Catalan

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Facts
  • Spoken by: 7 million
  • Geographic center: The east coast of Spain, primarily in Catalonia, along the border of Spain and France
  • Subdivision: Romance
  • Online resource: UCLA Language Material Project

Introduction
Catalan is spoken in four states along a 68,000 kilometer expanse of land along the Mediterranean. These states include Andorra, Spain, France, and Italy. The majority of Catalan is spoken in Spain by close to 7 million people in the following regions: Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the community of Valencia, and Franja de Ponent (Aragon). The second highest concentration of Catalan speakers is in southwestern France (Northern Catalonia), where approximately 100,000 people speak the language. 31,000 people speak Catalan in Andorra, while 20,000 speak the language in Alguer (Sardinia), Italy. Outside this region, Catalan is spoken in Algeria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, Uruguay, USA, and Venezuela. Some five million people speak Catalan as a second or third language in Spain. The number of monolingual Catalan speakers is scarce.
Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Catalan

English

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Image from: http://www.danshort.com/ie/mapmaker.php?Map=engli

Facts
  • Spoken by: 309-400 million as first language, 199-1400 million as second language
  • Geographic center: 
  • Subdivision: Germanic 
  • Online resource: 

Introduction
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has been widely dispersed around the world, become the leading language of international discourse, and has acquired use as lingua franca in many regions. It is widely learned as a second language and used as an official language of the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as in many world organizations. It is the third most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.
Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in English

French

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Image from http://www.danshort.com/ie/mapmaker.php?Map=frenc

Facts
  • Spoken by: 200 million as first language, 500 million as second language
  • Geographic center: 
  • Subdivision: Romance
  • Online resource: 

Introduction
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. The rest live essentially in Canada, particularly Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario, as well as Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and certain places in the U.S. states of Maine and Louisiana. Most second-language speakers of French live in Francophone Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in French

German

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Image from http://www.danshort.com/ie/mapmaker.php?Map=hgerm

Facts
  • Spoken by: 120 million as first language, 80 million as second language
  • Geographic center: 
  • Subdivision: Germanic
  • Online resource: 

Introduction
German is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities and Goethe Institutes worldwide. German is the third-most taught foreign language in the English-speaking world after French and Spanish. German is the main language of about 90–95 million people in Europe (as of 2004), or 13.3% of all Europeans, being the second most spoken native language in Europe after Russian, above French (66.5 million speakers in 2004) and English (64.2 million speakers in 2004). It is therefore the most spoken first language in the EU. It is the second most known foreign language in the EU. It is one of the official languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission, along with English and French. Thirty-two percent of citizens of the EU-15 countries say they can converse in German (either as a mother tongue or as a second or foreign language). This is assisted by the widespread availability of German TV by cable or satellite.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in German

Greek

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Image from UCLA LMP

Facts

Introduction
Greek, or Ellinika, as it is called in Greece, is spoken by 9,859,850 in Greece or 98.5% of the population (1986). Small populations of speakers are also in adjacent countries: Albania (60,000); Cyprus (578,000); Egypt (60,000); Italy (20,000); Bulgaria (11,000). It is also spoken around the world by a significant number of speakers who have emigrated for political or, more commonly, economic reasons to the USA (458,699); Germany (314,000); Poland (114,000); Australia (106,677); Canada (104,455); Georgia (100,000); Ukraine (104,000); Russia (105,000); South Africa (70,000); United Kingdom (200,000); Sweden (50,000); Kazakhstan (47,000) and smaller populations--under 20 thousand speakers--in Austria, Turkey, Armenia, Paraguay, Malawi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone, Congo, and Bahamas.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Greek

Gujarati

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Image from UCLA LMP

Facts

Introduction
Gujarati is an official national and regional language of India. It is spoken by approximately 46 million people, making it the twenty-third most widely spoken language in the world today. In India, some 45.5 million people speak the language. Outside India, Gujarati is spoken by a quarter of a million people in Tanzania, 150,000 in Uganda, 100,000 in Pakistan, 50,000 in Kenya, and roughly 12,000 in Zambia. Smaller groups of Gujarati speakers are found in Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Fiji, Malawi, Mauritius, Oman, Réunion, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zimbabwe. Gujarati was the native language of Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Gujarati

