World Language
In sociolinguistics, a world language (sometimes global language, rarely international language) is a language that is geographically widespread and makes it possible for members of different language communities to communicate. The term may also be used to refer to constructed international auxiliary languages such as Esperanto. English is the foremost—and by some accounts only—world language. Beyond that, there is no academic consensus about which languages qualify; Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish are other possible world languages. Some authors consider Latin to have formerly been a world language. Concept Various definitions of the term ''world language'' have been proposed; there is no general consensus about which one to use. One definition proffered by Congolese linguist Salikoko Mufwene is "languages spoken as vernaculars or as lingua francas outside their homelands and by populations other than those ethnically or nationally associated with them". Linguist M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups separated by social variables (e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc.) and/or geographical barriers (a mountain range, a desert, a river, etc.). Such studies also examine how such differences in usage and differences in beliefs about usage produce and reflect social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and it is t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gross Domestic Product
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is often revised before being considered a reliable indicator. List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita, GDP (nominal) per capita does not, however, reflect differences in the cost of living and the inflation, inflation rates of the countries; therefore, using a basis of List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita, GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) may be more useful when comparing standard of living, living standards between nations, while nominal GDP is more useful comparing national economies on the international market. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of each industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the total population of the region is the GDP per capita, p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Translingualism
Translingual phenomena are words and other aspects of language that are relevant in more than one language. Thus "translingual" may mean "existing in multiple languages" or "having the same meaning in many languages"; and sometimes "containing words of multiple languages" or "operating between different languages". Translingualism is the phenomenon of translingually relevant aspects of language; a translingualism is an instance thereof. The word comes from '' trans-'', meaning "across", and ''lingual'', meaning "having to do with languages (tongues)"; thus, it means "across tongues", that is, "across languages". Internationalisms offer many examples of translingual vocabulary. For example, international scientific vocabulary comprises thousands of translingual words and combining forms. The term also refers to a pedagogical movement and line of research inquiry in composition studies and second-language learning that seek to normalize the simultaneous presence of multiple langua ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Languages By Number Of Native Speakers
This article ranks human languages by their number of native speakers. However, all such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum. For example, a language is often defined as a set of varieties that are mutually intelligible, but independent national standard languages may be considered to be separate languages even though they are largely mutually intelligible, as in the case of Danish and Norwegian. Conversely, many commonly accepted languages, including German, Italian and even English, encompass varieties that are not mutually intelligible. While Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centred on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors describe its mutually unintelligible varieties as separate languages. Similarly, Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language. It is also common to descr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Languages By Total Number Of Speakers
This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. Some languages, such as Chinese and Arabic, cover several mutually unintelligible varieties and are sometimes considered single languages and sometimes language families. Conversely, colloquial registers of Hindi and Urdu are almost completely mutually intelligible, and are sometimes classified as one language, Hindustani, instead of two separate languages. Such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum. There is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a second-language speaker. For example, English has about 370 million native speakers but, depending on the criterion chosen, can be said to have as many as 2 billion speakers. There are also difficulties in obtaining reliable counts of spea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Lingua Francas
This is a list of lingua francas. A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a first language, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both speakers' first languages. Examples of lingua francas are numerous and exist on every continent. The most utilized modern example is English, which is the current dominant lingua franca of international diplomacy, business, science, technology and aviation, but many other languages serve, or have served at different historical periods, as lingua francas in particular regions, countries, or in special contexts. Africa Akan Akan can be regarded as the main lingua franca of Ghana, although mainly in the south. Afrikaans During apartheid, the South African government aimed to establish Afrikaans as the primary lingua franca in South Africa and South African-controlled South-West Africa (now Namibia), although English was also in common use. Since the end of aparthe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lists Of Languages
