query: what are the major languages spoken in italy?

title: Languages of Italy

text: evolved locally from Vulgar Latin, independently of what would become the national language, long before the fairly recent spread of Italian throughout Italy. In fact, Standard Italian is itself either a continuation of, or a dialect heavily based on, Florentine Tuscan. The indigenous local Romance tongues of Italy are therefore classified as separate languages that evolved independently from Latin, rather than "dialects" or variations of the Italian language. Conversely, with the spread of Standard Italian throughout Italy in the 20th century, local varieties of Italian have also developed throughout the peninsula, influenced to varying extents by the underlying local languages,

title: Languages of Calabria

text: Languages of Calabria The primary languages of Calabria are the standard Italian language as well as regional varieties of the Neapolitan and Sicilian languages, all collectively known as Calabrian (Italian: "calabrese"). In addition, there are small numbers of Calabrian Greek speakers and pockets of Occitan and Arbëresh. Calabrian (it: "Calabrese") refers to the Romance varieties spoken in Calabria, Italy. The varieties of Calabria are part of a strong dialect continuum that are generally recognizable as Calabrian, but that are usually divided into two different language groups: The Amantea-Cirò line is generally considered an approximate demarcation between the Neapolitan and Sicilian

title: Languages of Italy

text: Languages of Italy There are approximately thirty-four native living spoken languages and related dialects in Italy, most of which are indigenous evolutions of Vulgar Latin, and are therefore classified as Romance languages. Although they are sometimes referred to as regional languages, there is no uniformity within any Italian region, and speakers from one locale within a region are typically aware of the features distinguishing their local tongue from the one of other places nearby. The official and most widely spoken language across the country is Standard Italian, a direct descendant of Tuscan. Almost all the Romance languages native to Italy,

title: Languages of Italy

text: with the notable exception of Italian, are often colloquially referred to as "dialects", although for some of them the term may coexist with other labels like "minority languages" or "vernaculars". However, the use of the term "dialect" to refer to the languages of Italy may erroneously imply that the languages spoken in Italy are actual "dialects" of Standard Italian in the prevailing linguistic sense of "varieties or variations of a language". This is not the case regarding the longstanding languages of Italy, as they are not varieties of Italian. Most of the local Romance languages of Italy predate Italian and

title: Languages of Italy

text: to the north of Tuscany; however, the dialects of Occitan and Franco-Provençal spoken in the extreme northwest of Italy (e.g. the Valdôtain in the Aosta Valley) are generally excluded. The classification of these languages is difficult and not agreed-upon, due both to the variations among the languages and to the fact that they share isoglosses of various sorts with both the Italo-Romance languages to the south and the Gallo-Romance languages to the northwest. One common classification divides these languages into four groups: Any such classification runs into the basic problem that there is a dialect continuum throughout northern Italy, with

title: Languages of Italy

text: most noticeably at the phonological level; though regional boundaries seldom correspond to isoglosses distinguishing these varieties, these variations on Italians are commonly referred to as Regional Italian ("italiano regionale"). There are several minority languages that belong to other Indo-European branches, such as Cimbrian (Germanic), Arbëresh (Albanian), the Slavomolisano dialect of Serbo-Croatian (Slavic), and Griko (Hellenic). Other non-indigenous languages are spoken by a substantial percentage of the population due to immigration. Italy is a signatory of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but has not ratified the treaty, and therefore its provisions protecting regional languages do not apply in

title: Languages of Italy

text: a continuous transition of spoken dialects between e.g. Venetian and Ladin, or Venetian and Emilio-Romagnolo (usually considered Gallo-Italian). All of these languages are considered innovative relative to the Romance languages as a whole, with some of the Gallo-Italian languages having phonological changes nearly as extreme as standard French (usually considered the most phonologically innovative of the Romance languages). This distinguishes them significantly from standard Italian, which is extremely conservative in its phonology (and notably conservative in its morphology). Approximate distribution of the regional languages of Sardinia and Southern Italy according to the UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger:

title: Italo-Dalmatian languages

text: 10th and the 20th centuries, in Italy, Corfu and Zante. Italo-Dalmatian languages The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France) and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia). Italo-Dalmatian can be split into: The generally accepted four branches of the Romance languages are Western Romance, Italo-Dalmatian, Sardinian and Eastern Romance. But there are other ways that the languages of Italo-Dalmatian can be classified in these branches: Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby lists four languages: Corsican, Tuscan and Italian, Neapolitan–Sicilian, and Dalmatian. In addition, some Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in Central-Southern Italy. Judeo-Italian languages

title: Languages of Italy

text: the procedures of criminal cases passed that explicitly state that Italian should be used: According to the UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, there are 31 endangered languages in Italy. The degree of endangerment is classified in different categories ranging from 'safe' (safe languages are not included in the atlas) to 'extinct' (when there are no speakers left). The source for the languages' distribution is the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger unless otherwise stated, and refers to Italy exclusively. All living languages indigenous to Italy are part of the Indo-European language family. The source is the

title: Italo-Dalmatian languages

text: Italo-Dalmatian languages The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France) and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia). Italo-Dalmatian can be split into: The generally accepted four branches of the Romance languages are Western Romance, Italo-Dalmatian, Sardinian and Eastern Romance. But there are other ways that the languages of Italo-Dalmatian can be classified in these branches: Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby lists four languages: Corsican, Tuscan and Italian, Neapolitan–Sicilian, and Dalmatian. In addition, some Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in Central-Southern Italy. Judeo-Italian languages are varieties of Italian used by Jewish communities, between the

title: Languages in censuses

text: Antillean Creole and Louisiana Creole. Officially English and Chinese are the two official language of Hong Kong. The definition of Chinese is somehow ambiguous as Chinese itself consists of a number of mutually unintelligible varieties. Cantonese is the major spoken language in Hong Kong and written in various form with Traditional Chinese characters. English is a variant of British English, though American English is also commonly used in Hong Kong. From 19th century, censuses have investigated what languages the people of Hong Kong speak. Hakka, Hoklo, and Tanka have lost importance over time. Cantonese has come to be spoken by

title: Northern Italy

text: Northern Italy Northern Italy ( or just ) is a geographical region in the northern part of Italy. Non-administrative, it consists of eight administrative Regions in northern Italy: Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. As of 2014, its population was 27,801,460. Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in the region, as opposed to the Italo-Dalmatian languages spoken in the rest of Italy. For statistic purposes, the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT) uses the terms Northwest Italy and Northeast Italy for two of Italy's five statistical regions in its reporting. These same subdivisions are used

