main language families. America: the population of the continent, its origin and features Mother tongue for most of the population of the southern
Various languages of the peoples of the world belong to certain language families (at a lower level of the hierarchy - groups), uniting languages according to their linguistic structure and origin. To distinguish individual languages, a dictionary of languages is used, and to group linguistic indicators, usually a linguistic classification by language families and groups based on the sign of linguistic kinship. Data for characterizing the linguistic composition can be obtained from population censuses, as well as from current population records, special surveys, etc.
The total number of languages of the world is determined at 5 - 6 thousand(It is impossible to establish the exact figure due to the conventionality of the difference between different languages and dialects of the same language). In the past, there were about 4 thousand more languages, now forgotten. In genealogical classification, languages are grouped into families on the basis of kinship, established by comparing their vocabulary and grammar. Families are divided into groups (or branches), and some groups, in turn, are divided into subgroups.
Most linguists distinguish the following language families: Indo-European, Afroasian, Kartvelian, North Caucasian, Dravidian, Ural, Eskimo-Aleutian, Altai, Chukchi-Kamchatka, Niger-Kardafan, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, Sino-Tibetan, Australo-Asiatic, Andaman, Papuan families, Australian and Indian families. Yukagir, Korean, Japanese, Nivkh, Ket, Basque, Ainu and a number of other languages are considered isolated (not included in any linguistic family).
The largest language family, comprising languages spoken by almost half of the world's population, is Indo-European. It numerically prevails in the Russian Federation and the CIS, in most of foreign Europe, Iran and Afghanistan, in the north of the Hindustan subcontinent, in the vast majority of the countries of America, in Australia and New Zealand.
Afroasian family of languages, common in North and Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia, consists of 5 groups: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Pashtun and Chadian.
To the Kartvelian family(Western Transcaucasia) includes the Megrelian language with the Laz language close to it, united in the Georgian-Zan group, and the Svan language. All these languages are spoken by the Georgians, among whom the Mingrelians, Lazians and Svans partially preserved their languages in everyday life.
To the North Caucasian family include the Abkhaz-Adyghe and Nakh-Dagestan groups.
The dominant Dravidian family in South India consists of seven groups. The most numerous is the southern group, which includes such multi-million languages of South India as Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada.
Languages of the Afroasian (or Semitic-Hamitic) family common among peoples living in North and Northeast Africa, as well as in Southwest Asia.
The population of sub-Saharan Africa speaks languages of the Niger-Kordofan (East and West Africa), Nilo-Saharan (primarily Central Africa), and Khoisan (Southwest Africa) families.
Uralic language family geographically located in the north of the European part of the Russian Federation, in Central Europe (Hungary), in the Volga region, the Baltic States, Finland and in the north of Scandinavia. It consists of two groups - Finno-Ugric (or Finno-Ugric) and Samoyedic.
Eskimo-Aleut language family includes the Eskimo languages and the closely related Aleut. Their carriers are settled in the vast Arctic spaces of America, as well as in the extreme northeast of Asia.
To the Altaic family of languages, distributed over vast expanses from Turkey in the west to northeast Siberia in the east, include the Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu languages. Turkic languages include subgroups: Chuvash, or Bulgar (Chuvash language), Oguz, or southwestern (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Sakha (Buryat) and some others), Kypchak, or northwestern (Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kyrgyz , Karakalpak, Karachay-Balkarian, Kumyk, Nogai and Karaim), Karluk, or southeastern (Uzbek and Uighur), Yakut (Yakut and Dolgan), South Siberian (Altai, Khakass, Tuvan and other languages) subgroups.
To modern Mongolian languages, distributed mainly in the Central Asian regions, include Mongolian proper, Buryat, Kalmyk, close to it Oirat and a number of others. The Tungus-Manchu languages include the Manchu language, which is gradually becoming obsolete in China, as well as Evenki, the Even language close to it, and some other languages of Eastern Siberia and the Far East.
Chukchi-Kamchatka family, localized in the extreme north-east of Russia, unites the Chukchi, Koryak, Itelmen and other languages.
The largest of the language families are as follows: Indo-European (44.8% of the total world population), Sino-Tibetan (22.6%), Niger-Kordofanian (6.1%), Afrasian (5.6%), Austronesian (4.9%), Dravidian ( 3.9%). The thirteen most common languages are spoken by almost 2/3 of the population of our planet. The most widely spoken languages of the world are (number of speakers, end of the 20th century, million people): Chinese (1300), English (460), Hindi and Urdu (370), Spanish (320), Russian (260), Bengali, Indonesian and Arabic (190 each), Portuguese (180), Japanese (130), German (100), French (100).
