After you have read

Before you read

What is a world language? What world languages do you know?

World Language

A world language is a language spoken internationally which is learned by many people as a second language. A world language is not only characterized by the number of its speakers (native or second language speakers), but also by its geographical distribution, and its use in international organizations and in diplomatic relations. In this respect, major world languages are dominated by languages of European origin. The historical reason for this is the period of European colonialism.

The international prominence of Arabic has its historical reason in the medieval Islamic conquests and the subsequent Arabization of the Middle East and North Africa, and also exists as a liturgical language amongst Muslim communities outside of the Arab World. Standard Chinese is the direct replacement of Classical Chinese which was an important historical lingua franca in Far East Asia until the early 20th century, and today serves the function of providing a common spoken language between speakers not only within China proper, but in overseas Chinese communities as well as being widely taught as a second language internationally. Russian was used in the Russian empire and the Soviet Union, and today is in use and widely understood in areas of Central and Eastern Europe, and Northern and Central Asia which were formerly part of the Soviet Union, and it remains the lingua franca in the Commonwealth of Independent States. German served as a lingua franca in large portions of Europe for centuries. It remains an important second language in much of Central and Eastern Europe, and in the international scientific community.

Other major languages are not widely used across several continents, but havehad an international significance as the lingua franca of a historical empire. These include Greek in the Hellenic world after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and in the territories of the Byzantine Empire; Latin in the Roman Empire and previously as the standard liturgical language; Persian during ancient and medieval incarnations of various succeeding Persian Empires, and once served as the second lingua franca of the Islamic World after Arabic; Sanskrit during the ancient and medieval historical periods of various states in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia.

The major languages of the Indian subcontinent have numbers of speakers comparable to those of major world languages primarily due to the large population in the region rather than a supra-regional use of these languages. As an example, the native speaking population of Bengali vastly outnumber those who speak French as a first language, and it is one of the most spoken languages (ranking fifth or sixth) in the world with nearly 230 million total speakers, and is known for its long and rich literary tradition.

While you read

Task 1: Mind the pronunciation

Task 2: State the part of speech

Distribution, colonialism, dominate, prominence, relation, widely, subsequence, Arabization, community, replacement, literary, scientific, significance internationally, comparable, primarily, religion, various, vastly

Task 3: Translate into Russian

a) dominate, a historic reason, incarnations, population, liturgical;

b) to place – to replace;

c) the speaker of the parliament – native or second language speaker.

After you have read

Answer the questions:

1) What are the features of the world language?

2) What is the origin of the major world languages? Why?

3) What are the major world languages?

4) Why is Arabic one of the world languages?

5) How did Standard Chinese become a world language?

6) Has the role of Russian changed after the Soviet Union dissolution?

7) Is German a new world language?

8) What is the peculiarity of Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit as world languages?

9) Can major languages of the Indian subcontinent be considered world languages? Why?

Grammar in focus

State the functions and meaning of the verbs to be and to have

TEXT 2

Before you read

Look up in a dictionary

A language distinct from a mother tongue; people not sharing a mother tongue; It was in use throughout the eastern Mediterranean; the language of commerce and seaborne commerce; the term originated from its meaning in Arabic and Greek; before the Crusades.

While you read

Read and point out the key sentences of each paragraph

Lingua Franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically 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. It works as a working language or bridge language for those who use it.

The original Lingua Franca was a mixed language composed mostly (80%) of Italian with a broad vocabulary taken from Turkish, French, Greek, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish. It was in use throughout the eastern Mediterranean as the language of commerce and diplomacy in and around the Renaissance era. At that time, Italian speakers dominated seaborne commerce in the port cities of the Ottoman empire. Franca was the Italian word for Frankish. Its usage in the term lingua franca originated from its meaning in Arabic and Greek, dating from before the Crusades and during the Middle Ages, whereby all Western Europeans were called "Franks" or Faranji in Arabic and Phrankoi in Greek during the times of the late Eastern Roman Empire. The term lingua franca is first recorded in English in 1678.

Examples of lingua francas are numerous, and exist on every continent. The most obvious example today is English. There are many other lingua francas centralized on particular regions, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, French and Spanish.

The popularity of languages changes over time, and there are many lingua francas that are of historical importance. For example, French was the language of European diplomacy from the 17th century until the mid-20th century. Until the early 20th century, Classical Chinese served as both the written lingua franca and the diplomatic language in Far East Asia including China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam. Arabic became the "lingua franca" of the Arab/Islamic Empire (from CE 733 – 1492), which at a certain point spread from the borders of China and Northern India through Central Asia, Persia, Asia Minor, Middle East, North Africa all the way to Spain and Portugal in the west.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1136