title: Languages of Italy

text: One common classification divides these languages into two groups: All of these languages are considered conservative relative to the Romance languages as a whole, with Sardinian being the most conservative of them all. Although "[al]most all Italian dialects were being written in the Middle Ages, for administrative, religious, and often artistic purposes," use of local language gave way to stylized Tuscan, eventually labeled Italian. Local languages are still occasionally written, but only the following regional languages of Italy have a standardised written form. This may be widely accepted or used alongside more traditional written forms: Languages of Italy There are

title: Austronesian languages

text: few languages, such as Malay and the Chamic languages, are indigenous to mainland Asia. Many Austronesian languages have very few speakers, but the major Austronesian languages are spoken by tens of millions of people and one Austronesian language, Malay (including both Indonesian and Malaysian variants), is spoken by 250 million people, making it the 8th most spoken language in the world. Approximately twenty Austronesian languages are official in their respective countries (see the list of major and official Austronesian languages). Different sources count languages differently, but Austronesian and Niger–Congo are the two largest language families in the world by the

title: Languages of the European Union

text: language of Europe. A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in EU countries. Turkish is spoken as a first language by an estimated 1% of the population in Belgium and the western part of Germany, and by 1% in the Netherlands. Other widely used migrant languages include Berber languages which is spoken by about 1% of the population of both the Netherlands and Belgium and by many Berbers migrants in France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Arabic is spoken in many EU countries mainly in its two varieties Maghrebi Arabic and Levantine

title: Languages of the European Union

text: Arabic. The Maghrebi Arabic is spoken by migrants in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The Levantine Arabic is spoken by migrants in Germany, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Greece. Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, and Punjabi are spoken by immigrants from the Indian sub-continent in the United Kingdom. Languages from former Yugoslavia (Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Albanian, etc.) are spoken in many parts of the EU by migrants and refugees who have left the region as a result of the Yugoslav wars and unrest there. There are large Chinese communities in France, the UK, Spain, Italy, and

title: Southern Italy autonomist movements

text: Southern Italy autonomist movements In Italy, there are some active movements and parties calling for autonomy or even independence for the areas comprised within the historical Kingdom of the two Sicilies: that is, Southern Italy and/or the region of Sicily. No political movement promoting these ideas has ever been successful in gaining traction among the population. The movement remains on the fringes with no representation in the Italian parliament. Most of the languages traditionally spoken in southern Italy (historically the Kingdom of the two Sicilies) are grouped as dialects of the Neapolitan and Sicilian languages. Like the Gallo-Romance languages spoken

title: Finnic languages

text: Finnic languages The Finnic languages (Fennic), or Baltic Finnic languages (Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic), are a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by Finnic peoples, mainly in Finland and Estonia, by about 7 million people. Traditionally, eight Finnic languages have been recognized. The major modern representatives of the family are Finnish and Estonian, the official languages of their respective nation states. The other Finnic languages in the Baltic Sea region are Ingrian and Votic, spoken in Ingria by the Gulf of Finland; and Livonian, once spoken around the Gulf of Riga. Spoken farther northeast are Karelian, Ludic

title: Languages of Ethiopia

text: Languages of Ethiopia The languages of Ethiopia refers to the various spoken forms of communication in Ethiopia. It includes the nation's official languages, its national and regional languages, as well as its minority and foreign languages. There are 88 individual languages of Ethiopia according to Ethnologue, with the 1994 Ethiopian census indicating that some 77 tongues were spoken locally. Most of these languages belong to the Afroasiatic family (Semitic and Cushitic languages; Omotic languages are also spoken, though their classification is uncertain). Additionally, Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by what the government calls the "Nilotic" people, though scholars distinguish Nilotic from

title: Languages of France

text: bilingual people are now counted twice): Languages of France Of the languages of France, the national language, French, is the only official language according to the second article of the French Constitution, and its standardized variant is by far the most widely spoken. Several regional languages are also spoken to varying degrees as a secondary language after French, such as German dialects (Alsatian 1.44%), Celtic languages (Breton 0.61%) and other Gallo-Romance languages (Langues d'Oïl 1.25%, Occitan 1.33%). Some of these languages have also been spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy or Spain. The official language of

title: Rhaeto-Romance languages

text: Rhaeto-Romance languages Rhaeto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a traditional subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in north and north-eastern Italy and in Switzerland. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Rhaetia. The linguistic basis of the subfamily is discussed in the so-called Questione Ladina. The Rhaeto-Romance languages form a group of Romance languages in the Alps region of northern Italy and Switzerland. Initially studied by Italian Linguist Graziadio Ascoli in 1873, Ascoli found these languages to share a number of intricacies and believed they belonged to a specific linguistic group. What distinguishes Rhaeto-Romance languages from Italian

title: Languages of Tanzania

text: Additionally, several Tanzanian sign languages are used. Major languages spoken in Tanzania include: Languages spoken by the country's ethnic minorities include: Languages of Tanzania Tanzania is a multilingual country. There are many languages spoken in the country, but no one language is spoken natively by a majority or a large plurality of the population. The Bantu Swahili language and English, the latter of which was inherited from colonial rule ("see Tanganyika Territory"), are widely spoken as lingua francas. They serve as working languages in the country, with Swahili being the official national language. There are more speakers of Swahili than

title: Manding languages

text: indigenous scripts. Manding languages The Manding languages (sometimes spelt Manden) are mutually intelligible dialects or languages in West Africa of the Mande family. Their best-known members are Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali; Mandinka, the main language of Gambia; Maninka or Malinké, a major language of Guinea; and Dyula, a trade language of the northern Ivory Coast and western Burkina Faso. The Manding languages, and what distinguishes one from the rest and relationships among all of them are matters that continue to be researched. In addition, the nomenclature - being a mixture of indigenous terms and words applied

title: Manding languages

text: Manding languages The Manding languages (sometimes spelt Manden) are mutually intelligible dialects or languages in West Africa of the Mande family. Their best-known members are Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali; Mandinka, the main language of Gambia; Maninka or Malinké, a major language of Guinea; and Dyula, a trade language of the northern Ivory Coast and western Burkina Faso. The Manding languages, and what distinguishes one from the rest and relationships among all of them are matters that continue to be researched. In addition, the nomenclature - being a mixture of indigenous terms and words applied by English

title: Languages in censuses

text: single languages or language families. These categories represent the most commonly spoken languages other than English at home in the U.S. Due to small sample counts, data tabulations are not generally available for all 382 detailed languages. Instead, the Census Bureau collapses languages into smaller sets. These sets of languages were originally developed following the 1970 Census and are grouped linguistically and geographically. , the simplest collapse recodes the 382 language codes into four major language groups: Spanish; Other Indo-European languages; Asian and Pacific Island languages; and All Other languages. A more detailed collapsing puts the 382 codes into 39