Along with the most common, there are so-called isolated languages, or isolate languages, which are not understandable even to close neighbors; their use is limited to small areas (Yukagir, Nivkh, Ket, Basque, etc.) or individual countries (Japanese).
In the vast majority of cases, the names of the people and language are the same. There are, however, cases where several peoples speak the same language. So, English (with slight local differences) is spoken by the British, US Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Anglo-Canadians and some others. Spanish is the native language not only for the Spaniards, but also for most of the peoples of Latin America. German is spoken by Germans, Austrians and Germano-Swiss. Usually each nation speaks the same language (sometimes dialect differences are so great that communication between individual groups of people without knowledge of the generally accepted literary language is impossible).
Increasingly, however, the practice of bilingualism when parts of the people or even entire peoples use two languages in everyday life. Bilingualism is a rather frequent phenomenon in multinational countries, where national minorities, in addition to their native language, usually also use the language of the most numerous nation. Bilingualism is also characteristic of the countries of mass settlement of immigrants. Therefore, the number of speakers of individual languages does not always coincide with the number of peoples for whom these languages are native. This is especially true for the languages of large nations that serve as languages of interethnic communication.
culture
The development of oral speech skills can probably be considered one of the most significant achievements in the field of human relationships on our planet. Moreover, since humanity first began to develop the language of communication, many variations and varieties of different languages have appeared, while the process of modifying this instrument of communication continues today. Information about the number of languages on our planet is extremely contradictory, but according to some sources, their number exceeds six thousand. However, the following ten languages are used by the largest number of people on our planet (in brackets is the number of people for whom a particular language is native).
10. German (90 million people)
The German language belongs to the so-called Indo-European family of languages, the Germanic branch (in fact, like English). The German language is used mainly in Germany, where it has the status of an official language. However, German is also an official language in Austria, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg; also he is one of the official languages of Belgium(along with Dutch and French); one of the four official languages of Switzerland (along with French, Italian and the so-called Swiss Romansh); as well as the official language of part of the population of the Italian city of Bolzano. In addition, it is known that German is also spoken by small groups of citizens living in countries such as Poland, Denmark, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
9. Japanese (132 million people)
The Japanese language belongs to the category of the so-called Japanese-Ryukyu languages (including also the Ryukyu language itself, which is spoken on the island of Okinawa as part of the group of islands of the same name). Most people whose native language is Japanese live in Japan. However, people for whom Japanese is also their native language can be found in Korea, the United States of America, Europe ... Japanese is the official language in Japan, but it also has official status in one of the states in the Republic of Palau - an island nation in the western Pacific ocean.
8. Russian language (144 million people)
Russian belongs to the East Slavic subgroup of languages in the Slavic group, which also includes Belarusian and Ukrainian. The vast majority of Russian-speaking people for whom Russian is their native language live, of course, in the Russian Federation, where Russian, in fact, has the status of an official language. Besides, is a well-known fact that a large number of the Russian-speaking population lives in Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other republics of the former Soviet Union (and not only). It is noteworthy that in this ten most widely used languages, Russian is the only one using the Cyrillic alphabet.
7. Portuguese (178 million people)
The Portuguese language belongs to the Romance group of languages. As in the case of other languages of this group, one of the predecessors of the Portuguese language is considered to be Latin. Portuguese is considered the official language in Portugal and Brazil, where the vast majority of the world's population speaking it. In addition, Portuguese is considered official in Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Uruguay and Argentina. Today, Portuguese is one of the four most commonly studied languages (according to some estimates, it is studied by about 30 million people).
6. Bengali language (181 million people)
The Bengali language (or Bengali language) belongs to the so-called Indo-Aryan branch, along with languages such as Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. Most people who speak this language live in the Republic of Bangladesh, where Bengali is the official language. In addition, people speak it who live in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam. This language is also spoken by some people living in Europe, the United States of America and even Saudi Arabia. The Bengali language is characterized by a rich literary tradition. In addition, such a concept as Bengali nationalism is widely known in the world. The basis of the written language of Bengali is related to the basis of writing in Sanskrit and Hindi.
