Languages of EURO-ASIA

Languages of the World KENAX Translation Services

Albanian	The Albanian language is a branch of the Indo-European family tree, and consists of only one language, which is the official language of Albania (about 3.3 million speakers). It is furthermore spoken in Kosova, Montenegro and South Serbia < (Former Yugoslavia; about 3 million speakers); Macedonia < (700.000), Greece (ca. 140.000; Attica, Bocotia, South Euboea and on the island Salamis; Region of Epirus and Athens), Turkey (ca. 300.000) and Italy (ca. 90.000). Albanian is considered to be the only language derived from the extinct Illyrian language. There are two main dialects of Albanian: Gege, which is spoken in northern Albania, in the regions of Former Yugoslavia that are populated by Albanians and in northern and western Macedonia, and Toske, which is spoken in southern Albania, as well as in Greece (Toske/Arvanitika) and in Albanian language isles in Sicily and Calabria (Italy; Toske/Arberesh).

Alemannic	A German dialect. Swabian-Alemannic (Schwabisch-Alemannisch): Includes Wuerttemberg (Wurttemberg), Baden, German-speaking Alsace (Elsa?), Bavaria (Bayern) west of the Lech, and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland (Schweiz) and Vorarlberg.

Algerian	The language of Algeria.

Armenian	The language of Armenia. The invention of the Armenian Alphabet was a result of Christianity. Armenia, the first Christian nation as of 301 AD had no way of communicating the Good News in concrete form

Belorussian	Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian are a typical example of how one single language can be transformed in a different way being in different conditions. All three of them used to be one language named Old Russian. It was officially used and spoken in Kiev Russia, from the 9th until 13th century. Then Mongol conquest, Lithuanian and Polish expansion on Russian lands divided the nation, and new ethnic items appeared. Ukrainian and Belorussian suffered significant Polish influence, lost much of Russian original phonetics and some morphology and acquired a lot of Polish and Lithuanian vocabulary.

Bosnian	The language of Bosnia. Similar to Croatian and Serbian, but diverging, as all three of them are, following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Breton	Breton is spoken essentially in West-Brittany, France.

Bulgarian	The language spoken in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian language is the earliest written Slavonic language. It belongs to the southern branch of the Slavonic languages of the Indo-European language group. Its development comprises four main periods: pre-literal (till the 9th century), Old Bulgarian (9th-12th centuries), Middle Bulgarian (12th-14th centuries), and Modern Bulgarian (15th century and later). The beginnings of the Old Bulgarian language date back to the creation of an alphabet (the Glagolitsa) in 862 by Constantine Cyril the Philosopher and Methodius. At the end of the 9th century another Old Bulgarian alphabet was created - the Cyrillic alphabet. The first Glagolitic and Cyrillic Old Bulgarian manuscripts were written. Bulgaria became a center of Slavonic culture and literacy. The Old Bulgarian language is a basis for the creation of Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Croatian variants and gained the significance of a universal literary Slavonic language. During the Bulgarian National Revival the modern Bulgarian literary language is formed. It is characterized by dropping of the case forms, by the use of the definite article, by nine tenses, four moods, etc.

Catalan	Catalan is one of the group of western neo-Latin languages, together with Spanish, Portuguese and French, the most widely-spoken languages in the same family. Catalan is spoken in a large area (68,000 km2) in the east of Spain (Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, the Franja - the area in Aragon bordering on Catalonia - and other municipalities in Murcia that border on Valencia), Andorra, the south of France (North Catalonia – the Department of Pyrenees Orientales) and in the Sardinian city of l'Alguer (Alghero). Catalan in all its variants is spoken over an area with a population of 10 million.

Church Slavonian	Church Slavonian is the Old Slavonian language (the language in which Ss Cyrill and Methodius translated the Bible and the Service Books for their mission in Moravia) in Russian variant from the 18th century (since Russia was the only free Orthodox country at that time and all the Service Books were printed there). It is now used throughout the world, mainly for the needs of the local Orthodox Churches.

Chuvash	One of the Turkic languages. Spoken in the Republic of Chuvashia, in the Ulyanovsk, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg regions and in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The number of the Chuvash in Russia is 1 million 773,6 thousand. 77,5 % of them regard Chuvash as their mother tongue, 22,3 % Russian.

Croatian	The language spoken in Croatia.

