WORLD LANGUAGE

A Common World Language (World Language)

2010-03-27T00:16:00.000-07:00

By Ron Tichenor

World Language

One of the greatest obstacles to human communication has been the language barrier. It has limited communication between nations and peoples, confused ideas and intentions, and has even led to wars. While there have always existed regional languages of influence and lingua francas, these come and go through the years, leaving disarray and power vacuums in their wake.

A more viable, long-term solution is for everyone to learn a common second language.

If everyone learned a common second language, many communication problems between people and nations would be solved. It would level the playing field between nations. Of course, most people reading this are thinking "one world language? - yeah, English. Anyone of consequence speaks it already." Not true.

English is an easy language to speak badly, but very few ever learn to speak it well. It's actually a rather difficult written language. It's very inconsistent, lots of irregularities and exceptions and spelling is a nightmare, even for most native speakers of English. Not everyone learns English. Of those who learn it, few learn it well enough to use, and fewer still really master it.

Learning English also comes with a lot of political baggage. Some people may feel it is being imposed upon them by American or British imperialism or elitism. Any other national language comes with similar restrictions or limitations.

So what other choice is there?

One potential common language already exists. Esperanto. It was constructed for exactly this purpose. Invented by L.L. Zamenhof in the 1880's, it was designed to be relatively easy to learn and use. Since everyone learns it as a second language, no one is at an unfair advantage or disadvantage.

Esperanto has its detractors. Some say it is too European in its origins and therefore puts Africans or Asians at a disadvantage. Some linguists believe a more viable and neutral language could be created, but none has yet done so successfully.

Esperanto has a life of its own. Original works have been written in Esperanto, music is recorded in it, numerous websites and podcasts are in Esperanto and there is even a movie or two. Unlike other constructed languages, it has a growing body of users world-wide, many in Asia where it is popular because it is not English!

By the way, there is a term for this - International Auxiliary Language. So far, Esperanto is the only International Auxiliary Language that has shown enough popularity, usefulness and resilience to merit consideration as a second language common to all people and nations. The United Nations has even entertained the idea of using it as an auxiliary language. Time will tell if the concept gains any steam, but I think that ultimately a common second language is in mankind's future.

Ron is a long-time language enthusiast, exploring Spanish, French, Swedish, Cornish, Esperanto and others. Learn more about studying a language on your own at Language Learning Advisor This guide for self-study language learners has reviews and recommendations of language learning methods and products, links to online learning resources, learning tips to maximize your study time and effectiveness and articles on language learning.

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World Language

Top 10 World Languages and the Internet( World Language)

2010-03-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

By Sramana Mitra

World Language

Purnendu Chatterji intrigued me today by saying, that Bengali is the 5th largest spoken language in the world. Well, I looked it up ...

1. Mandarin: 1 Billion+

2. English: 508 Million

3. Hindi: 497 Million

4. Spanish: 392 Million

5. Russian: 277 Million

6. Arabic: 246 Million

7. Bengali: 211 Million

8. Portuguese: 191 Million

9. Malay-Indonesian: 159 Million

10. French: 129 Million

Here are the languages that just barely missed the list (from the most popular to the least): German, Japanese, Urdu, Punjabi, Korean, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Cantonese, Wu, Vietnamese, Javanese, Italian, Turkish, Tagalog, and Thai.

Why do we care?

Because, the Media industry is moving online, and a question that is looming large: what other languages besides the obvious ones like Mandarin, need major Internet presence? The list above starts to provide some indicators ...

Key question to answer: Which of these languages have sustainable (a) Internet Presence (b) Online Advertising Pull behind them?

Today, English, Mandarin, French, and Spanish have traction. German and Italian also have some Internet presence.

Big languages like Hindi and Bengali, by virtue of the fact that they belong to a largely bilingual population that is fluent in English - have little adoption.

Even online advertising dollars are largely limited to North American target audiences, with a small bit of traction in the UK and Western Europe. No one wants to advertise to audiences in Brazil or Russia.

It would be interesting to watch how the game changes in the next decade.

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and Strategy Consultant Sramana Mitra writes about Entrepreneurship, Business Strategy, Emerging Technology, Market Moves, and sundry other topics in her Blog "Sramana Mitra on Strategy". Read more of her writings at http://www.sramanamitra.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sramana_Mitra

World Language

Language reform and modern Turkish(World Language)

2008-04-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

World Language

After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 under the patronage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly-established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents.[12] By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries.[13] Due to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the older terms of Arabic or Persian origin, the younger generations favor new expressions. It is particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, in his monumental speech to the new Parliament in 1927, used a style of Ottoman diction which today sounds so alien that it has had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995.[14] There is also a political dimension to the language debate, with conservative groups tending to use more archaic words in the press or everyday language. The past few decades have seen the continuing work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language, mostly from English. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance. However, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace firka, "political party"—also failed to meet with popular approval (in fact, firka has been replaced by the French loanword parti). Some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings; for example betik (originally meaning "book") is now used to mean "script" in computer science. Many of the words derived by TDK coexist with their older counterparts. This usually happens when a loanword changes its original meaning. For instance, dert, derived from the Persian dard (??? "pain"), means "problem" or "trouble" in Turkish; whereas the native Turkish word agri is used for physical pain. Sometimes the loanword has a slightly different meaning from the native Turkish word, giving rise to a situation similar to the coexistence of Germanic and Romance words in English (see List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents). Among some of the old words that were replaced are terms in geometry, cardinal directions, some months' names, and many nouns and adjectives.