title: Gallo-Italic languages

text: Gallo-Romance, but other linguists group them in Italo-Dalmatian. Traditionally spoken in Northern Italy, southern Switzerland, San Marino and Monaco, most Gallo-Italian languages have given way in everyday use to Standard Italian. The vast majority of current speakers are bilingual with Italian. These languages are still spoken by the Italian diaspora in countries with Italian immigrant communities. The variety of Ligurian spoken in Monaco is formalised as Monégasque ("Munegascu"). The Gallo-Italian languages differ somewhat in their phonology from one language to another, but the following are the most important characteristics, as contrasted with Standard Italian: Varieties of Gallo-Italian languages are also

title: Languages of France

text: Languages of France Of the languages of France, the national language, French, is the only official language according to the second article of the French Constitution, and its standardized variant is by far the most widely spoken. Several regional languages are also spoken to varying degrees as a secondary language after French, such as German dialects (Alsatian 1.44%), Celtic languages (Breton 0.61%) and other Gallo-Romance languages (Langues d'Oïl 1.25%, Occitan 1.33%). Some of these languages have also been spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy or Spain. The official language of the French Republic is French (art.

title: Languages in censuses

text: make it important to follow the evolution of the national official language, and among them are the late achievement of sufficient standards of literacy and of educational accomplishments, together with the particular and complex history of Italian languages/dialects and the wideness of their use in literature and in other forms of art (notably theatre and cinematography). Some of the languages spoken, different from Italian, which are in common use in Italy are, among the many, Sardinian, used in Sardinia, Sicilian used in Sicily, Friulian used in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Venetian used mainly in Veneto. With the Istat's report of 2012, this

title: Spoken language

text: Spoken language A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds, as opposed to a written language. Many languages have no written form and so are only spoken. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract, as opposed to a sign language, which is produced with the hands and face. The term "spoken language" is sometimes used to mean only vocal languages, especially by linguists, making all three terms synonyms by excluding sign languages. Others refer to sign language as "spoken", especially in contrast to written transcriptions of signs. In spoken language, much

title: Languages of Colombia

text: Languages of Colombia More than 99.2% of Colombians speak the Spanish language; also 65 Amerindian languages, 2 Creole languages and the Romani language are spoken in the country. English has official status in the San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands. The overwhelming majority of Colombians speak Spanish (see also Colombian Spanish), but in total 101 languages are listed for Colombia in the Ethnologue database. The specific number of spoken languages varies slightly since some authors consider as different languages what others consider to be varieties or dialects of the same language. Best estimates recorded 71 languages that are spoken

title: Languages in censuses

text: ethnic group is an optional one. The results among the people that have answered both questions according to the latest census in 2011 are: There are abouts 292 living languages in China. The languages most commonly spoken belong to the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, which contains Mandarin (spoken natively by 70% of the population), and other Chinese languages: Wu (including Shanghainese), Yue (including Cantonese and Taishanese), Min (including Hokkien and Teochew), Xiang, Gan, and Hakka. Languages of the Tibeto-Burman branch, including Tibetan, Qiang, Naxi and Yi, are spoken are spoken across the Tibetan and Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau. Other

title: Languages of Italy

text: SIL's Ethnologue unless otherwise stated. Language classification can be a controversial issue, when a classification is contested by academic sources, this is reported in the 'notes' column. They can be divided into Romance languages and non-Romance languages. Not included is Corsican, which is mainly spoken on the French island of Corsica. Istriot is only spoken in Croatia. Judeo-Italian is moribund. Sardinian is a distinct language group with significant phonological differences among its varieties. "Ethnologue", not without controversy, even goes as far as considering Sardinian to be four separate languages, all being included along with Corsican and the Corso-Sardinian varieties in

title: Languages of the Nuba Mountains

text: only exceptions are the Daju languages, the rest of which belong to Western Daju and are found in eastern Chad, and Sudanese Arabic, which is spoken in the rest of Sudan. The languages of the Nuba Mountains belong to several distinct subdivisions of their respective languages families. Bold = not exclusive to the Nuba Mountains. Atlantic–Congo is a major division of Niger–Congo which only excludes the Mande, Ijoid and Dogon languages of West Africa, along with the Katla and Rashad languages of the Nuba Mountains. Eastern Sudanic is a large division of Nilo-Saharan spoken throughout the upper Nile region. Kir–Abbaian

title: Languages of India

text: written in modified versions of the Perso-Arabic script. With this one exception, the scripts of Indian languages are native to India. Languages like Kodava that didn't have a script whereas Tulu which had a script adopted Kannada due to its readily available printing settings; these languages have taken up the scripts of the local official languages as their own and are written in the Kannada script. Languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians. Languages

title: Italic languages

text: branch transitional to Italic. It was spoken in northeastern Italy. Some other languages belong to the Italic branch, but too little is known for further classification: Aequian, spoken by the Aequi just east of Rome, and Vestinian, spoken by the Vestini in northeast Italy. It is unknown whether Sicel, the Indo-European language spoken by the Sicels in eastern Sicily was Italic or not. As the Roman Republic extended its political dominion over the whole of the Italian peninsula, Latin became dominant over the other Italic languages, which ceased to be spoken perhaps sometime in the 1st century AD. From Vulgar

title: Delaware languages

text: The languages of the Algonquian family constitute a group of historically related languages descended from a common source language, Proto-Algonquian. The Algonquian languages are spoken across Canada from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast; on the American Plains; south of the Great Lakes; and on the Atlantic coast. Many of the Algonquian languages are now extinct. The Eastern Algonquian languages were spoken on the Atlantic coast from what are now called the Canadian Maritime provinces to North Carolina. Many of the languages are now extinct, and some are known only from very fragmentary records. Eastern Algonquian is considered a

title: Languages of Spain

text: area sometimes called "Valley of Jálama/Xálima", which includes the towns of San Martín de Trevejo ("Sa Martin de Trevellu"), Eljas ("As Elhas") and Valverde del Fresno ("Valverdi du Fresnu"), in the northwestern corner of Cáceres province, Extremadura. Portuguese proper is still spoken by local people in three border areas: In addition to the languages which continue to be spoken in Spain to the present day, other languages which have been spoken within what are now the borders of Spain include: Languages that are now chiefly spoken outside Spain but which have roots in Spain are: There are also variants of

title: Languages of Belize

text: Languages of Belize According to the 2010 census, the major languages spoken in Belize include English, Spanish and Kriol, all three spoken by more than 40% of the population. Mayan languages are also spoken in certain areas. English is the official language and the primary language of public education, though spoken natively by a minority of people as a first language. Spanish is taught in primary and secondary schools as well. Bilingualism is very common. English is the major language in the primary and most populated Belize District. Spanish is the most used language in the frontier districts of Cayo,