Czech	The language spoken in the Czech Republic. Czech, along with Slovak, Polish, and the High and Low Sorbian, belongs to the western group of Slavic languages. More loosely it is related to the languages forming the east Slavic group (Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Russian) and the southern Slavic group (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovene, Serbian, and Croatian). As a Slavic language Czech belongs to the eastern, or satem, division of Indo-European. Czech separated itself from the other Slavic languages by a number of changes, most of which took place in the 10th through 16th centuries. At the beginning of the 15th century the religious reformer Jan Hus (John Huss) devised a diacritical writing system, placing diacritical marks over some Latin letters to distinguish the Czech palatal/palatalized consonants and long vowels. Czech has been influenced by a number of languages, especially Old Church Slavonic (introduced into the area by Constantine and Methodius in the 9th century), Latin (once the Pan-European language of learning), and German (the language of numerous colonists, as well as the main language of the Habsburg empire).

Danish	The language spoken in Denmark.

Dutch	The language spoken in Holland.

English	The history of English is conventionally, if perhaps too neatly, divided into three periods usually called Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Middle English, and Modern English. The earliest period begins with the migration of certain Germanic tribes from the continent to Britain in the fifth century A. D., though no records of their language survive from before the seventh century, and it continues until the end of the eleventh century or a bit later. By that time Latin, Old Norse (the language of the Viking invaders), and especially the Anglo-Norman French of the dominant class after the Norman Conquest in 1066 had begun to have a substantial impact on the lexicon, and the well-developed inflectional system that typifies the grammar of Old English had begun to break down. The period of Middle English extends roughly from the twelfth century through the fifteenth. The influence of French (and Latin, often by way of French) upon the lexicon continued throughout this period, the loss of some inflections and the reduction of others (often to a final unstressed vowel spelled -e) accelerated, and many changes took place within the phonological and grammatical systems of the language. The period of Modern English extends from the sixteenth century to our own day.

Esperanto	A language created to facilitate communication amongst people from different countries. In practical use for more than a hundred years, Esperanto has proved to be a genuinely living language, capable of expressing all facets of human thought.

Estonian	The language spoken in Estonia. Estonian belongs to the Finno-Ugric group of languages. The people who invented the first such language lived somewhere behind the Ural mountains. Today, there are several dozens small Finno-Ugric nations (all small) settled in North Europe, in the Volga and Ural region, and in Siberia and the Russian Far North. Quite awkwardly (think of the geographic isolation), Hungarian is also Finno-Ugric.

Evenian	A Russian dialect. On the coast of the Okhotsk Sea are the Evens people. They are a small group who speak Evenian.

Faroese	Faroe Islands (where Faroese is spoken). The Norwegian colonisation which, probably in the 8th or 9th century replaced an earlier celtic settlement, was to have a lasting importance, also linguistically. The Norwegian population which settled in the Faroe Islands has had contact with Celtic-speaking people. This is shown by the words of Gaelic origin which can be demonstrated in the Faroese language today.

Fijian	Almost everyone in Fiji speaks English - as it is the official language, but the Fijian language is preserved and widely spoken in many different dialects.

Finnish	The language spoken in Finland.

Flemish	Member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Generally regarded as the Belgian variant of Dutch rather than as a separate tongue, Flemish is spoken by approximately 5.5 million people in Belgium, where it is one of the official languages, and by a few thousand persons in France. So closely are Flemish and Dutch related that the difference between them has been compared to the difference between American and British English; however, some scholars hold that they have diverged sufficiently since the 16th cent. to be described as separate languages.

French	The language spoken in France.

French (Provencal)	Provensal is a dialect of southern Occitanian, but was often used to mean the southern Oc language in general. It appeared in Latin texts in the 11th century and was common in courtly literature in the 12th century. Proven?al was spread by the troubadours who travelled across this land with stories set to music and poetry. The word "troubadour" itself comes from the Proven?al "trobar", meaning "to find". In the Middle Ages, Proven?al and Latin were the only two written administrative languages. Proven?al was the language spoken at the pontifical court of Avignon, and was the language Dante nearly wrote his Divine Comedy in.

Frisian	Frisian is spoken as a lesser used language in Germany and in the Netherlands. There are three main varieties of Frisian: West Frisian (Frysk) which is spoken in Friesland/Fryslan (Netherlands), North Frisian (Friisk) which consists of nine different dialects in Schleswig-Holstein (Germany), and Sater Frisian (Seeltersk) which is spoken in Niedersachsen (Germany).

Fula	FULA (FULBF, FELLATAIT or PEuL5), a numerous and powerful African people, spread over an immense region from Senegal nearly to Darfur. Strictly they have no country of their own, and nowhere form the whole of the population, though nearly always the dominant native race. They are most numerous in Upper Senegal and in the countries under French sway immediately south of Senegambia, notably Futa Jallon. Farther east they rule, subject to the control of the French, Segu and Massena, countries on both banks of the upper Niger, to the south-west of Timhuktu. The districts within the great bend of the Niger have a large Fula population.

