Jumat, 04 Desember 2015

Languages of Asia



Arabic is the official language of Bahrain, though English is widely used.[247] Bahrani Arabic is the most widely spoken dialect of the Arabic language, though this differs slightly from standard Arabic. Arabic plays an important role in political life, as, according to article 57 (c) of Bahrain's constitution, an MP must be fluent in Arabic to stand for parliament.[248] Among the Bahraini and non-Bahraini population, many people speak Persian, the official language of Iran, or Urdu, the official language of Pakistan.[247] Nepali is also widely spoken in theNepalese workers and Gurkha Soldiers community. Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi are spoken among significant Indian communities.[247] Many commercial institutions and road signs are bilingual, displaying both English and Arabic.[249]

Official language
Khmer
Languages of education
English, French[9] (3%, 423,000 French speakers[10]).
Minority languages
Cham (2.2%), Vietnamese (0.8%), Tumpoon (0.4%);[11]
Lao, Jarai, Yue Chinese, and many small Mon–Khmer languages at < 0.25%
Sign languages
American Sign Language

Georgian 71% (official), Azerbaijani 6.5%, Armenian 5.7%, other 4.0% (including Russian, Abkhazian, Pontic Greek, Urum, and Ossetian),
Note: Abkhaz is the official language in partially recognized state Abkhazia

Union-level
8th schedule to the
Constitution of India
State-level
Other languages

The official language is Modern Standard Arabic, a literary language taught in the schools. The native languages of most Jordanians are dialects of Jordanian Arabic, a nonstandard version of Arabic with many influences from English, French and Turkish. Jordanian Sign Language is the language of the deaf community. English, though without an official status, is widely spoken throughout the country and is the de facto language of commerce and banking, as well as a co-official status in the education sector; almost all university-level classes are held in English. Chechen, Circassian, Armenian, Tagalog, and Russian are quite popular among their communities and acknowledged widely in the kingdom.[179]
Most, if not all, public schools in the country teach English and Standard Arabic. French is elective in many schools, mainly in the private sector. L'Ecole française d'Amman andLycée français d'Amman are the most famous French language schools in the capital. French remains an elite language in Jordan, despite not enjoying the popularity it did in older times. German is an increasingly popular language among the elite and the educated; it's been most likely introduced at a larger scale after the début of the German-Jordanian University. A historic society of German Protestants of Amman continue to use the German language in their events and daily lives.[180]
The media in Jordan revolves mainly around English, with many British and mostly American programmes and films shown on local television and cinemas. Egyptian Arabic is very popular, with many Egyptian movies playing in cinemas across the country. The government-owned Jordan TV shows programmes and newscasts in Arabic (Standard and Jordanian), English and French; Radio Jordan offers radio services in Standard Arabic, the Jordanian dialects (informally), English and French, as well. When an English-language film is shown in a cinema, translations into both French and Standard Arabic are available.[179]

North Korea shares the Korean language with South Korea, although some dialect differences exist within both Koreas. North Koreans refer to their Pyongyang dialect as munhwa ("cultured language") as opposed to South Korea's Seoul dialect, the p'yojuno ("standard language"), which is viewed as decadent because of its usage of Japanese and English loanwords.[210]
Words from Japanese, Chinese or Western origin have been eliminated from munhwa along with the usage of Chinese hanja characters.[210] Written language uses the chosŏn'gul phonetic alphabet, developed under Sejong the Great (1418–1450).[211]

The Korean language is spoken by the vast majority of the population.

Kuwait's official language is Modern Standard Arabic. Kuwaiti Arabic is Kuwait's colloquial dialect. Kuwaiti Sign Language is used by the deaf community. English is widely understood and often used as a business language.