5. Arabic (221 million people)
Arabic belongs to the so-called Semitic family of languages, which includes the languages of the Arabian subgroup, such as Syriac and Chaldean (now a dead language). Arabic is spoken most in the Middle East and North Africa. It is official in 26 countries of the world. It is also spoken in Israel. In addition, in Europe, as well as in North America, there are a lot of people who speak Arabic. As you know, the holy book of all Muslims of the world, the Koran, is also written in this language. The Arabic alphabet is used to write in Arabic.
4. Hindi language (242 million people)
Hindi is a member of the Indo-European family of languages and belongs to the Indo-Aryan group (like Urdu). This language has many dialects, but its official forms are the so-called standard Hindi and standard Urdu. However, these two forms are sometimes quite difficult to distinguish from each other. Hindi is known is the official language in India, while Urdu is the official language in Pakistan. Hindi and Urdu are spoken in parts of Europe and North America, where there are now fairly large numbers of people from India and Pakistan. To write in these languages, the Hindi alphabet and the Arabic alphabet are used (this fact indicates the influence that Islam had on Urdu).
3. English (328 million people)
English, like German, belongs to the West Germanic group of languages. The roots of this language are considered to be the Anglo-Saxon language (the so-called old English). Much in English was borrowed from Latin and French, which is the reason for the Norman conquerors. Despite the fact that the British Isles are the birthplace of this language, the majority of people who speak English currently resides in the United States of America(more than 309 million English-speaking citizens). English is spoken in 53 countries of the world, where it is one of the official languages. These countries include Canada, South Africa, Jamaica, New Zealand, Australia and, of course, the UK. English is also spoken in many countries in the Pacific region, and in India it is considered almost another official language.
2. Spanish (329 million people)
Spanish is a member of the Indo-European family of languages and belongs to the Romance group. This language has a lot in common with Portuguese. Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages on our planet; it has been given the status of an official language in more than 20 countries of the world; while Spanish is considered official in almost every state of Latin America, except Brazil, Belize and so on. It is also known that a huge number of people for whom Spanish is their native language moved to the United States of America. That is why Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the American Southwest. In addition, Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (along with English, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and French).
1. Mandarin (845 million people)
In fact, we are talking about Mandarin Chinese, although many people who do not know the nuances call this dialect Chinese. In fact, it is just one of many Chinese dialects that also include Cantonese and other dialects belonging to the so-called Sino-Tibetan family. Mandarin is the most spoken language in China while being the official language of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. It is also one of the four official languages of Singapore (other than English, Malay and Tamil). The large influx of immigrants from China and Taiwan has resulted in Mandarin Chinese being spoken by a large number of people in the United States and Europe. At the same time, the Mandarin dialect uses two writing systems - traditional Chinese and the so-called simplified Chinese.
We judge the belonging of people to a certain people primarily, although not exclusively, by their language. Not without reason in the old days the word "languages" often meant not only the speech of different peoples, but also these peoples themselves; as early as the beginning of the 19th century. our great-great-grandfathers called the invasion of Napoleon's multi-tribal armies into Russia "an invasion of twelve (i.e., twelve) languages."
Every nation has its own specific language. But different peoples often speak the same language: for example, the British and Americans speak English, the Germans and Austrians speak German.
There are currently over 2,500 independent languages on the globe, and dialects and dialects (local varieties of large languages) number tens of thousands. Among the independent languages there are widely spoken ones, which are spoken by tens and hundreds of millions of people. But there are languages that are used by only a few thousand or even a few hundred people.
There are five languages in the world, each of which is spoken by more than 100 million people. These are Chinese, Russian, English, Spanish and Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu).
At least 500 million people speak Chinese. It is the largest language in the world in terms of the number of speakers.
The Russian language is native to 100 million people, and together with closely related Ukrainian and Belarusian languages - for 140 million. Russian is the state language of the greatest power in the world - the Soviet Union. It is also widely spoken among the working people of the countries of people's democracy and of all progressive mankind as the language of the new, socialist culture that has flourished in the Soviet Union. The total number of people who can speak Russian exceeds 250 million people.
In addition to the British and Scots, English is spoken by most of the population of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and part of the population of the Union of South Africa and Ireland - a total of 230 million people.
Spanish is spoken by 118 million people: these are Spaniards and residents of all countries of South and Central America, except Guiana, Brazil and Haiti.
Hindi is the official language of India; Urdu is the state language of Pakistan; they are very close to each other and have a common name - "Hindustani". More than 100 million people speak Hindustani. The majority of the population of India speaks other languages, of which the most common is Bengali (over 50 million people).
German is spoken by Germans, Austrians and most of the Swiss - a total of 92 million people.