title: Culture of Italy

text: Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Italic languages of the North, and through Corsican varieties with Sardinian, becoming the center of a dialect continuum. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of post-Roman invaders. There are only a few communities in Italy in which Italian is not spoken as the first language, but many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardised Italian and other regional languages. These include native communities of Indo-European languages like Albanian, Croatian and Greek in southern Italy, Slovene and German varieties in Northern Italy, and dozens of

title: Languages of Kenya

text: Languages of Kenya Kenya is a multilingual country. The Bantu Swahili language and English, the latter being inherited from colonial rule ("see British Kenya"), are widely spoken as lingua franca. They serve as the two official working languages. Including second-language speakers, there are more speakers of Swahili than English in Kenya. According to "Ethnologue", there are a total of 68 languages spoken in Kenya. This variety is a reflection of the country's diverse population that includes most major ethnoracial and linguistic groups found in Africa (see Languages of Africa). Most languages spoken locally belong to two broad language families: Niger-Congo

title: Languages of the European Union

text: status within the member state and count many more speakers than some of the lesser-used official languages. The official languages of EU are in bold. In the list those idioms deemed by member states as mere dialects of an official language are not included. However many of these dialects are often viewed as separate languages: Scots—the Germanic language descended from Old English, not the Celtic language known as Scottish Gaelic—and several Romance languages spoken in Portugal, France and Italy, such as Mirandese, Lombard, Ligurian, Piedmontese, Venetian, Corsican, Neapolitan, and Sicilian. The French constitution stipulates French as the sole language of

title: Northeast Italy

text: but only recognised by the Veneto region; Friulian, spoken in most of Friuli and nationally recognized, and Ladin, spoken by a few thousand people in the Dolomites. Other languages are German, the primary language of South Tyrol, where Italian is spoken by about two thirds of the inhabitants, and Slovene, recognized by Italy and spoken on the border of Italy and Istria, where the main language today is Croatian but Italian is recognized as a minority language. The terms Tre Venezie or "Triveneto "(literally "Triple Veneto"), refer to the three regions of Veneto (before 1947 Venezia Euganea, united to Friuli)

title: Chamic languages

text: Chamic languages The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Achinese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in Aceh (Sumatra, Indonesia) and in parts of Cambodia, Vietnam and Hainan, China. The Chamic languages are a subgroup of Malayo-Sumbawan languages in the Austronesian family. The ancestor of this subfamily, proto-Chamic, is associated with the Sa Huỳnh culture, its speakers arriving in what is now Vietnam from Borneo or perhaps the Malay Peninsula. After Acehnese, with 3.5 million, Jarai and Cham are the most widely spoken Chamic languages, with about 230,000 and 280,000 speakers respectively, in both Cambodia and Vietnam. Tsat

title: Austronesian languages

text: Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages are a language family that is widely dispersed throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, Madagascar and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, with a few members in continental Asia. Austronesian languages are spoken by about 386 million people (4.9%), making it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages with the highest number of speakers are Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian), Javanese, and Filipino (Tagalog). The family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family. Similarities between the languages spoken in the Malay Archipelago and the Pacific Ocean were first observed

title: Languages of Asia

text: Languages of Asia There is a wide variety of languages spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families spoken on the continent include Altaic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Siberian, Sino-Tibetan and Tai-Kadai. They usually have a long tradition of writing, but not always. The major families in terms of numbers are Indo-European and Indo-Aryan Languages and Dravidian languages|Dravidian]] in South Asia and Sino-Tibetan in East Asia. Several other families are regionally dominant. Sino-Tibetan includes Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, Karen and numerous languages of the Tibetan Plateau, southern China, Burma, and North

title: Kariri languages

text: peoples over a wide area in the east of Brazil, in the lower and middle São Francisco River area and further north. Most of their now-extinct languages are too poorly known to classify, but what is recorded does not suggest that they were all members of the Kariri family. Examples are: Kariri languages The Karirí languages, generally considered dialects of a single language, are extinct languages formerly spoken by the Kiriri people of Brazil. It was spoken until the middle of the 20th century; the 4,000 ethnic Kiriri are now monolingual Portuguese speakers, though a few know common phrases and

title: Languages of Kenya

text: Ethnologue (2009) reports the largest communities of native speakers in Kenya as follows: Languages spoken by the country's ethnic minorities include: Languages of Kenya Kenya is a multilingual country. The Bantu Swahili language and English, the latter being inherited from colonial rule ("see British Kenya"), are widely spoken as lingua franca. They serve as the two official working languages. Including second-language speakers, there are more speakers of Swahili than English in Kenya. According to "Ethnologue", there are a total of 68 languages spoken in Kenya. This variety is a reflection of the country's diverse population that includes most major ethnoracial

title: Italy

text: Institute of Statistics, Romanian is the most common mother tongue among foreign residents in Italy: almost 800,000 people speak Romanian as their first language (21.9% of the foreign residents aged 6 and over). Other prevalent mother tongues are Arabic (spoken by over 475,000 people; 13.1% of foreign residents), Albanian (380,000 people) and Spanish (255,000 people). Other languages spoken in Italy are Ukrainian, Hindi, Polish and Tamil amongst others. In 2017, the proportion of Italians who identified themselves as Roman Catholic was 74.4%. Since 1985, it is no longer officially the state religion. The Holy See, the episcopal jurisdiction of Rome,

title: Languages of Italy

text: a hypothetical subgroup, named Southern Romance: this hypotesis has gained little support from linguists. UNESCO, while seeming to share the same opinion of Ethnologue by calling Gallurese and Sassarese alternately "Sardinian", considers them to be dialects of Corsican rather than Sardinian on the other hand. As is not infrequently the case in such controversies, the linguistic landscape of Sardinia is in principle most accurately described as being, for the most part, a dialect continuum. The Northern Italian languages are conventionally defined as those Romance languages spoken north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line, which runs through the northern Apennine Mountains just

title: Canaanite languages

text: Canaanite languages The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Amorite. They were spoken by the ancient Semitic people of the Canaan and Levant regions, an area encompassing what is today Israel, Jordan, Sinai, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and also some fringe areas of southern Turkey and the northern Arabian Peninsula. The Canaanites are broadly defined to include the Israelites (including Judeans and Samaritans), Phoenicians (including Carthaginians), Amorites, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Suteans, Ekronites and Amalekites. The Canaanite languages continued to be everyday spoken languages until