World Language

Classification for Turkish Language(World Language)

2008-04-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

World Language

Turkish is a member of the Turkish, or Western, subgroup of the Oghuz languages, which includes Gagauz and Azeri. The Oghuz languages form the Southwestern subgroup of the Turkic languages, a language family comprising some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia. and Siberia. Some linguists believe the Turkic languages to be a part of a larger Altaic language family.About 40% of Turkic language speakers are Turkish speakers.The characteristic features of Turkish, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family and the Altaic languages. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz languages, including Azeri, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turki.

World Language

Geographic distribution ( World Language )

2008-04-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

World Language

Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace), the Republic of Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia.[16] More than two million Turkish speakers live in Germany, and there are significant Turkish-speaking communities in France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.[17] Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic Turkish immigrants speak the language with native fluency.

The number of native speakers in Turkey is about 60–67 million, corresponding to about 90–93 percent of the population, and 65–73 million native speakers exist worldwide.[4][18] Turkish is spoken as a first or second language by almost all of Turkey's residents, with Kurdish making up most of the remainder (about 3,950,000 as estimated in 1980).[19] However, even most linguistic minorities in Turkey are bilingual, speaking Turkish as a second language to levels of native fluency.

Turkish is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. It also has official (but not primary) status in the Prizren District of Kosovo and several municipalities of the Republic of Macedonia, depending on the concentration of Turkish-speaking local population.

In Turkey, the regulatory body for Turkish is the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu or TDK), which was founded in 1932 under the name Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti ("Society for Research on the Turkish Language"). The Turkish Language Association was influenced by the ideology of linguistic purism: indeed one of its primary tasks was the replacement of loanwords and foreign grammatical constructions with equivalents of Turkish origin.[20] These changes, together with the adoption of the new Turkish alphabet in 1928, shaped the modern Turkish language spoken today. TDK became an independent body in 1951, with the lifting of the requirement that it should be presided over by the Minister of Education. This status continued until August 1983, when it was again made into a governmental body in the constitution of 1982, following the military coup d'état of 1980.

World language

Turkish language(World language)

2008-04-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

World language

Turkish (Türkçe IPA ['t?y?kt??e] (help·info)) is a language spoken by 75 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey, with smaller ranges in Cyprus, Bulgaria, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Turkish is also spoken by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly in Germany.

The roots of the language can be traced to Central Asia, with the first written records dating back nearly 1,200 years. To the west, the influence of Ottoman Turkish—the immediate precursor of today's Turkish—spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded. In 1928, as one of Atatürk's Reforms in the early years of the new Turkish Republic, the Ottoman script was replaced with a phonetic variant of the Latin alphabet. Concurrently, the newly-founded Turkish Language Association initiated a drive to reform the language by removing Persian and Arabic loanwords in favor of native variants and coinages from Turkic roots.

The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination. The basic word order of Turkish is Subject Object Verb. Turkish has a T-V distinction: second-person plural forms can be used for individuals as a sign of respect. Turkish also has no noun classes or grammatical gender.

World language

Grammar For Malay Language(World Language)

2008-04-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

World Language

Word Formation

Malay is an agglutinative language, and new words are formed via three methods. New words can be created by attaching affixes onto a root word (affixation), formation of a compound word (composition), or repetition of words or portions of words (reduplication).

Root words are either nouns or verbs, which can be affixed to derive new words, e.g. masak (to cook) yields memasak (cooks, is cooking, etc.), memasakkan (cooks, is cooking for etc.), dimasak (cooked - passive) as well as pemasak (cook - person), masakan (cooking, cookery). Many initial consonants undergo mutation when prefixes are added: e.g. sapu (sweep) becomes penyapu (broom); panggil (to call) becomes memanggil (calls, is calling, etc.), tapis (sieve) becomes menapis (sieves, is sieving, etc.)