Over 80 million Japanese speak Japanese.
Malay is spoken by over 70 million people. Portuguese is spoken by 66 million people, including 50 million in Brazil.
French is spoken by 55 million people: French, half of the population of Belgium (Walloons), part of the Swiss, part of the population of eastern Canada, residents of Haiti and some French colonies.
Arabic is spoken by 50 million people in Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, the United Arab Republic and the rest of North Africa, on the island of Zanzibar and in the southeastern regions of Iran,
In addition to those listed, there are several dozen more languages, each of which is spoken by millions of people, and several hundred languages of small nationalities and tribes.
LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP OF PEOPLES
Identical or similar languages usually exist among peoples related by kinship - a common origin, long-term joint life in one state or close proximity, economic or cultural communication. Such peoples are clearly aware of their kinship and easily understand each other. Russians, for example, understand and love Ukrainian songs, they easily learn to speak Ukrainian. After all, many words and expressions in the Ukrainian language are the same as in Russian, only they are pronounced a little differently. Russian says: "land", "bread", "street", "people"; in Ukrainian, these words sound like this: “earth”, “khlib”, “wool”, “people”. It is clear to both Russians and Ukrainians that in terms of language their peoples are siblings.
Belarusians are just as close to Russians. It is no coincidence that the languages of these three East Slavic peoples - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians - are so close to each other: their similarity reflects their origin from common ancestors, the long neighborhood and close friendship of these peoples. This is a living relationship of languages; it further strengthens the ties between the Eastern Slavs.
The speech of the Western and Southern Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, etc.) is less understandable to Russian than Ukrainian, but understandable expressions are also found in it. The Pole will say: “Good day, pshiyatselyu”, the Russian will answer: “Good afternoon, buddy”, and both will understand each other. These are related peoples. The degree of kinship in language among different peoples is different.
Sometimes the similarity of languages is found among peoples who live far from each other and currently have no connection with each other.
For example, the language of the Hungarians (Magyars) and the languages of the small Soviet peoples of the Khanty and Mansi (Western Siberia) are similar; the language of the Finns (Suomi) and the languages of the Komi and Saami of the North, Mordovians, Mari and Udmurts of the Volga region. Once, in the distant past, these peoples were linked by a common origin or constant communication. From this past there remains a linguistic similarity.
Now the similarity of these languages is weakening, since for a long time the languages of these peoples developed and changed independently of each other.
The kinship of languages among such peoples is discovered only by linguists who study and compare the languages of different peoples among themselves, investigating their origin.
In the close-knit family of the socialist nations of the Soviet Union, peoples whose languages are far from each other by origin are drawing closer together. The peoples are connected by a common goal - the building of a communist society.
Under the influence of cultural ties, languages are enriched with new common words.
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Few people know that in the modern world there are from 3 to 7 thousand languages. Many of them are considered endangered, as the number of native speakers of these languages is getting smaller every day. Other languages are spoken by hundreds of millions of people and millions more are learning them as foreign languages. Language is the main way people communicate, and this article presents the most popular, widespread and popular languages of the peoples of the world.
14 French
Although this language is not among the ten most common languages in the world, in our small presentation it takes an honorable 14th place, opening our rating. French, in addition to being one of the most common, is also one of the most beautiful languages of the world, which is often called the language of love, just like the capital of France is called the city of love. This language is included in the Romance group of languages, has the status of an official language in 29 countries of the world, in particular in Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Monaco and, of course, France. It is one of the six official languages of the UN and is spoken in a number of African countries, former French colonies. According to some reports, about 250 million people around the world speak French, but it is native to 75 million.
Many people learn French because of its beauty, others learn it because it is a fairly popular language in Europe and knowledge of such a language will be useful for work and travel. This language is not very difficult to learn as a foreign language. Of course, French will be easier for someone, more difficult for someone, but many agree that, in terms of learning difficulty, it is somewhere between German and Spanish.
13 Korean
Korean is the native language of about 78 million people, is the official language of South Korea and North Korea, and is partly spoken in China, Japan, the United States, and Russia. This language is not very popular and not many people study it in other countries. Nevertheless, in terms of the number of native speakers, it takes an honorable 13th place in our ranking of the most widely spoken languages on earth. Most researchers consider it to be isolated languages, that is, languages that do not belong to any known language family. However, some believe that Korean may be part of a hypothetical Altaic family. According to some linguists, Korean may have some degree of relationship with Japanese.