title: Languages of the Caucasus

text: spoken in the mountains of Dagestan. Several Turkic languages are spoken in the Caucasus. Of these, Azerbaijani is predominant, with around 9 million speakers in Azerbaijan and more than 10 million in North Western Iran. Other Turkic languages spoken include Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Nogai, Turkish, and Turkmen. The Kalmyk language, spoken by descendants of Oirat-speakers from East Asia, is a Mongolic language. Languages of the Caucasus The Caucasian languages are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

title: High German languages

text: High German languages The High German languages or High German dialects () comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, as well as in neighboring portions of France (Alsace and northern Lorraine), Italy (South Tyrol), the Czech Republic (Bohemia), and Poland (Upper Silesia). They are also spoken in diaspora in Romania, Russia, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Namibia. The High German languages are marked by the High German consonant shift, separating them from Low German and Low Franconian (Dutch) within the continental

title: Languages of Asia

text: India and Southeast Asia. Languages given official status are Thai (Siamese) and Lao. The Austronesian languages are widespread throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, including major languages such as Fijian (Fiji), Tagalog (Philippines), and Malay (Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei). Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese of Indonesia belong to this family as well. The Dravidian languages of southern India and parts of Sri Lanka include Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam, while smaller languages such as Gondi and Brahui are spoken in central India and Pakistan respectively. The Afroasiatic languages (in older sources Hamito-Semitic), particularly its Semitic branch, are spoken in Western Asia. It includes

title: Languages of the United States

text: Languages of the United States The most commonly used language in the United States is English (specifically, American English), which is the de facto national language. Nonetheless, many other languages are also spoken, or historically have been spoken, in the United States. These include indigenous languages, languages brought to the country by colonists, enslaved people and immigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia. There are also several languages, including creoles and sign languages, that developed in the United States. Approximately 430 languages are spoken or signed by the population, of which 176 are indigenous to the area. Fifty-two languages formerly spoken

title: Spoken language

text: is an innate human capability, and written language is a cultural invention. However some linguists, such as those of the Prague school, argue that written and spoken language possess distinct qualities which would argue against written language being dependent on spoken language for its existence. Both vocal and sign languages are composed of words. In vocal languages, words are made up from a limited set of vowels and consonants, and often tone. In sign languages, words are made up from a limited set of shapes, orientations, locations movements of the hands, and often facial expressions; in both cases, the building

title: Languages in censuses

text: India in 1991 exhibited 19.4% bilingualism and 7.2% trilingualism. Indonesian is an official language but there are so many different languages native to Indonesia. According to Ethnologue, there are currently about 737 living languages, the most widely spoken being Javanese languages. A number of Chinese varieties, most prominently Min Nan, are also spoken. The public use of Chinese, especially Chinese written characters, was officially discouraged between 1966 and 1998. The majority of the population speaks the Persian language, which is also the official language of the country, as well as other Iranian languages or dialects. Turkic languages and dialects, most

title: Languages of the United Kingdom

text: Languages of the United Kingdom English, in various dialects, is the most widely spoken language of the United Kingdom, however there are a number of regional languages also spoken. There are 11 indigenous languages spoken across the British Isles: 5 Celtic, 3 Germanic, and 3 Romance. There are also many immigrant languages spoken in the British Isles, mainly within inner city areas; these languages are mainly from South Asia and Eastern Europe. The "de facto" official language of the United Kingdom is English, which is spoken by approximately 59.8 million residents, or 98% of the population, over the age of

title: Languages of Pakistan

text: number of individual languages listed for Pakistan is 74. All are living languages. Of these, 66 are indigenous and 8 are non-indigenous. Furthermore, 7 are 'institutional', 17 are 'developing', 39 are 'vigorous', 9 are 'in trouble', and 2 are 'dying'. Following are the major languages spoken in Pakistan, by number of people that speak them as their first language. Urdu () is the national language (), "lingua franca" and one of two official languages of Pakistan (the other currently being English). Although only about 8% of Pakistanis speak it as their first language, it is widely spoken and understood as

title: Languages of the Philippines

text: languages in the Philippines, collectively called Chavacano. These may be split into two major geographical groups: Languages of the Philippines There are some 120 to 187 languages and dialects in the Philippines, depending on the method of classification. Almost all are Malayo-Polynesian languages. A number of Spanish-influenced creole varieties generally called Chavacano are also spoken in certain communities. The 1987 constitution designates Filipino as the national language and an official language along with English. While Filipino is used for communication across the country's diverse linguistic groups and is used in popular culture, the government operates mostly using English. Including second-language

title: Languages of the Caribbean

text: Venezuela, Colombia and Peru". Many indigenous languages (actually spoken with the mainland Caribbean rather than the islands) have been added to the list of endangered or extinct languages—for example, Arawak languages (Shebayo, Igñeri, Lokono, Garifuna of St. Vincent, and the one now labeled Taíno by scholars, once spoken in the Greater Antilles), Caribbean (Nepuyo and Yao), Taruma, Atorada, Warrau, Arecuna, Akawaio and Patamona. Some of these languages are still spoken there by a few people. Creoles are contact languages usually spoken in rather isolated colonies, the vocabulary of which is mainly taken from a European language (the lexifier). Creoles generally

title: Western Aramaic languages

text: Western Aramaic languages Western Aramaic languages is a group of several Aramaic languages developed and once widely spoken throughout the ancient Levant, as opposed to those from in and around Mesopotamia, which make up what is known as the Eastern Aramaic languages, which are still spoken as mother tongues by the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs and Mandaeans of Iraq, north eastern Syria, south eastern Turkey and north western Iran. All of the Western Aramaic languages are extinct today except Western Neo-Aramaic. Following the early Muslim conquests of the 7th century and ensuing mass migration of Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, together

title: Languages in Star Wars

text: Languages in Star Wars The "Star Wars" science fiction universe, created by George Lucas, features dialogue that is not spoken in natural languages. The lingua franca of the franchise, for which the language the works are dubbed or written stand in, is Galactic Basic. Characters often speak languages other than Basic, notably "Shyriiwook" spoken by Chewbacca, droidspeak spoken by R2-D2 and BB-8, and Huttese spoken by Jabba the Hutt. The fictional languages were approached as sound design and developed largely by Ben Burtt, sound designer for both the original and prequel trilogy of films. He created alien dialogue out of

title: Languages of Australia

text: language spoken in the home for close to 72.7% of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are: A considerable proportion of first- and second-generation migrants are bilingual. Languages of Australia Although Australia has no official languages, English has been entrenched as the "de facto" national language since European settlement. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect. According to the 2016 census, English is the only language spoken in the