Gaelic	Gaelic is an english word for any of three languages which form one half of the Celtic language family group. These three gaelic languages are Irish Gaelic Gaeilge Manx Gaelic Gailck Scottish Gaelic Gaidhlig These three languages are spoken in Ireland, Man and Scotland.

Galician	Galician is a language spoken/written in the Northwestern region of Spain (Province of Galicia). It is a Romance Language (derived from Latin), similar to Portuguese. Actually, the term Galician-Portuguese is used as a convenient way of referring to common features of the two languages, during the period 1200-1350, when there were considerable cultural and linguistic unity between Portugal and Galicia. The most significant divergences of the two languages took place in the period 1350-1500, a time of radical change in Portuguese. Galician has nowadays a rich modern/contemporary literature and it's the language of the Political Administration in Galicia (Northwestern Spain).

German	The language spoken in Germany.

Greek	The language spoken in Greece.

Hebrew	Member of the Canaanite group of the Northwest Semitic subdivision of the Semitic subfamily of the Hamito-Semitic family of languages (see Hamito-Semitic languages). Hebrew was the language of the Jewish people in biblical times, and most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew.

Hungarian	The language spoken in Hungary.

Italian	The language spoken in Italy.

Ivrit	Israeli < language <ask translators difference between Hebrew)

Koryak	Koryak= language spoken by the inhabitants of the Kamchatka Peninsula (Syberia). The Koryak language is currently spoken by about 4,000 people living in the Russian Far East. Communities of speakers are scattered about Kamchatka peninsula in the north Pacific, and can be found in the area to the north on the mainland. Koryaks have an Autonomous Region (okrug) named for them. In daily life, this does not give them a special advantage over other speakers of minority languages in the Russian Republic, but it does give them some perquistives that they would otherwise not have. Koryak belongs to the general grouping of languages commonly referred to as "Paleosiberian" or "Paleoasiatic," which is a residual category for isolates among the Altaic-Uralic, Sino-Tibetan, and Turkic language families. It is properly related only to Chukchi, forming the family called "Chukotko-Kamchatkan" by Russian linguists.

Lithuanian	The language spoken in Lithuania. Language of the Baltic group of the Indo-European family. It is the mother tongue of about 3 million people in Lithuania, i.e. 80% of the total population (1990). Lithuanian is a minority language in Byelorussia (10 000 speakers), Poland (30 000), Latvia (30 000) and Russia (70 000) (1996). There are considerable bilingual emigrant communities in North (780 000) and South (70 000) America, Australia (10 000) and West-Central Europe (40 000), in total 900 000. Lithuanians emigranted there since 1963. An exile of about 400 000 Lithuanians in Syberia, driven by Soviets from 1941 to 1951, is melting swey. The two main territorial dialects of Lithuanian are aukstaiciai and ?emaiciai, still being associsted with the rural communities in the whole Lithuania and in neighbouring countries. The Lithuanian alphabet is based upon Latin one.

Luganda	The language of Uganda. Luganda, the native language of the people of Buganda, developed over the centuries as a spoken language. Its written form is only as recent as the arrival of the Arab and European influence among the Baganda. It is not easy, and of course it is not within the scope of this discussion, to trace its origins, but it is proper to assume that in a dynamic society with such well structured cultural, social, and political institutions like those of the Baganda, the language must have experienced a reciprocal influence during most of the changes the society went through over the course of its history. It was not however, until after the second half of the nineteenth century, that Luganda was first written down and appeared in print in its own right.

Luxembourger	Spoken in Luxembourg. On all levels of society, only one language is used in oral communication: "L?tzebuergesch" <<confirm with translators.>. This is the everyday spoken language of the people, and the symbol of the Luxembourgers national identity. Although of Germanic origin (around the 4th Century), 'Litzebuergesch' has sufficiently differentiated itself from its parent language, so as no longer to be readily understood by many a German. German native speakers might well recognise this or that word or construction used in L?tzebuergesch -in the same way that a German from one region can 'understand' a dialect from another German region- but are often caught out by 'non-Germanic' words or turns of phrase.

