Lines Matching refs:Languages
1076 "World countries, states, and provinces where English is a primary language are dark blue; countries, states and provinces where it is an official but not a primary language are light blue. English is also one of the official languages of the European Union.\n" +
1083 "A working knowledge of English is required in certain fields, professions, and occupations. As a result over a billion people speak English at least at a basic level (see English language learning and teaching). English is one of six official languages of the United Nations.\n" +
1088 " * 2 Classification and related languages\n" +
1130 "Classification and related languages\n" +
1132 "The English language belongs to the western sub-branch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages.\n" +
1134 "The question as to which is the nearest living relative of English is a matter of discussion. Apart from such English-lexified creole languages such as Tok Pisin, Scots (spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland) is not a Gaelic language, but is part of the English family of languages: both Scots and modern English are descended from Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. The closest relative to English after Scots is Frisian, which is spoken in the Northern Netherlands and Northwest Germany. Other less closely related living West Germanic languages include German, Low Saxon, Dutch, and Afrikaans. The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are less closely related to English than the West Germanic languages.\n" +
1142 "Over 380 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[9][10] However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese Languages, depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as \"languages\" or \"dialects.\"[11][12] Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined.[13][14] There are some who claim that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[15]\n" +
1159 languages that are given equal status in South Africa (\"South African English\"). English is also an important language in several former colonies or current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, such as in Hong Kong and Mauritius.\n" +
1161 "English is not an official language in either the United States or the United Kingdom.[25][26] Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments.[27]\n" +
1167 "Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a \"global language\", the lingua franca of the modern era.[2] While English is not an official language in many countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a second language around the world. Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural sign of \"native English speakers\", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications, as well as one of the official languages of the European Union, the United Nations, and most international athletic organisations, including the International Olympic Committee.\n" +
1177 "The expansion of the British Empire and?since WWII?the primacy of the United States have spread English throughout the globe.[2] Because of that global spread, English has developed a host of English dialects and English-based creole languages and pidgins.\n" +
1185 "Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in a great many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several pidgins and creole languages have formed using an English base, such as Jamaican Creole, Nigerian Pidgin, and Tok Pisin. There are many words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words. Franglais, for example, is used to describe French with a very high English word content; it is found on the Channel Islands. Another variant, spoken in the border bilingual regions of Québec in Canada, is called FrEnglish.\n" +
1194 " * Manually Coded English ? a variety of systems have been developed to represent the English language with hand signals, designed primarily for use in deaf education. These should not be confused with true sign languages such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language used in Anglophone countries, which are independent and not based on English.\n" +
1197 "Euro-English (also EuroEnglish or Euro-English) terms are English translations of European concepts that are not native to English-speaking countries. Due to the United Kingdom's (and even the Republic of Ireland's) involvement in the European Union, the usage focuses on non-British concepts. This kind of Euro-English was parodied when English was \"made\" one of the constituent languages of Europanto.\n" +
1334 "The nuclear syllable is spoken more loudly than the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. In this opposition between falling and rising pitch, which plays a larger role in English than in most other languages, falling pitch conveys certainty and rising pitch uncertainty. This can have a crucial impact on meaning, specifically in relation to polarity, the positive?negative opposition; thus, falling pitch means \"polarity known\", while rising pitch means \"polarity unknown\". This underlies the rising pitch of yes/no questions. For example:\n" +
1344 "English grammar has minimal inflection compared with most other Indo-European languages. For example, Modern English, unlike Modern German or Dutch and the Romance languages, lacks grammatical gender and adjectival agreement. Case marking has almost disappeared from the language and mainly survives in pronouns. The patterning of strong (e.g. speak/spoke/spoken) versus weak verbs inherited from its Germanic origins has declined in importance in modern English, and the remnants of inflection (such as plural marking) have become more regular.\n" +
1368 "The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology and other fields, and new slang is constantly developed. Some of these new words enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might or might not be widely considered as \"English\".\n" +
1382 "One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are \"Latinate\" (Latin-derived, either directly from Norman French or other Romance languages).\n" +
1390 " * Other Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English): 25%\n" +
1394 " * All other languages contributed less than 1% (e.g. Arabic-English loanwords)\n" +
9071 var languages = new Array(
9108 for (idx in languages) {
9110 var text = languages[idx];
