Topical content: World Languages (student’s copy)

native second world foreign major artificial liturgical common spoken computer programming

language tongue

is learned is characterized is dominated is taught is known is used is distributed is mastered is shared

TEXT 1

Before you read

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

World Language

A world language is a languagespoken internationally whichis learned by many people as a second language. A world languageis 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 organizationsand indiplomatic relations. In this respect, major world languagesare dominated by languages of Europeanorigin. The historical reason for thisis the period of European colonialism.

The international prominence of Arabichas its historical reason in the medievalIslamic conquestsand the subsequentArabizationof theMiddle EastandNorth Africa, and also exists as a liturgical language amongst Muslim communities outside of theArab World.Standard Chineseis the direct replacement of Classical Chinesewhich was an important historicallingua 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 inoverseas Chinesecommunities as well as being widely taught as a second language internationally.Russianwas used in the Russian empireand theSoviet Union, and todayis in use and widely understood in areas of CentralandEastern Europe, andNorthernandCentral Asiawhichwere formerly part of the Soviet Union, and it remains the lingua franca in the Commonwealth of Independent States.Germanserved as alingua franca in large portions of Europe for centuries. It remains an important second language in much of CentralandEastern Europe, and in the international scientific community.

Other major languages are not widely used across several continents, but have had an international significance as the lingua franca of a historical empire. These includeGreekin the Hellenic world after the conquests ofAlexander the Great, and in the territories of theByzantine Empire;Latinin theRoman Empireand previously as the standard liturgical language;Persianduring ancient and medieval incarnations of various succeedingPersian Empires, and once served as the secondlingua franca of the Islamic Worldafter Arabic;Sanskritduring the ancient and medieval historical periods of various states inSouth Asia,Southeast Asia, andCentral Asia.

The major languagesof theIndian subcontinenthave 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 Bengalivastly outnumber those who speak French as a first language, and itis one of the most spoken languages(ranking fifth or sixth) in the world with nearly 230 million total speakers, andis known for its long and rich literary tradition.

While you read

Task 1: Mind the pronunciation

Arab Arabic conquest ancient subsequent dominate

empire Hellenic Byzantine liturgical

Europe – European China – Chinese Portugal – Portuguese Russia – Russian Germany – German Greece – Greek

India – Indian / Sanskrit Rome – Latin Persia – Persian Spain – Spanish France – French

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?