Some people find Korean easier to learn than Japanese and Chinese, but Korean grammar is still harder in their opinion. Chinese and Japanese are studied mainly for romantic reasons, because of the desire to get closer to the culture of the East and learn the centuries-old history of the region. The Korean language is taught mainly for earnings.
12 German
German is the most popular and demanded language in Europe after English, and many learn it not for cultural reasons or for travel, but for doing business and business negotiations. German is the official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Belgium. This language is native to 100 million people, and there are more than 120 million native speakers. The German language is part of the Germanic group, like English, but German is considered much more difficult than English, like some other languages.
Beginners to learn a language are frightened by words that are 2-3 times longer than their counterparts in other languages, a lot of tenses, regular and irregular verbs conjugated in different ways, the presence of a definite and indefinite article, and not always the same gender of nouns. Nevertheless, the German language cannot be called one of the most difficult languages of the peoples of the world, since with the proper approach it is studied without any problems, like any other European language.
11 Javanese
There are so many languages in the world, but not many of our citizens, in principle, know about the existence of this language, not to mention the fact that the Javanese language is one of the most common. This language is spoken by about 105 million people and is spoken mainly on the Indonesian island of Java and a few neighboring islands. It is the largest Austronesian language in terms of the number of speakers. This is a fairly developed language that has a rich literary tradition with different genres of poetry and prose, many varieties of theatrical genres. Despite the fact that almost half of the population of Indonesia actively uses Javanese in everyday life, it, like all other existing languages in the country, does not have an official status.
10 Punjabi
This language belongs to the Indo-Aryan languages of the Indo-European language family and is one of the official languages of India. Punjabi is the language of the Punjabis and Jats, an ethnic group in India. The language is spoken in the eastern part of Pakistan, as well as in some parts of India. There are about 112 million Punjabi speakers in the world. About 105 million native speakers live in Pakistan and India. While the rest lives in countries such as the UK, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, etc. Among the features of the language, one can single out that it is a tonal language. In tonal languages, the height of a stressed syllable changes its meaning. In Punjabi, a stressed syllable can have three different pitches. This is very unusual for Indo-European languages.
9 Japanese
Ninth place in our list of the most common and popular languages in the world is another language from Asia. The native speakers of this language are 130 million people. The Japanese language is studied mainly for two reasons. Firstly, the language is studied for doing business, since Japan is one of the strongest economies in the world. Secondly, Japan has a rich and interesting culture that attracts thousands of people and sooner or later makes them interested in the language of the country. Japanese is by no means an easy language. One of the main difficulties in learning this language is the hieroglyphs, which came from Chinese, but have changed a little over time in the development of the language.
In Japanese, almost all characters have not one, but two or more sounds, depending on which words they are used in. Today in Japan, the most commonly used are about two and a half thousand hieroglyphs, while in China, at least 3,500 hieroglyphs are used. The Japanese language is simpler when compared to Korean and Chinese, but Japanese grammar is very complex. There are no tones in Japanese, but there are two alphabets. The Hiragana alphabet is the main one used for pure Japanese words, grammatical marking, and sentence endings. Katakana is another Japanese alphabet and is used for foreign words and names.
8 Russian
Russia is one of the most important countries in the world, occupying a vast territory inhabited by many peoples. The rich, vibrant and saturated culture and country attracts many foreigners who are also interested in the “mighty” Russian language. There are about 160 million people for whom Russian is their native language. In total, there are about 260 million Russian speakers. Russian is the official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It is the most widely spoken Slavic language in the world and the most widely spoken language in Europe in terms of the number of native speakers. Russian is one of the working languages of the UN. It is quite difficult to learn, its grammar is complex but logical. Russian can be called one of the simple “complex” languages.
Many foreigners choose French or German because they are common in Europe. Russian is chosen when they want to get to know Russian culture, when there are Russian friends with whom you want to speak their language, when you move to live or work in Russia. Basically, they study the Russian language because they like it, like, in general, any other language. You cannot learn a language through force, it must be interesting and attractive, there must be a desire to learn it.
7 Bengali
The Bengali language is one of the languages of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is widely spoken and is the official language in Bangladesh and India. There are about 190 million people for whom it is their mother tongue and about 260 million people who speak it. Some aspects of the language are often different in India and Bangladesh. The letter in most cases fully corresponds to the pronunciation. The writing of the language is based on Sanskrit and does not always take into account the changes and mergers of sounds that have occurred in the language over time. The history of the Bengali language dates back at least a millennium, as evidenced by both the dating of the first literary monuments and the data of linguistic reconstruction.