Kyrgyzstan is one of two former Soviet republics in Central Asia to retain Russian as an official language, Kazakhstan being the other. It added the Kyrgyz language to become an officially bilingual country in September 1991.
Kyrgyz is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch, closely related to Kazakh, Karakalpak, and Nogay Tatar. It was written in the Arabic alphabet until the twentieth century. Latin script was introduced and adopted in 1928, and was subsequently replaced by Cyrillic script in 1941.
According to the 2009 census,[73] 4.1 million people spoke Kyrgyz as native or second language and 2.5 million spoke Russian as native or second language. Uzbek is the second most widely spoken native language, followed by Russian. Russian is the most widely spoken second language, followed by Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and English.
Many business and political affairs are carried out in Russian. Until recently, Kyrgyz remained a language spoken at home and was rarely used during meetings or other events. However, most parliamentary meetings today are conducted in Kyrgyz, with simultaneous interpretation available for those not speaking Kyrgyz.
Language nameNative speakersSecond-language speakersTotal speakers
Kyrgyz3,830,556271,1874,121,743
Russian482,2432,109,3932,591,636
Uzbek772,56197,753870,314
English28,41628,416
French641641
German1010
Other277,43331,411
The official and dominant language is Lao, a tonal language of the Tai linguistic group. However, only slightly more than half of the population can speak Lao. The remainder, particularly in rural areas, speak ethnic minority languages. The Lao alphabet, which evolved sometime between the 13th and 14th centuries, was derived from the ancient Khmer script.[103] Languages like Khmu and Hmong are spoken by minorities, particularly in the midland and highland areas. A number of Laotian sign languages are used in areas with high rates of congenital deafness.
French is still commonly used in government and commerce and over a third of Laos' students are educated through the medium of French with French being compulsory for all other students. Throughout the country signage is bilingual in Laotian and French, with French being predominant. English, the language of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has become increasingly studied in recent years.[104]

Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that "Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language is to be used".[170] The majority of Lebanese people speak Lebanese Arabic, which is grouped in a larger category called Levantine Arabic, while Modern Standard Arabic is mostly used in magazines, newspapers, and formal broadcast media. Lebanese Sign Language is the language of the deaf community. Almost 40% of Lebanese are considered francophone, and another 15% "partial francophone," and 70% of Lebanon's secondary schools use French as a second language of instruction.[171] By comparison, English is used as a secondary language in 30% of Lebanon's secondary schools.[171] The use of French is a legacy of France's historic ties to the region, including its League of Nations mandate over Lebanon following World War I; as of 2004, some 20% of the population used French on a daily basis.[172] The use of Arabic by Lebanon's educated youth is declining, as they usually prefer to speak in French and, to a lesser extent, English, which are seen as 'hipper'.[173][174]
English is increasingly used in science and business interactions.[175][176] Lebanese citizens of Armenian, Greek, or Kurdish descent often speak their ancestral languages with varying degrees of fluency. As of 2009, there were around 150,000 Armenians in Lebanon, or around 5% of the population.[177]

Dhivehi or Maldivian, a language closely related to Sinhala and written in a specialized Arabic script (Tāna), is the official language and is spoken by virtually the whole population. English is also spoken as a second language by many.

The official language of Mongolia is Mongolian, and is spoken by 95% of the population. A variety of dialects of Oirat and Buryat are spoken across the country, and there are also some speakers of Mongolic Khamnigan. In the west of the country, Kazakh and Tuvan, both Turkic languages, are also spoken. Mongolian Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community.
Today, Mongolian is written using the Cyrillic alphabet, although in the past it was written using the Mongolian script. An official reintroduction of the old script was planned for 1994, but has not taken place as older generations encountered practical difficulties.[49]The traditional alphabet is being slowly reintroduced through schools.[50]
Russian is the most frequently spoken foreign language in Mongolia, followed by English, although English has been gradually replacing Russian as the second language. Korean has gained popularity as tens of thousands of Mongolians work in South Korea.[51]
Interest in Chinese, as the language of the other neighbouring power, has been growing.[citation needed] A number of older educated Mongolian citizens speak some German, as they studied in the former East Germany, while a few speak other languages from the formerEastern Bloc. Many younger people are fluent in the Western European languages as they study or work in, among other places, Germany, France and Italy.[citation needed]

