Linguistics statistics..........

[infamous]

Did you know that there are at least 6,912 living languages. And that figure doesn't take into consideration those languages which have since become extinct and, or have been forgotten about entirely................Infy

[infamous]

The five most common languages of the world, source: TIME Almanac 2001

 

#1........Mandarin Chinese: 885 million

#2........Spanish: 332 million

#3........English: 322 million

#4........Bengali: 189 million

#5........Hindi: 182 million

[Tormod]

Norwegian would not rank too well on that list... :)

[Boerseun]

Neither would Afrikaans, I guess...:)

 

But tell me, Infy, are those numbers for first-language speakers only? I'm sure many more people can understand English as a second language, and Hindi should have more people able to converse in it as well! Ron, how does the local languages in India stack up against each other?

 

Over here in SA, we have about 40 million people speaking plenty different languages (11 of them are official! - imagine the mess in government, where every single document must be available in all languages!) - but when they converse amongst each other, they normally talk in either English or Afrikaans, because a Zulu speaker simply can't understand a Venda or a Tswana speaker, for instance. How does this linguistic "tribalism" feature in India, the second most populous country in the world?

[Racoon]

The five most common languages of the world, source: TIME Almanac 2001

 

#1........Mandarin Chinese: 885 million

#2........Spanish: 332 million

#3........English: 322 million

#4........Bengali: 189 million

#5........Hindi: 182 million

 

 

What about Arabic??

 

Spoken in: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Palestinian territories, Western Sahara (SADR), Yemen by a majority, and in many other countries, such as Israel and Iran, as a minority language; it is also the liturgical language of Islam.

 

Total speakers: Approximately 270 million (206 million according to Ethnologue, native speakers of all dialects 1998 est.); 323 million (population of Arab countries, CIA World Factbook 2006 est.), excluding Arab minorities in other countries and bilingual speakers

[infamous]

What about Arabic??

 

Actually Racoon, the figures I've posted were from TIME Almanac 2001, why Arabic is not listed within the top five languages, I have no answer. That question does beg for an answer my friend..................Infy

[infamous]

Here is a link to a more updated listing of popular world languages:

 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775272.html

 

You'll noitice that Arabic is listed outside the top five languages here also............Infy

[Tarantism]

Did you know that there are at least 6,912 living languages. And that figure doesn't take into consideration those languages which have since become extinct and, or have been forgotten about entirely................Infy

or the languages that i make up whenever i want :cup:

[Tarantism]

wow, i had absolutely no idea that spanish was more spoken than english! i suppose thats why there is such a push to get more spanish-speaking services in the united states. here in california, there is a spanish accompaniment to just about every english text there is, because i think that hispanic population is close to if not outwaying the white/european heritage here.

 

[edit: english is more spoken than spanish in the new poll, my mistake. still, my comments about california hold true. bye bye :cup:]

[Tarantism]

there was probably so many mispellings there, im too lazy to fix it. sorry.

[infamous]

Did you know?

 

An estimated 80% of the English language has been borrowed from other languages. A great deal of which has come from European sources but also much from Asia as well...........................Infy

[eric l]

Did you know?

 

An estimated 80% of the English language has been borrowed from other languages. A great deal of which has come from European sources but also much from Asia as well...........................Infy

 

It all depends on how you define "borrowed". Early English comprises elements from Latin dialects, from Anglo-Saxon, from Normandy French and probably also from Viking languagages and from Gaul languages (from pre-Roman times). I would not say it "borrowed" from any of these languages, they are the essential material.

 

I would say that the borrowing starts after this : if a new word is needed for something new, and you can not compose it out of elements in the cuurently existing language, you borrow from another one. In this way, some words can be borrowed from Latin (e.g. in science), while others have a Latin source as well, but were part of the dialects that grew, or amalgamated into early English.

 

e.g. "street" is rooted in the Latin "strata" (meaning layer), but I would not say it is borrowed from Latin ! But a word like "radiology" - even if it did not exist itself in Latin - is more borrwed from Latin (or composed from elements borrowed from Latin).

[infamous]

It all depends on how you define "borrowed".

Very true eric; In this case, borrowed should be understood as in the broadest sense of the term.......................Infy

[infamous]

Did you know?

 

Esperanto has a total of between 100,000 and 2 million fluent speakers. Words in Exoeranto are constructed by stringing together prefixes, roots, and suffixes making it possible for speakers of it to invent words as they speak................Infy