This page is a list of lists of languages. Published lists * SIL International's '' Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' lists over spoken and signed languages. *The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns codes for most languages; see ISO 639 ** List of ISO 639-1 codes – two-letter codes (184 major languages) ** List of ISO 639-2 codes – three-letter codes ** ISO 639 macrolanguage – ISO 639-2 codes used as ISO 639-3 codes ** List of ISO 639-3 codes – three-letter codes, intended to "cover all known natural languages" ** List of ISO 639-5 codes – three-letter codes for language families and groups *IETF language tag - depends on ISO 639, but provides various expansion mechanisms * Glottolog *Linguasphere Observatory (LS-2010, totalling over 32,800 coded entries & over 70,900 linguistic names) English Wikipedia list articles * Index of language articles Comprehensive lists Lists which are global in scope (all living natural languages would cl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, normally spoken informally rather than written, and seen as of lower status than more codified forms. It may vary from more prestigious speech varieties in different ways, in that the vernacular can be a distinct stylistic register, a regional dialect, a sociolect, or an independent language. Vernacular is a term for a type of speech variety, generally used to refer to a local language or dialect, as distinct from what is seen as a standard language. The vernacular is contrasted with higher-prestige forms of language, such as national, literary, liturgical or scientific idiom, or a ''lingua franca'', used to facilitate communication across a large area. According to another definition, a vernacular is a language that has not develope ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Graddol
David Graddol (1953 - 1 March 2019) was a British linguist who worked in applied linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and history of linguistics. He died on 1 March 2019. Research interest He was perhaps best known for his 1997 book ''The future of English?'', published by the British Council, in which he offers scenarios for how English as a world language may develop. Most notably, he pointed out that native speakers of English were or would soon be outnumbered by those who speak English as a second or foreign language. In an article that focuses more specifically on this issue, he stated the following: Graddol's views about English as a world language are similar to, though not identical with, those held by his linguist colleague David Crystal. Career He graduated from the University of York with a BA in Language and Linguistics in 1975, also in Sociology in 1983. He earned his PhD from the University of Stockholm Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms uni ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Crystal
David Crystal, (born 6 July 1941) is a British linguist, academic, and prolific author best known for his works on linguistics and the English language. Family Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, on 6 July 1941 after his mother had been evacuated there during The Blitz. Before he reached the age of one, his parents separated. He remained estranged from and ignorant of his father for most of his childhood, but later learnt (through work contacts and a half-brother) of the life and career of Dr. Samuel Crystal in London, and of his half-Jewish heritage. He grew up with his mother in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England, where he attended St Mary's College from 1951. Crystal is a practising Roman Catholic. He currently lives in Holyhead with his wife, Hilary, a former speech therapist and now children's author. He has four grown-up children. His son Ben Crystal is also an author, and has co-authored four books with his father. Career Crystal studied Englis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraham (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. The majority of Muslims also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad ('' sunnah'') as recorded in traditional accounts (''hadith''). With an estimated population of almost 1.9 billion followers as of 2020 year estimation, Muslims comprise more than 24.9% of the world's total population. In descending order, the percentage of people who identify as Muslims on each continental landmass stands at: 45% of Africa, 25% of Asia and Oceania (collectively), 6% of Europe, and 1% of the Americas. Additionally, in subdivided geographical regions, the figure stands at: 91% of the Middle East–North Africa, 90% of Central Asia, 65% of the Caucasus, 42% of Southeast Asi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Liturgical Language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives. Concept A sacred language is often the language which was spoken and written in the society in which a religion's sacred texts were first set down; these texts thereafter become fixed and holy, remaining frozen and immune to later linguistic developments. (An exception to this is Lucumí, a ritual lexicon of the Cuban strain of the Santería religion, with no standardized form.) Once a language becomes associated with religious worship, its believers may ascribe virtues to the language of worship that they would not give to their native tongues. In the case of sacred texts, there is a fear of losing authenticity and accuracy by a translation or re-translation, and difficulties in achieving acceptance for a new version of a text. A sacred language is typ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |