Part II

Part I

Languages of the Globe

How many languages do the Globe people speak today? This is not the question with a simple answer. The figures differ.

If we turn to the UN statistics, the Earth nations speak now more than 5 000 various languages, some of them being spoken by millions or billions of people, others — only by hundreds. Inside this great number of languages 13 ones are distinguished as the Great Languages according to the total number of speakers.

Over 1,5 billion people speak now Chinese, that belongs to the Chinese-Tibet language group. It is the official language of China.But it is also spoken in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and some other states. There are 7 main dialects of Chinese today. They differ from each other in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar.

About 1 billion people in more than 50 countries of the world speak English as their mother tongue and second official or foreign language. English belongs to the German language group. Today it is one of the world's most important and universal languages.

One of the richest, most expressive and widespread languages in the world is Russian belonging to the East-Slavic languages. About 400 million people in different countries know and speak this language now.

Being the official language of the Russian Federation, Russian also plays a very important role as a means of intercourse of the CIS (the Commonwealth of Independent States) nations. Many people from the East Europe countries know and speak Russian, to say nothing of all the Russian emigrants, who left our land and brought the Russian language to such states as: France, Germany, Norway, Finland, Mongolia, Israel, Afganistan, the USA, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Italy, several states of Africa and many other countries.

The ratio of the rest Great languages is as follows (in millions): Hindi and Urdu — 350, Spanish — 340, Indonesian — 210, Arabian — 200, Bengali — 180, Portuguese — 150, Japanese — 120, German - 100, French - 95 and Italian - 75.

As to the language groups, the situation is this: Spanish is one of the Romanic languages. It occupies the first place in the geographical distribution. It is the official language of Spain. But it is also spoken on the Philippines, in Cuba, several states of Latin America and Africa.

People of India speak more than 800 different languages which belong to the Indo-European language group. The total number of speakers exceeds 1 billion.

Arabian is one of the Semite languages. And it is also one of the most widespread languages on the Globe today. Arabian is spoken in more than 25 states: Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Laos, Libya, Sudan, Tunis, Yemen and many others.

Portuguese belongs to the Romanic language group. It is spoken in Portugal, Brazil, several states of Asia and Africa.

French and Italian belong to the Romanic language group. The first one is the official language in France and the second official one in Canada. It is also spoken in Belgium, several states of Africa and Asia. The second one is the official language of Italy. And it is also spoken by many people in some other countries.

German, that belongs to the German language group, is spoken in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and some other states.

Indonesian belongs to the Malayan-Polynesian language group that includes over 800 languages. It is now spoken on the Philippines, in Taiwan, Indonesia, Madagascar and some other countries.

Japanese belongs to the Asian language group. It is the official language of Japan. But it is also spoken by many people in some other countries: the Philippines, Taiwan, Indo-China and Madagascar.

Two more languages arc rather close to the Great Languages group. These arc Korean and Turkish. The first one is spoken by more than 70 million people and the second one — by 60 million people.

Taking into consideration the distribution rate of several languages, including both the total number of speakers and the states using these languages, the UN chose six languages as its official and working ones. They include Chinese, English, Russian, Spanish, Arabian and French. English holds a special place among them.

Nowadays it is necessary for the people of good will all over the world to know several or at least one foreign language. It is important not only for their personal use or benefit, but also for better understanding between varions nations. It is also necessary for learning more about each other's history and culture, their scientific, economic and technical achievements, as well as for establishing lasting friendly relations and thus for peace and further progress on the Earth.

Знаете ли вы?

1. Today every sixth person on the Globe speaks English.

2. English has the largest vocabulary: 500 000 words and 300 000 technical terms. It is a very flexible language:

a) The same word can function in different parts of speech.

b) Prepositions are very flexible.

c) The vocabulary openness: a lot of words come from many other languages.

d) Compounds and derivatives are easily created.

3. The oldest written language on the Globe is Egyptian. It is 5000 years old.

4. India is the sub-continent which has the largest number of languages — over 800.

5. The largest number of letters in its alphabet has Cambodian — 72 letters.

6. The largest world encyclopedia is printed in Spanish.

7. Latin is one of the ancient languages that belongs to the Italic language group. In XVIII—XIX centuries it was the language of science, commerce, medicine, diplomacy, etc. It has played an important role in the development of many European languages. The Latin vocabulary is one of the richest sources of creating many international words, especially scientific terms.

8. Esperanto has no irregular verbs. It is an artificial languages that was invented in 1887 on the basis of the international vocabulary.

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