6 Portuguese
Portuguese is the native language of approximately 230 million people, with a total of approximately 260 million speakers. It is the official language in Portugal, Brazil, Angola and some other countries. Most of the native speakers live in Brazil. The Portuguese language is comparable in complexity to Spanish, French and Italian, as it is in the same group of Romance languages with them. There are two main variants of the language, European Portuguese and Brazilian, as well as a number of varieties in Africa and Asia, differing from each other at the level of phonetics, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. In African countries, the European version of the Portuguese language is used with a large number of lexical borrowings from African languages.
5 Arabic
Arabic is spoken in 60 countries of the world, such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt and Libya, and in 26 of them it is official. One of the working languages of the UN and belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasian family of languages. The number of native speakers exceeds 245 million people, and the total number of people who speak it is more than 350 million. Arabic is of great importance in the political and economic spheres, in the field of energy and security. This is a very popular language and people who know it will always be able to find a good job. Arabic is one of the five most difficult languages in the world, there are many dialects of Arabic that differ significantly from each other.
4 Hindi
This language is one of the 23 official languages of India, and is also spoken in Pakistan and Fiji. The mother tongue is spoken by 260 million people, and the total number of Hindi speakers is approximately 400 million people. At a colloquial level, the Hindi language is almost indistinguishable from the other official language of India, Urdu. The latter is distinguished by a large number of Arabic and Persian borrowings, as well as the fact that it uses the Arabic alphabet, while the traditional Hindi script is the Devanagari syllabary. English is one of the official languages of India, but, nevertheless, according to some reports, Hindi is quite a promising language and it may become one of the most popular languages by 2050.
3 English
The top three of our list of the most popular and common languages opens English, which is the most common language to learn as a foreign language. This language is native to 350 million people, and the total number of speakers of it is about 1.4 billion people. English is one of the working languages of the UN, the official language of Australia, New Zealand, the USA, England, Canada and some other countries. English in the modern world plays a huge role in many areas of life from politics and business to culture and travel. This is due to the colonial policy of the British Empire in the 19th century and the global influence of the United States of America at the present time.
English is also considered one of the easiest languages to learn, if not the easiest. However, this language also has its difficulties. In many countries of the world, English is taught in schools almost from the primary grades as a foreign language.
2 Spanish
In second place is a very beautiful language, which is official in Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba and most countries in South America. Spanish is very similar to Italian and Portuguese, as it is in the same Romance group with them. Approximately 420 million people consider Spanish as their mother tongue, and about 500 million people speak it all over the world. It is the most widely spoken Romance language, with 9/10 of its speakers living predominantly in the Western Hemisphere. It is a fairly easy language to learn, which, in addition to the Spanish culture and beauty of the language, adds to the desire of foreigners to learn Spanish.
There are several dialects of the Spanish language, but Castilian is considered to be the real, original Spanish language. Spain has Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician dialects, while South America has five main dialect groups. The first group is used primarily in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Mexico. The second in Peru, Chile and Ecuador. Third in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The fourth group is the Argentine-Uruguayan-Paraguayan variant, which includes Eastern Bolivia. The fifth group is conditionally called Highland Latin American Spanish. This language is spoken by the inhabitants of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, belonging to the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela, Quito (located at an altitude of 2800 m, the capital of Ecuador), the Peruvian mountain range and Bolivia.
1 Chinese
The Chinese language is a collection of very different dialects, and therefore is considered by most linguists as an independent language branch, consisting of separate, albeit related, language and dialect groups. In fact, the Chinese language is made up of many other languages. But at the same time, the hieroglyphs are one. Since the middle of the 20th century, after the reform in China, the writing of basic hieroglyphs has become much more simplified. The unified Chinese language is called Mandarin or simply Mandarin, which is called Putonghua in China. The Chinese language has 10 dialect groups and seven main traditional dialects.
Many consider Chinese the most difficult language to learn, more difficult than Japanese and Arabic. Mainly because it uses more than 3,000 characters, which are noticeably more difficult to write than Japanese or Korean. The use of tones in the language also makes it difficult to learn. Despite all the difficulties of learning, Chinese remains one of the most promising and sought-after languages in the world. It is native to 1.3 billion people and has over 1.5 billion speakers. China is one of the strongest countries in many areas, one of the largest in terms of population. Nowadays, the Chinese language is very popular and interesting, both for doing business and for understanding the most ancient culture on the planet.