Macedonian	The language of Macedonia. Macedonian is a South Slavic language divided into two large groups, the western and the eastern Macedonian dialects. The Macedonian literary language was based on the central dialects of Veles, Prilep, and Bitola. The Cyrilic alphabet that the Macedonian language uses, was developed by the Macedonian brothers from Solun (Salonica), St.Cyril and St.Methodius (Sveti Kiril i Metodij), in the IX-th century. It was thought by their disciples (St.Kliment and St.Naum) at a monastery in Ohrid, Macedonia, whence it spread across the Eastern Slavic world. Although both the Cyrilic and the Roman alphabet are widely known in Macedonia, Cyrilic is predominantly used. Main signs and street names are printed either in Cyrilic script only, or in both alphabets.

Maltese	The official language of Malta, now a part of the European Union. Some think the language may be descendent from the Phoenician Carthaginians, but academics say it is most likely descendent from the Arabs who controlled the island for a period of centuries.

Moldavian	The language spoken in Moldova. Comment from translator: I am not sure whether this can be called a mistake, but there is no such language as Moldavian (unless you found that in Soviet literature on linguistics). People in Moldova speak Romanian, same as people in Austria or Switzerland speak German, and same as there is no Australian or American language (I know Webster would not agree :-). There are regional dialects, with differences in spelling or pronunciation, but as a linguistic structure this is ONE linguistic unit based on same structure, grammar, ad lexis. <ask other translators..> Study from internet (link on left): Whole Armadas of linguists started to prove the independence of the "Moldavian" language from the Romanian language. One thesis said that Moldavian were an independent Eastern Roman language (Sergievski, about 1940), another one (Ceban) proclaimed that, because of intense contacts between Moldavians on the one hand and Russians and Ukrainians on the other, the formerly Roman language was being transformed into a Slavic one.

Norwegian	The language spoken in Norway. SINCE 1938 THE NATIONAL NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE has been banned. It is strictly forbidden to teach it in the government-run schools and universities (and since the private schools may be counted on one hand, and since they will have their permission to teach withdrawn if they teach the National Language anyway, that leak is effectively plugged); it is strictly forbidden to use it as a civil servant, it is strictly forbidden to speak it in the government-owned national broadcasting NRK (nation-wide broadcasts outside NRK were likewise effectively forbidden until the early eighties as for radio and until the early nineties as for television) and it is strictly forbidden to write it if the dispatcher is any government-run institution. The National Language, its culture and literature, is consequently muted to the generations growing up.

Occitan	Occitania is the name of the countries where the Occitan language is spoken, in France <.., Italy, and Spain (further details below). In all those countries but Spain, where the local variant of Occitan, the Aranese, is protected by law, the Occitan language is minorised. There is no compulsory teaching of the language, which is often taught by non-governmental organisations.

Old Church Slavonic	Church Slavonian is the Old Slavonian language (the language in which Ss Cyrill and Methodius translated the Bible and the Service Books for their mission in Moravia) in Russian variant from the 18th century (since Russia was the only free Orthodox country at that time and all the Service Books were printed there). It is now used throughout the world, mainly for the needs of the local Orthodox Churches. It is also called Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic language, and represents a tongue which was spoken by South Slavic tribes who invaded the Balkan peninsula in the 6th and 7th century AD. These people further settled here under names of Bulgarians, Serbs and others, and so Old Church Slavonic may be also called Old Bulgarian.

Polish	The language spoken in Poland.

Portuguese	The language spoken in Portugal.

Rumanian	Rumanian (Limbr Romani) is a Balkano-Romance language, used by some 23,500,000 speakers, of whom about 20,000,000 live in Rumania, 2,700,000 in Moldova, some 350,000 in Ukraine, and about 60,000 in Yugoslavia and 10,000 in Hungary. There are about 70,000 Romanian speakers in the United States.

Russian	The language spoken in Russia.

Ruthenian	Ruthenian was the precursor to modern Ukrainian and Belarusian. But the history and synchronic realization of this language are much more complex. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ruthenian was the language of the Orthodox and Uniate inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It enjoyed a culture and prestige greater than that of its Muscovite (Russian) neighbor to the east, but was often denigrated in comparison with the dominant language--Polish--of the Commonwealth.

Serbian	The language spoken in Serbia.

Slovakian	The language spoken in Slovakia.

Slovenian	The language spoken in Slovenia.

Sotho (Southern)	Sesotho, or Southern Sotho, is spoken in Lesotho, the Free State, the northern part of the Eastern Cape Province and the south of the Gauteng province of South Africa. It is also spoken in the vicinity of Pretoria and Brits. Sesotho is used by 3 104 197 speakers as a home language in South Africa (1996 census). Sesotho was one of the first African languages to be reduced to writing, and it has an extensive literature. According to scholars the written form was originally based on the Tlokwa dialect. Today the written language is mostly based on the Kwena and Fokeng dialects. Although there are variations.