Other examples of the use of affixes to change the meaning of a word can be seen with the word ajar (teach):

* ajar = teach

* ajaran = teachings

* belajar = to learn

* mengajar = to teach

* diajar = being taught (non-transitive)

* diajarkan = being taught (transitive)

* mempelajari = to study

* dipelajari = being studied

* pelajar = student

* pengajar = teacher

* pelajaran = subject

* pengajaran = lesson, moral of story

* pembelajaran = learning

* terajar = taught

* terpelajar = well-educated

* berpelajaran = is educated

There are four types of affixes, namely prefixes (awalan), suffixes (akhiran), circumfixes (apitan) and infixes (sisipan). These affixes are categorised into noun affixes, verb affixes, and adjective affixes.

Noun affixes are affixes that form nouns upon addition to root words. The following are examples of noun affixes:

Type of noun affixes Affix Example of root word Example of derived word

Prefix pe(N)- duduk (sit) penduduk (population)

ke- hendak (want) kehendak (desire)

juru- acara (event) juruacara (event host)

Infix -el- tunjuk (point) telunjuk (index finger, command)

-em- kelut (dishevelled) kemelut (chaos, crisis)

-er- gigi (teeth) gerigi (toothed blade)

Suffix -an bangun (wake up, raise) bangunan (building)

Circumfix ke-...-an raja (king) kerajaan (government)

pe(N)-...-an kerja (work) pekerjaan (occupation)

(N) and (R) indicate that if a word begins with certain letters (most often vowels or consonants k, p, s, t), the letter will either be omitted or other letters will replace it, most commonly with the letters in the bracket or m, ng, ny and l.

Similarly, verb affixes are attached to root words to form verbs. In Malay, there are:

Type of verb affixes Affix Example of root word Example of derived word

Prefix be(R)- ajar (teach) belajar (to study) - Intransitive

me(N)- tolong (help) menolong (to help) - Active transitive

di- ambil (take) diambil (is being taken) - Passive transitive

mempe(R)- kemas (tidy up, orderly) memperkemas (to arrange further)

dipe(R)- dalam (deep) diperdalam (is being further deepen)

te(R)- makan (eat) termakan (to have accidentally eaten)

Suffix -kan letak (place, keep) letakkan (keep) - Imperative transitive

-i jauh (far) jauhi (avoid) - Imperative transitive

Circumfix be(R)-...-an pasang (pair) berpasangan (in pairs)

be(R)-...-kan tajuk (title) bertajukkan (to be titled, to entitle)

me(N)-...-kan pasti (sure) memastikan (to make sure)

me(N)-...-i teman (company) menemani (to accompany)

mempe(R)-...-kan guna (use) mempergunakan (to utilise, to exploit)

mempe(R)-...-i ajar (teach) mempelajari (to study)

ke-...-an hilang (disappear) kehilangan (to lose)

di-...-i sakit (pain) disakiti (to be hurt by)

di-...-kan benar (right) dibenarkan (is allowed to)

dipe(R)-...-kan kenal (know, recognise) diperkenalkan (is being introduced)

Adjective affixes are attached to root words to form adjectives:

Type of adjective affixes Affix Example of root word Example of derived word

Prefix te(R)- kenal (know) terkenal (famous)

se- lari (run) selari (parallel)

Infix -el- serak (disperse) selerak (messy)

-em- cerlang (radiant bright) cemerlang (bright, excellent)

-er- sabut (husk) serabut (dishevelled)

Circumfix ke-...-an barat (west) kebaratan (westernized)

In addition to these affixes, Malay language also has a lot of borrowed affixes from other languages such as Sanskrit, Arabic and English. For example maha-, pasca-, eka-, bi-, anti-, pro- etc.

World language

Writing system(World Language)

2008-04-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

World Language

Malay is normally written using Latin alphabet called Rumi, although a modified Arabic script called Jawi also exists. Rumi is official in Malaysia and Singapore, and Indonesian has a different official orthography also using the Latin script. Rumi and Jawi are co-official in Brunei. Efforts are currently being undertaken to preserve Jawi script and to revive its use amongst Malays in Malaysia, and students taking Malay language examination in Malaysia have the option of answering questions using Jawi script. Latin alphabet, however, is still the most commonly used script in Malaysia, both for official and informal purposes.

Historically, Malay language has been written using various types of script. Before the introduction of Arabic script in the Malay region, Malay was written using Pallava, Kawi and Rencong script. Old Malay was written using Pallava and Kawi script, as evident from several inscription stones in the Malay region. Starting from the era of kingdom of Pasai and throughout the golden age of Sultanate of Malacca, Jawi has gradually replaced these scripts as the most commonly used script in the Malay region.

Extent of use

The extent to which Malay is used in these countries varies depending on historical and cultural circumstances. Bahasa Melayu is the national language in Malaysia by Article 152 of the Constitution of Malaysia, and became the sole official language in West Malaysia in 1968, and in East Malaysia gradually from 1974. English continues, however, to be widely used in professional and commercial fields and in the superior courts. Other minority languages are also commonly used by the country's large ethnic minorities. The situation in Brunei is similar to that of Malaysia.