Arabic is the official language of Oman. It belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family.[85] Baluchi (Southern Baluchi) is widely spoken in Oman.[107] Endangered indigenous languages in Oman include Kumzari, Bathari, Harsusi, Hobyot, Jibbali and Mehri.[108] Omani Sign Language is the language of the deaf community. Oman was also the first Arab country in the Persian Gulf to have German taught as a third language.[109]
According to the CIA, besides Arabic, English, Baluchi (Southern Baluchi), Urdu, and various Indian dialects are the main languages spoken in Oman.[3] English is widely spoken in the business community and is taught at school from an early age. Almost all signs and writings appear in both Arabic and English.[88] Baluchi is the mother tongue of theBaloch people from Balochistan in western-Pakistan, eastern Iran, and southern Afghanistan. It is also used by some descendants of Sindhi sailors.[110] A significant number of residents also speak Urdu, due to the influx of Pakistani migrants during the late 1980s and the 1990s. Additionally, the Bantu Swahili is widely spoken in the country due to the historical relations between Oman and Zanzibar.[7]

Arabic is the official language of Qatar, with Qatari Arabic the local dialect. Qatari Sign Language is the language of the deaf community. English is commonly used as a second language,[205] and a rising lingua franca, especially in commerce, to the extent that steps are being taken to try to preserve Arabic from English's encroachment.[206] English is particularly useful for communication with Qatar's large expatriate community. In 2012, Qatar joined the international French-speaking organisation of La Francophonie as a new associate member,[207] justifying its inscription by the consequent number of French speakers in the country (10% of the Qatari population would be francophone).[208][209]Reflecting the multicultural make-up of the country, many other languages are also spoken, including Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu, Pashto Tamil, Nepali, Sinhalese,Bengali andTagalog.[210]

The official language of Saudi Arabia is Arabic. The three main regional variants spoken by Saudis are Hejazi Arabic (about 6 million speakers[290]), Najdi Arabic (about 8 million speakers[291]), and Gulf Arabic (about 0.2 million speakers[292]). Saudi Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community. The large expatriate communities also speak their own languages, the most numerous of which are Tagalog (700,000), Rohingya (400,000), Urdu (380,000), and Egyptian Arabic (300,000).[293]

Several dialects of Tajik (a variety of the Persian) are spoken, and it is the official language.[6] Russian is widely used in both government and business. The different ethnicminorities speak different languages, for instance Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Khowar.[7] In the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province, Shughni as well as other Pamir languages are spoken. In the northern Yaghnob valley, the Yaghnobi language is still spoken.

Turkmen is the official language of Turkmenistan (per the 1992 Constitution), although Russian still is widely spoken in cities as a "language of inter-ethnic communication". Turkmen is spoken by 72% of the population, Russian 12%, Uzbek 9%,[29] and other languages 7%. (Russian (349,000), Uzbek (317,000), Kazakh (88,000), Tatar (40,400),Ukrainian (37,118), Azerbaijani (33,000), Armenian (32,000), Northern Kurdish (20,000), Lezgian (10,400), Persian (8,000), Belarusian (5,290), Erzya (3,490), Korean (3,490),Bashkir (2,610), Karakalpak (2,540), Ossetic (1,890), Dargwa (1,600), Lak (1,590), Romanian (1,560), Tajik (1,280), Georgian (1,050), Lithuanian (224), Tabasaran (180),Brahui, Dungan).[42]

Arabic is the official and national language of the UAE. The Gulf dialect of Arabic is spoken natively by the Emirati people.[4] The yamani language (Original Arab language) is also spoken natively by some Emiratis.[5] Emirati Sign Language appears to be used by at least part of the deaf community. Apart from Arabic, English is widely used as a second language. Other languages spoken in the UAE, due to immigration, include Malayalam, Urdu, Hindi, Persian, Cebuano, Pashto, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Baluchi (Southern Baluchi),Russian, Somali, Tagalog, Nepali, Mandarin and Telugu.