title: Caddoan languages

text: died. All of the other Caddoan languages are nearly extinct; as of 2007, Caddo is spoken by only 25 people, Pawnee by 10, and Arikara by 10. Caddo and Pawnee are spoken in Oklahoma by small numbers of tribal elders. Arikara is spoken on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Speakers of some of the languages were formerly more widespread; the Caddo, for example, used to live in northeastern Texas, southwestern Arkansas, and northwestern Louisiana, as well as southeastern Oklahoma. The Pawnee formerly lived along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. Glottochronology is a controversial method of

title: Languages of the Philippines

text: sometimes switch to foreign languages when addressing outsiders. Another is the prevalence of code-switching to English when speaking in both their first language and Tagalog. The Constitution of the Philippines provides for the use of the vernacular languages as official auxiliary languages in provinces where Filipino is not the lingua franca. Filipinos at large are polyglots; In the case where the vernacular language is a regional language, Filipinos would speak in Filipino when speaking in formal situations while the regional languages are spoken in non-formal settings. This is evident in major urban areas outside Metro Manila like Camarines Norte in

title: Languages of Belize

text: a large segment is multilingual. Being such a small and multiethnic state surrounded by Spanish-speaking nations, multilingualism is strongly encouraged in the society. Belize is also home to three Mayan languages: Q’eqchi’, the endangered indigenous Belizean language of Mopan, and Yucatec Maya. Approximately 16,100 people speak the Arawakan-based Garifuna language, and 6,900 Mennonites in Belize speak mainly Plautdietsch while a minority of Mennonites speak Pennsylvania German. Languages of Belize According to the 2010 census, the major languages spoken in Belize include English, Spanish and Kriol, all three spoken by more than 40% of the population. Mayan languages are also spoken

title: Languages of India

text: language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians. The languages of India belong to several language families, the most important of which are : The largest of the language families represented in India, in terms of speakers, is the Indo-Aryan language family, a branch of the Indo-Iranian family, itself the easternmost, extant subfamily of the Indo-European language family. This language family predominates, accounting for some 1035 million speakers, or over 76.5 of the population, as per 2018 estimate. The most widely spoken languages of this

title: Italy

text: Valley — although Franco-Provencal is more commonly spoken there; German in South Tyrol, and Ladin as well in some parts of the same province and in parts of the neighbouring Trentino; and finally, Slovene in the province of Trieste, Gorizia and Udine. A number of other Ethnologue, ISO and UNESCO languages are not recognised by the Italian law. Like France, Italy has signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but has not ratified it. Because of recent immigration influx, Italy has sizeable populations whose native language is not Italian, nor a regional language. According to the Italian National

title: Languages of the Caribbean

text: as second languages. The following is a list of major Caribbean languages (by total number of speakers): Some linguistic features are particularly common among languages spoken in the Caribbean, whereas others seem less common. Such shared traits probably are not due to a common origin of all Caribbean languages. Instead, some may be due to language contact (resulting in borrowing) and specific idioms and phrases may be due to a similar cultural background. Widespread syntactical structures include the common use of adjectival verbs for e.g.:" He dirty the floor. The use of juxtaposition to show possession as in English Creole,

title: Mesoamerican languages

text: their existence. What is known about the pre-Columbian history of the Mesoamerican languages is what can be surmised from linguistic, archeological and ethnohistorical evidence. Often, hypotheses concerning the linguistic prehistory of Mesoamerica rely on very little evidence. Three large language families are thought to have had their most recent common homelands within Mesoamerica. The time frames and locations in which the common ancestors of these families, referred to by linguists as proto-languages, were spoken are reconstructed by methods of historical linguistics. The three earliest known families of Mesoamerica are the Mixe–Zoquean languages, the Oto-Manguean languages and the Mayan languages. Proto-Oto-Manguean

title: Italic languages

text: Etruscan, Rhaetian and the language of Stele di Novilara (North Picene), are also considered to be Italic; the attribution of Ligurian is controversial, while too little is known about Sicanian and Elymian to allow reasonably founded hypotheses. Traditionally, however, it reserves the expression of "Italic languages" only for Indo-European languages spoken in ancient times in Italy and not those belonging to other Indo-European families, thus excluding Messapian, Illyrian, Gaulish and Lepontic, the last two Celtic. Initially, the Indo-Europeanists had been inclined to postulate, for the various Indo-European languages of ancient Italy, a belonging to a unitary linguistic family, parallel for

title: Osco-Umbrian languages

text: languages merged them with the labials ("P-Italic"): Latin "quattuor", Oscan "petora". Osco-Umbrian languages The Osco-Umbrian, Sabellic or Sabellian languages are a group of Italic languages, the Indo-European languages that were spoken in Central and Southern Italy by the Osco-Umbrians before being replaced Latin, as the power of Ancient Rome expanded. They developed from the middle of the 1st millennium BC to the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD. The languages are known almost exclusively from inscriptions, principally of Oscan and Umbrian, but there are also some Osco-Umbrian loanwords in Latin. The Osco-Umbrian languages were hypothesized by Antoine Meillet (1866–1936)

title: Osco-Umbrian languages

text: Osco-Umbrian languages The Osco-Umbrian, Sabellic or Sabellian languages are a group of Italic languages, the Indo-European languages that were spoken in Central and Southern Italy by the Osco-Umbrians before being replaced Latin, as the power of Ancient Rome expanded. They developed from the middle of the 1st millennium BC to the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD. The languages are known almost exclusively from inscriptions, principally of Oscan and Umbrian, but there are also some Osco-Umbrian loanwords in Latin. The Osco-Umbrian languages were hypothesized by Antoine Meillet (1866–1936) to constitute a branch of the Italic languages, a single language

title: Languages of Asia

text: Sign Language, Indo-Pakistani Sign Language, as well as a number of small indigenous sign languages of countries such as Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam. Many official sign languages are part of the French Sign Language family. Asia and Europe are the only two continents where most countries use native languages as their official languages, though English is also widespread. Languages of Asia There is a wide variety of languages spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families spoken on the continent include Altaic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Siberian, Sino-Tibetan and Tai-Kadai.

