates. It is generally agreed[by whom?] That the origins of language relate closely to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement about the implications and directionality of this connection. This shortage of empirical evidence has led many scholars to regard the entire topic as unsuitable for serious study.
Bow-wow. Sounds Familiar? What you can hear You can listen to 71 sound recordings and over 600 short audio clips chosen from two collections of the British Library Sound Archive: the Survey of English Dialects and the Millennium Memory Bank. You’ll hear Londoners discussing marriage and working life, Welsh teenagers talking with pride about being bilingual and the Aristocracy chatting about country houses. You can explore the links between present-day Geordie and our Anglo-Saxon and Viking past or discover why Northern Irish accents are a rich blend of seventeenth century English and Scots. You can study changes in pronunciation among the middle classes or find out how British Asians express their linguistic identity.
What you can do In addition there are interpretation and learning packages relating to the dual themes of language variation and language change within spoken English.