In Singapore, Malay was historically the lingua franca among people of different races and nationalities. Although this has largely given way to English, Malay still retains the status of national language and the national anthem, Majulah Singapura, is entirely in Malay. In addition, parade commands in the military, police and civil defence are given only in Malay.

Most residents of the five southernmost provinces of Thailand — a region that, for the most part, used to be part of an ancient Malay kingdom called Pattani — speak a dialect of Malay called Yawi (not to be confused with Jawi), which is similar to Kelantanese Malay, but the language has no official status or recognition.

Due to earlier contact with the Philippines, Malay words — such as dalam hati (sympathy), luwalhati (glory), tengah hari (midday), sedap (delicious) — have evolved and been integrated into Tagalog and other Philippine languages.

By contrast, Indonesian has successfully become the lingua franca for its disparate islands and ethnic groups, in part because the colonial language, Dutch, is no longer commonly spoken. (In East Timor, which was governed as a province of Indonesia from 1976 to 1999, Indonesian is widely spoken and recognized under its Constitution as a 'working language'.)

World Language

INTRODUCTION FOR MALAY LANGUAGE( world language )

2008-04-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

World Language

Malay is spoken principally in Malaysia and, to a lesser extent, in neighboring Thailand and Singapore. Before 1945 its speakers extended through much of the Indonesian archipelago, but with the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia the Malay of that country was designated Indonesian. In Malaysia it is the mother tongue of about 10 million people, or about half the total population. Speakers in Thailand number one million, in Singapore 250,000.

Malay is a member of the MaIay-Polynesian family of languages Beginning in the 14th century, with the conversion of many Malays to Islam, a variation of the Arabic script known as Jawi was used for writing. In the 19th century the British constructed a Roman-based alphabet that is in general use today. It differs slightly from the one used in Indonesia, which was developed by the Dutch, but the resulting variations in spelling are in fact the only difference between the two languages. A few examples of these differences may be found in the article on Indonesian. Grammatical concepts in Malay differ radically from those in Western languages. Prefixes and suffixes as we use them are virtually absent, their functions being assumed by additional words. The plural of a noun is most commonly indicated by simply saying it twice, as in rumah-rumah in the passage below, which means "houses." After numbers, however, the noun reverts to the singular and an additional word is added, similar to the English construction "seven head of cattle." Malay has many of these "numerical coefficients"—one for people (orang—man), one for animals (ekor—tail), and others for flowers, jewels, threads, and even fishing nets. "Two cats" in Malay is dua ekor kuching ("two-tail-cat"), while "two children" is budak dua orang ("child-two-man").

Malay contains many words of Sanskrit and Arabic origin. English words of Malay origin include orangutan, gingham, sarong, bamboo, rattan, kapok, paddy, and amok.

World Language

MALAY LANGUAGE(world language)

2008-04-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

World Language

The Malay language (ISO 639-1 code: MS)[1][2] (Malay: Bahasa Melayu; Jawi script: بهاس ملايو), is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people and people of other races who reside in the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands and parts of the coast of Borneo.[3].

Malay is an official language of Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, and East Timor. In Indonesia and East Timor, the language is formally referred to as Bahasa Indonesia, which literally translates as "Indonesian language." It is also called Bahasa Kebangsaan (National Language) and Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu (Unifying Language) in Indonesia. In Malaysia, the language was once officially known as Bahasa Malaysia, ("Malaysian language".) The term, which was introduced by the National Language Act of 1967, was in use until the 1990s, when most academics and government officials reverted to "Bahasa Melayu," used in the Malay version of the Federal Constitution. According to Article 152 of the Federal Constitution, Bahasa Melayu is the official language of Malaysia. "Bahasa Kebangsaan" (National Language) was also used at one point during the 1970s.

Indonesia announced Malay as its official language when it gained independence, calling it Bahasa Indonesia. However, the language had been used by the Dutch to unite the people of the Indonesian archipelagos during their presence there. Since 1928, nationalists and young people throughout the Indonesian archipelagos have declared it to be Indonesia's only official language, as proclaimed in the Sumpah Pemuda "Youth Vow." Indonesian and Malay are, to a large degree, mutually intelligible, however, Indonesian is distinct from Malay as spoken in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, where the language is known simply as Bahasa Melayu. 'Bahasa Melayu' is defined as Brunei's official language in the country's 1959 Constitution.

However, many Malay dialects are not as mutually intelligible: for example, Kelantanese pronunciation is difficult even for some Malaysians to understand, while Indonesian has a lot of words unique to it that are unfamiliar to other speakers of Malay who are not from Indonesia.

The language spoken by the Peranakan (Straits Chinese, a hybrid of Chinese settlers from the Ming Dynasty and local Malays) is a unique patois of Malay and the Chinese dialect of Hokkien, which is mostly spoken in the former Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca

World Language