title: Languages in censuses

text: Other minority languages include Turkish (3.6%), Romani (1.9%), and the Serbo-croatian languages (1.6%). The national or official language is Malay which is the mother tongue of the majority Malay ethnic group. The main ethnic groups within Malaysia comprise the Malays, Chinese and Indians, with many other ethnic groups represented in smaller numbers, each with its own languages. The largest native languages spoken in East Malaysia are the Iban, Dusunic and the Kadazan languages. English is widely understood in service industries and is a compulsory subject in primary and secondary school. It is also the main language spoken in most private

title: Languages of Indonesia

text: English translation: Languages of Indonesia More than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia. A major part of them belong to the Austronesian language family, while over 270 Papuan (non-Austronesian) languages are spoken in eastern Indonesia.. The official language is Indonesian (locally known as "bahasa Indonesia"), a standardized form of Malay, which serves as the lingua franca of the archipelago. The vocabulary of Indonesian borrows heavily from regional languages of Indonesia, such as Javanese, Sundanese and Minangkabau, as well as from Dutch, Sanskrit and Arabic. The Indonesian language is primarily used in commerce, administration, education and the media. Most Indonesians

title: Languages of Indonesia

text: Languages of Indonesia More than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia. A major part of them belong to the Austronesian language family, while over 270 Papuan (non-Austronesian) languages are spoken in eastern Indonesia.. The official language is Indonesian (locally known as "bahasa Indonesia"), a standardized form of Malay, which serves as the lingua franca of the archipelago. The vocabulary of Indonesian borrows heavily from regional languages of Indonesia, such as Javanese, Sundanese and Minangkabau, as well as from Dutch, Sanskrit and Arabic. The Indonesian language is primarily used in commerce, administration, education and the media. Most Indonesians speak other

title: Languages of Zambia

text: Seven of them were officially recognised as regional languages and they still have this official status. Together these represent the major languages of each province: Bemba (Northern Province, Luapula, Muchinga and the Copperbelt), Nyanja language NyanjaLusaka), Lozi (Western Province), Tonga and Lozi (Southern Province), and Kaonde, Luvale and Lunda (Northwestern Province). These seven languages are used, together with English, in early primary schooling and in some government publications. A common orthography was approved by the Ministry of Education in 1977. According to the 2000 census, Zambia's most widely spoken languages are Bemba (spoken by 52% of the population as either

title: Languages in censuses

text: in your household?" was added, eighty years since the 1939 Census asked for the Mother tongue of the population. The official language of Greece is Greek, spoken by 99% of the population. In addition, a number of non-official, minority languages and some Greek dialects are spoken as well. The most common foreign languages learned by Greeks are English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. Mayan languages of Guatemala, are the linguistic varieties derived historically from protomaya . The protomaya is a protolengua hypothetically reconstructed by the comparative method and other techniques of historical linguistics, to diversify the language to be their

title: Southern Athabaskan languages

text: Southern Athabaskan languages Southern Athabaskan (also Apachean) is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States (including Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah) and the Mexican state of Sonora, with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. Those languages are spoken by various groups of Apache and Navajo peoples. Elsewhere, Athabaskan is spoken by many indigenous groups of peoples in Alaska, Canada, Oregon and northern California. It represents the third major wave of ancient migration from Asia. The Western Apache and Navajo identify as "Nnee biyáti’" or "Ndee biyáti’," and or , respectively. Several well-known historical people were

title: Latino-Faliscan languages

text: Latino-Faliscan languages The Latino-Faliscan or Latino-Venetic languages are a group of languages originating from Italy belonging to the Italic languages, a group of the Indo-European languages. Latin and Faliscan belong to the group as well as two others often considered to be archaic Latin dialects: Lanuvian and Praenestine. Latin eventually absorbed the others and replaced Faliscan as the power of Ancient Rome expanded. All members of the group other than Latin went extinct. Latin, in turn, via Vulgar Latin, developed into the Romance languages, which are now spoken by more than 800 million people worldwide, largely due to the influence

title: Benue–Congo languages

text: closest relative to Benue–Congo. Fali of Baissa and Tita are also Benue–Congo but are otherwise unclassified. Benue–Congo languages Benue–Congo (sometimes called East Benue–Congo) is a major subdivision of the Niger–Congo language family which covers most of Sub-Saharan Africa. It consists of two main branches: the Central Nigerian (or Platoid) languages, spoken mostly in Nigeria, and the Bantoid–Cross languages, spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon and most of Sub-Saharan Africa, since they contain the Bantu languages (through the Southern Bantoid branch). Central Nigerian (or Platoid) contains the Plateau, Jukunoid and Kainji families, and Bantoid–Cross combines the Bantoid and Cross River groups. Bantoid is

title: Languages in censuses

text: often used interchangeably with Dutch depending on the formality of the setting. Surinamese Hindi or Sarnami, a dialect of Bhojpuri, is the third-most used language, spoken by the descendants of South Asian contract workers from then British India. Javanese is used by the descendants of Javanese contract workers. The Maroon languages, somewhat intelligible with Sranan Tongo, include Saramaka, Paramakan, Ndyuka (also called "Aukan"), Kwinti and Matawai. Amerindian languages, spoken by Amerindians, include Carib and Arawak. Hakka and Cantonese are spoken by the descendants of the Chinese contract workers. Mandarin is spoken by some few recent Chinese immigrants. English, Spanish and

title: Bible translations into the languages of India

text: Korama tribes on earth. Parts of The New Testament were translated into the Tulu language of Karnataka in Kannada script in 1842 and the complete New Testament in 1847 by the Basel Missionaries in Mangalore. Bible translations into the languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 20% of Indians. Other languages belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. India has the world's second-highest number of languages (780), after Papua

title: Languages of India

text: Languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians. Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. India (780) has the world's second highest number of languages, after Papua New Guinea (839). Article 343 of the Indian constitution stated that the official language of the Union should become Hindi in Devanagari script instead of the extant English. But this was

text: Bible translations into the languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 20% of Indians. Other languages belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. India has the world's second-highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (839). A Gujarati translation of the Bible had been issued by the Serampore Mission Press in 1820, and William Carey had contributed to it. James Skinner and William Fyvie of the London Missionary

title: Language Spoken at Home

text: Language Spoken at Home Language Spoken at Home is a data set published by the United States Census Bureau on languages in the United States. It is based on a three-part language question asked about all household members who are five years old or older. The first part asks if the person speaks a language other than English at home. If the answer is 'yes,' the respondent is asked what that language is. The third part of the question asks how well the person speaks English ("Very well,' "Well," "not well," "Not at all"). The three-part question was first asked

title: Languages in censuses

text: in, among other places, Germany, France and Italy. The 2011 National census lists 123 languages spoken as a mother tongue (first language) in Nepal. Most belong to the Indo-Aryan and Sino-Tibetan language families. An overview of Nepali languages is found in the work of Toba, Toba, and Rai. The official language of Nepal is Nepali (नेपाली), formerly called Khaskura then Gorkhali. According to the 2011 national census, the percentage of people with Nepali as the mother tongue is 44.6%. In the Norwegian census of 1970, in limited areas in Northern Norway, people were identified by ethnicity and language. Such information

