German language German (Deutsch [ˈdɔʏtʃ]) is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[9] Several German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. Widely spoken languages which are most similar to German include Luxembourgish, Dutch, the Frisian languages, the Scandinavian languages, and English. German is the native language of about 100 million people, making it the most widely spoken native language in the European Union and one of the major languages of the world.[10] German is a pluricentric language, with multiple countries having their own standardised variants (e.g. Austrian German, Swiss Standard German) as well as many dialects. History[edit] Origins[edit] The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. Modern German[edit] Germany[edit] Switzerland[edit]
PodOmatic | Podcast - Eracism project English language English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca.[5][6] It is an official language of almost 60 sovereign states and the most commonly spoken language in sovereign states including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and a number of Caribbean nations. It is the third-most-common native language in the world, after Mandarin and Spanish.[7] It is widely learned as a second language and is an official language of the European Union and of the United Nations, as well as of many world organisations. English arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and what is now southeast Scotland. The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman French: thus a layer of elaborate vocabulary, particularly in the field of governance, and some Romance-language spelling conventions[17][18] were added to what had by then become Middle English. Etymology
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage! Home Sign in -or- Register PRIVACY POLICY · Terms of Use · TM ® & © 2016 Scholastic Inc. All Rights Reserved. Germanic languages This article is about a branch of languages. It is not to be confused with German language. The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of approximately 500 million people[nb 1] mainly in North America, Oceania, Western and Northern Europe. The West Germanic branch includes the two most widely spoken Germanic languages: English, with approximately 300–400 million native speakers,[3][nb 2] and German, with over 100 million native speakers.[4] Other major West Germanic languages are Dutch with 23 million speakers,[5] Low German with approximately 5 million in Germany[6] and 1.7 million in the Netherlands,[7] and Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch, with over 7.2 million.[8] The main North Germanic languages are Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, which have a combined total of about 20 million speakers.[9] The East Germanic branch included Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic, all of which are now extinct. History[edit]
Cinco de Mayo — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts In 1861 the liberal Mexican Benito Juárez (1806-1872) became president of a country in financial ruin, and he was forced to default on his debts to European governments. In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew, but France, ruled by Napoleon III (1808-1873), decided to use the opportunity to carve a dependent empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large French force and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat. Certain that success would come swiftly, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez (1814-1892) set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. Although not a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza’s success at Puebla represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement.
Lingua franca A lingua franca also called a bridge language, or vehicular language, is a language systematically (as opposed to occasionally, or casually) used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.[1] Lingua francas have arisen around the globe throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages") but also for diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term originates with one such language, Mediterranean Lingua Franca. Characteristics[edit] "Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or structure of the language:[2] though pidgins and creoles often function as lingua francas, many such languages are neither pidgins nor creoles. Etymology[edit] Examples[edit] See also[edit] References[edit] Hall, R.A.
Greek language Greek (Modern Greek: ελληνικά [eliniˈka] "Greek" and ελληνική γλώσσα [eliniˈci ˈɣlosa] ( ) "Greek language") is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, western Asia Minor, Greece, and the Aegean Islands, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were previously used. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Coptic, and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds an important place in the histories of Europe, the more loosely defined Western world, and Christianity; the canon of ancient Greek literature includes works of monumental importance and influence for the future Western canon such as the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. Idealized portrayal of Homer History[edit]
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 439 languages and dialects, according to the 2009 Ethnologue estimate, about half (221) belonging to the Indo-Aryan subbranch.[2] It includes most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the Indian Subcontinent, and was also predominant in ancient Anatolia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek, the Indo-European family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as possessing the second-longest recorded history, after the Afro-Asiatic family. Indo-European languages are spoken by almost 3 billion native speakers,[3] the largest number by far for any recognised language family. Etymology[edit] History of Indo-European linguistics[edit] Franz Bopp, pioneer in the field of comparative linguistic studies. Gaston Coeurdoux and others made observations of the same type.
Romance languages The Romance languages—occasionally called the Latin languages or, less often, the Romanic or Neo-Latin languages—are a group of languages descended from Vulgar Latin. They form a branch of the Italic languages within the Indo-European language family. The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (386 million), Portuguese (216 million), French (75 million), Italian (60 million), and Romanian (25 million).[2] The largest have many non-native speakers; this is especially the case for French, which is in widespread use throughout Central and West Africa, Madagascar, and the Maghreb region. The Romance languages evolved from Latin from the sixth to the ninth centuries. Ibero-Romance: Portuguese, Galician, Asturian-Leonese, Spanish, Aragonese; Occitano-Romance: Catalan, Gascon, Occitan; Gallo-Romance: Langues d'oïl (including French), Franco-Provençal; Rhaeto-Romance: Romansh, Ladin, Friulian; Sardinian; Dalmatian (extinct); Origins Name Samples History
Greek alphabet, pronunciation and language Greek belongs to the Hellenic branch of the Indo-European language family, and is spoken by about 13 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus, where it is an official language. Greek is also recognised as a minority language in parts of Italy, and in Albania, Armenia, Romania and Ukraine. Greek was first written in Mycenae with a script known as Linear B, which was used between about 1500 and 1200 BC. This variety of Greek is known as Mycenaean. The Greek alphabet has been in continuous use since about 750 BC. When the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet to write their language they used five of the Phoenician consonants to represent vowel sounds: yodh [j] became Ι (iota), waw [w] became Υ (upsilon), 'aleph [ʔ] became Α,(alpha), 'ayin [ʕ] became Ο (omicron), and he [h] became Ε (epsilon). Greek at a glance At first, there were a number of different versions of the alphabet used in various different Greek cities. Notable features Ancient Greek alphabet Note Archaic letters Notes Links