Italian

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Image from http://www.danshort.com/ie/mapmaker.php?Map=itali

Facts
  • Spoken by: 70 million as first language, 125 million as second language
  • Geographic center: 
  • Subdivision: Romance
  • Online resource: 

Introduction
Italian is the national language of Italy and is spoken by about 55 million people in Italy. Italian is also spoken in San Marino and the Vatican, both of which are entirely within Italy. There are dozens of varying dialects of Italian, some of which have little mutual intelligibility with other Italian dialects. Italian is also spoken along the Adriatic coast of the Balkan states and in Eritrea, due to former Italian dominance of that African region. Worldwide there are approximately 62 million Italian speakers.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Italian

Norwegian

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Image from UCLA LMP

Facts

Introduction
The general term “Norwegian” covers the broad spectrum of related dialects spoken in Norway. The two officially sanctioned written standards are called Bokmål (literally: book language) and Nynorsk (literally New Norwegian). A very small community speaks Norwegian in the US and Canada, mostly children or grandchildren of immigrants.
Norwegian belongs to the Northern branch of the Germanic language family of Indo-European. Other Northern Germanic languages are Danish, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish. Historically Old Norwegian was a West Scandinavian language (along with Faroese and Icelandic), but the classification is moot now, since many Norwegian dialects and the written form were strongly influenced by Danish (an East Scandinavian language) during the 400 years Norway was ruled from Denmark.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Norwegian

Polish

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Image from UCLA LMP

Facts

Introduction
Polish is spoken by about 43 million people of whom some 36.5 million speakers live in Poland, where it is the official language. Another 2.5 million live in the USA, 1 million in Ukraine, and 100,000 or so in each of the former Czechoslovakia, Germany, Israel, and Canada; lesser numbers are in Australia and Romania.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Polish

Portugese

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Image from http://www.danshort.com/ie/mapmaker.php?Map=portu

Facts
  • Spoken by: 210 million people
  • Geographic center: 
  • Subdivision: Romanic
  • Online resource:

Introduction
Portuguese is a Romance language that originated from a fusion of the dialect spoken in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal with closely related dialects spoken in territories to the south which had not yet been reconquered by the Christians to the Arabs by the time Portugal was born as a Christian kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula (first half of the 12th century). Today it is one of the world's major languages, ranked seventh according to number of native speakers (between 205 and 230 million). It is the language of about half of South America's population, even though Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. It is also a major lingua franca in Portugal's former colonial possessions in Africa. It is an official language in nine countries (see the table on the right), also being co-official with Cantonese Chinese in Macau and Tetum in East Timor. There are sizeable communities of Portuguese speakers in various regions of North America, notably in the United States (New Jersey, New England, California and south Florida) and in Ontario, Canada (especially Toronto).

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Portugese

Romanian

Picture
Image from UCLA LMP

Facts

Introduction
Romanian is the official language of Romania and claims a total of 25 million speakers (Grimes 1992). Approximately 20 million live in Romania (90% of the population); 3 million in Moldovia (Moldovian Romanian); and 875,000 in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. Immigrant communities throughout Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States also use it.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Romanian

Russian

Picture
Image from UCLA LMP

Facts

Introduction
Russian is spoken by about 145,000,000 people in Russian Federation. Large communities of Russian speakers exist in the US, Israel, China, Canada, Germany, and the former Soviet republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, Ukraine, etc.). Russian is used as a lingua franca between different ethnic minorities in Russian Federation. In the past it was widely used as a lingua franca also in the former Soviet republics, but it is gradually being replaced by English.

Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Russian

Spanish

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Image from http://www.danshort.com/ie/mapmaker.php?Map=spani

Facts
  • Spoken by: 329 million people as a first language and 266 - 450 millions as a second language
  • Geographic center: 
  • Subdivision: Romanic
  • Online resource:

Introduction
Spanish (also known as Castilian, Castellano, and Español) is the chief official language of Spain and is spoken by about 28 million people there. Spanish is spoken by far more people in the former colonies of Spain in the New World, and in the Philippines. Worldwide, Spanish is the second most-spoken language after English, with a total of about 322 million native speakers. Spanish is widely spoken in the United States, although it has no official status there outside of a few communities in the southwestern U.S.A.
 
Language sample
Click play below to hear a greeting in Spanish