title: Languages in censuses

text: languages, the table below includes the number in both languages’ rows. ¹ Including Moravian language (62,908 in 2011) Danish censuses did not include inquiries on languages. The last one was in 1970. Speakers by mother tongue in census 2010. According to the 2011 Population and Housing Census (PHC 2011) 157 (up from 109 in 2000) different languages are spoken as native language in Estonia. Of those 25 have more than 100 speakers. Estonian is the official language of Estonia and 886,859 or 68.5% of permanent residents spoke it as native language. Russian is spoken by 383,062 (29.6%), Ukrainian by 8,012

title: Languages in censuses

text: based on simplified Chinese characters), as well as the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. Besides Japanese, other languages like Ryukyuan languages (Amami, Kunigami, Okinawan, Miyako, Yaeyama, Yonaguni), also part of the Japonic language family, are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands chain. Few children learn these languages, but in recent years the local governments have sought to increase awareness of the traditional languages. The Okinawan Japanese dialect is also spoken in the region. The Ainu language, which has no proven relationship to Japanese or any other language, is moribund, with only a few elderly native speakers remaining in Hokkaido. Most public

title: Western Aramaic languages

text: people in the Anti-Lebanon of Syria, mainly in Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Bakhah. The speakers avoided cultural and linguistic Arabization due to the remote mountainous isolation of their villages. Western Aramaic languages Western Aramaic languages is a group of several Aramaic languages developed and once widely spoken throughout the ancient Levant, as opposed to those from in and around Mesopotamia, which make up what is known as the Eastern Aramaic languages, which are still spoken as mother tongues by the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs and Mandaeans of Iraq, north eastern Syria, south eastern Turkey and north western Iran. All of the Western

title: Languages of Zimbabwe

text: a language database maintained by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, lists seven varieties of indigenous Zimbabwean sign language: Manicaland Sign, Mashonaland Sign, Masvingo School Sign, Matabeleland Sign, Midlands Sign, Zimbabwe Community Sign, and Zimbabwe School Sign. American Sign Language is also reportedly used, though it is not clear to what extent. "Sign language", without further specificity, became one of Zimbabwe's official languages in the 2013 Constitution. Languages of Zimbabwe Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely

title: Languages of Asia

text: by major languages and families, there are number of minor families and isolates in South Asia & Southeast Asia. From west to east, these include: The eponymous pidgin ("business") language developed with European trade in China. Of the many creoles to have developed, the most spoken today are Chavacano, a Spanish-based creole of the Philippines, and various Malay-based creoles such as Manado Malay influenced by Portuguese. A very well-known Portuguese-based creole is the Kristang, which is spoken in Malacca, a city-state in Malaysia. A number of sign languages are spoken throughout Asia. These include the Japanese Sign Language family, Chinese

title: Languages of Zambia

text: Languages of Zambia Zambia has several major indigenous languages, all of them members of the Bantu family. English is the official language and the major language of business and education. Zambia is widely claimed to have over 72 languages and dialects. Most of these might be better regarded as dialects and some of them, have a long history within Zambia, while others, such as Silozi, arose as a result of 18th and 19th-century migrations. All of Zambia's vernacular languages are members of the Bantu family and are closely related to one another. Although there are several Languages spoken in Zambia,

title: Songhay languages

text: most widely spoken Songhay language with two or three million speakers, is a major language of southwestern Niger (downriver from and south of Mali) including in the capital city, Niamey. Koyraboro Senni, with 400,000 speakers, is the language of the town of Gao, the seat of the old Songhai Empire. Koyra Chiini is spoken to its west. The much smaller Northern Songhay is a group of heavily Berber-influenced dialects spoken in the Sahara. Since the Berber influence extends beyond the lexicon into the inflectional morphology, the Northern Songhay languages are sometimes viewed as mixed languages. Diedrich Hermann Westermann, a missionary

title: Languages in censuses

text: importantly Azerbaijani language, are spoken in different areas in Iran. In southwestern and southern Iran, the Luri language and Lari language are spoken. In Kurdistan Province and nearby area's Kurdish is widely spoken. In Khuzestan, many distinct Persian dialects are spoken. Arabic is also spoken in Khuzestan. Notable minority languages in Iran include Armenian, Georgian, and Neo-Aramaic. Circassian was also once widely used by the large Circassian minority, but due to assimilation over the many years no sizable number of Circassians speak the language anymore. Arabic is the majority language while Kurdish is spoken by approximately 10–15% of the population

title: Sociolinguistics of sign languages

text: and deaf communities. Black ASL as a sociolinguistic variant of ASL is distinctly Black. Speakers of Black ASL do code-switch to ASL when speaking with people outside the Black community. This sociolinguistic variation is what defines the Black Deaf community. Children who go to hearing schools are faced with the need to learn to read and write the spoken language. Just like situations involving spoken languages having greater dominance over other languages, deaf people live in societies that are dominated in every aspect by hearing people and their values. Most deaf people are bilingual to some extent in a spoken

title: Kyirong–Kagate languages

text: Kyirong–Kagate languages Kyirong–Kagate is a subgroup of Tibetic languages spoken primarily in Nepal, with a hundred or so speakers across the border in Tibet. Varieties are: Although there is a varying degree of mutual intelligibility between these varieties, they are considered separate languages by their respective speakers. There are also some major distinctions. For example, Kyirong has a three-tone system whereas Yolmo and Kagate have a two-tone system. The Gyalsumdo language variety spoken in the Manage district of Nepal shows strong similarities to Kyirong, as well as Nubri, and would therefore likely be classed in the "Kyirong–Kagate" group. The language

title: Romance languages

text: Portugal; Friulan, Sardinian and Franco-Provençal in Italy; and Romansh in Switzerland. The remaining Romance languages survive mostly as spoken languages for informal contact. National governments have historically viewed linguistic diversity as an economic, administrative or military liability, as well as a potential source of separatist movements; therefore, they have generally fought to eliminate it, by extensively promoting the use of the official language, restricting the use of the other languages in the media, recognizing them as mere "dialects", or even persecuting them. As a result, all of these languages are considered endangered to varying degrees according to the UNESCO Red

title: Languages of Nigeria

text: Languages of Nigeria There are perhaps 500 languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language of Nigeria is English, the former language of colonial British Nigeria. As reported in 2003, Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin were spoken as a second language by 60 million people in Nigeria. Communication in the English language is much more popular in the country's urban communities than it is in the rural areas, due to colonisation. The major native languages, in terms of population, are Hausa (over 60 million, including L2), Yoruba (over 40 million), Igbo (about 30 million), Fulfulde (15 million), Ibibio (10 million), Kanuri