Swedish	The language spoken in Sweden. Swedish is a fascinating and expressive language. It is also a melodic language, admittedly difficult to pronounce like a native because of its characteristic sing-song rhythm, but otherwise not more complicated to learn than English. Swedish is a member of the Indo-European family, to which almost all European languages belong (with the exception of the Finnish-Ugrian, Basque, and Caucasian languages), and has many features in common with all of these. Its closest relatives are Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. The latter has due to its isolation remained remarkably intact from the Viking Age and therefore is very difficult to understand for other Nordic speakers.

Tatar	One of the Turkic languages. Spoken in the Republic of Tatarstan, in a number of districts of Bashkortostan, Mari El, Udmurtia, Mordovia, in many other regions of Russia as well as in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The number of the Tatars in Russia is 5 million 522,1 thousand. 85,6 % of them regard Tatar as their mother tongue, 14,2 % Russian. Tatar language is also spoken among the Bashkirs (227,8 thousand Bashkirs regard it as their mother tongue) and Maris.

Telugu	According to the Russian linguist M.S. Andronov, Proto-Dravidian gave rise to 21 Dravidian Languages. They can be broadly classified into three groups: Northern group, Central group, and Southern group of Dravidian languages. The Northern group consists of three languages. The central group consists ten langauages. Out of these ten, only telugu became a civilized language and the rest of the nine languages remained tribal languages. The southern group consists of languages which includes Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Tulu and others. Telugu split from Proto-Dravidian between 1500-1000 BC. So, Telugu became a distinct language by the time any literary activity began to appear in the Tamil land (Sri Lanka).

Tigrinya	There are nine languages in Eritrea. Tigrinya (50%) and Arabic are the working languages. The other languages are Tigre (40%), Afar (4%), Saho (3%), Bega (Beja), Bilen, Nara and Kunama. English and Italian are also widely understood. Tigrinya, spoken by at least half the population, has its own script derived from the ancient language Gee ’ez, now only used in the Orthodox Church. The script has over 200 characters, each representing a different sound (see below). While our alphabet states a, b, c and so on, Tigrinya has its own character for ba, be, bi, bo and so on, which are mutants of the basic character. Tigrinya is by any standards a very difficult language to learn.

Ukrainian	The language spoken in Ukraine.

Welsh	The language of Wales, more properly called Cymraeg in preference to Welsh (A Germanic word denoting "foreigner"), belongs to a branch of Celtic, an Indo-European language. The Welsh themselves are descendants of the Galatians, to whom Paul wrote his famous letter. Their language is a distant cousin to Irish and Scots Gaelic and a close brother to Breton. Welsh is still used by about half a million people within Wales and possibly another few hundred thousand in England and other areas overseas.

Yakut	Yakut = language of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia): between Turkestan and North Asia one of the Turkic languages. Spoken in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) as well as in the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions and the Taimyr and Evenki autonomous districts. The number of the Yakuts in Russia is 380,2 thousand. 94,0 % of them regard Yakut as their mother tongue, 5,9 % Russian. Yakut is also spoken among the Evenki and other peoples of the Russian North and Far East.

Yiddish	Yiddish Language, chief vernacular of Ashkenazic Jews, who are native to, or who have antecedents in, eastern and central Europe. One of the Germanic languages, Yiddish is written in Hebrew characters (some of them used differently than for writing Hebrew). Yiddish (meaning "Jewish") arose between the 9th and 12th centuries in southwestern Germany as an adaptation of Middle High German dialects to the special needs of Jews. To the original German were added those Hebrew words that pertained to Jewish religious life. Later, when the bulk of European Jewry moved eastward into areas occupied predominantly by Slavic-speaking peoples, some Slavic influences were acquired. The vocabulary of the Yiddish spoken in eastern Europe during recent times comprised about 85 percent German, 10 percent Hebrew, and 5 percent Slavic, with traces of Romanian, French, and other elements.

Yukaghir	An isolated language, the only surviving member of the Yukaghir language family (the other members of which can be also regarded as its dialects). Conventionally affiliated with the group of Paleoasian languages. Existing dialects: Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir. The Yukaghir language is spoken in the basins of the rivers Kolyma and Alazeya (North-Eastern Yakutia and the Magadan region). The number of the Yukaghirs in Russia is 1,1 thousand. 32,0 % of them regard Yukaghir as their mother tongue, 45,9 % Russian. Yakut, Even and Chukchi are also spoken among the Yukaghirs.


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