The Uzbek language is the only official state language,[90] and since 1992 is officially written in the Latin alphabet. The Tajik language is widespread in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand because of their relatively large population of ethnic Tajiks.[2] It is also found in large pockets in Kasan, Chust and Rishton in Fergana valley, as well as in Ahangaran, Baghistan in the middle Syr Darya district, and finally in, Shahrisabz, Kitab and the river valleys of Kafiringan and Chaganian, forming altogether, approximately 10–15% of the population of Uzbekistan.[2][3][4]
Karakalpak language, a Turkic language close to Kazakh, is spoken in the Republic of Karakalpakstan and has an official status there.
Russian is an important language for interethnic communication, especially in the cities, including much day-to-day technical, scientific, governmental and business use. Russian is the main language of over 14% of the population and is spoken as a second language by many more. The use of Russian in remote rural areas has always been limited, and today most school children have no proficiency in Russian even in urban centres. However, it was reported in 2003 that over half of the population could speak and understand Russian, and a renewed close political relationship between Russia and Uzbekistan has meant that official discouragement of Russian has dropped off sharply.[91]
Before the 1920s, the written language of Uzbeks was called Turki (known to Western scholars as Chagatay) and used the Nastaʿlīq script. In 1926 the Latin alphabet was introduced and went through several revisions throughout the 1930s. Finally, in 1940, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced by Soviet authorities and was used until the fall of Soviet Union. In 1993 Uzbekistan shifted back to the Latin script, which was modified in 1996 and is being taught in schools since 2005.[92] Nevertheless, many signs and notices (including official government boards in the streets) are still written in Uzbek Cyrillic script[citation needed].

The official national language of Vietnam is Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt), a tonal Mon–Khmer language which is spoken by the majority of the population. In its early history, Vietnamese writing used Chinese characters. In the 13th century, the Vietnamese developed their own set of characters, referred to as Chữ nôm. The folk epic Truyện Kiều ("The Tale of Kieu", originally known as Đoạn trường tân thanh ) by Nguyễn Du was written in Chữ nôm. Quốc ngữ, the romanized Vietnamese alphabet used for spoken Vietnamese, was developed in the 17th century by the Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes and several other Catholic missionaries.[131] Quốc ngữ became widely popular and brought literacy to the Vietnamese masses during the French colonial period.[131]
Vietnam's minority groups speak a variety of languages, including Tày, Mường, Cham, Khmer, Chinese, Nùng, and H'Mông. The Montagnard peoples of the Central Highlandsalso speak a number of distinct languages.[132] A number of sign languages have developed in the cities.
The French language, a legacy of colonial rule, is spoken by many educated Vietnamese as a second language, especially among the older generation and those educated in the former South Vietnam, where it was a principal language in administration, education and commerce; Vietnam remains a full member of the Francophonie, and education has revived some interest in the language.[133][134] Russian – and to a much lesser extent German, Czech and Polish – are known among some Vietnamese whose families had ties with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.[135] In recent years, as Vietnam's contacts with Western nations have increased, English has become more popular as a second language. The study of English is now obligatory in most schools, either alongside or in many cases, replacing French.[135][136] Japanese, Chinese and Korean have also grown in popularity as Vietnam's links with other East Asian nations have strengthened.

Modern Standard Arabic is the official language of Yemen. Yemeni Arabic is spoken in several regional dialects. In the Mahra area in the far east and the island Soqotra, several non-Arabic languages are spoken.[332][333] Yemeni Sign Language is used by the deaf community.
Yemen is one of the main homelands of the South Semitic family of languages. Mehri is the largest South Semitic language spoken in the nation, with more than 70,000 speakers. The ethnic group itself is called Mahra. Soqotri is another South Semitic language, with speakers on the island of Socotra isolated from the pressures of Arabic on the Yemeni mainland. According to the 1990 census in Yemen, the number of speakers there was 57,000.[334]
Yemen was also home of the Old South Arabian languages. Of these idioms one, Jabal Razih, appears to still be spoken in the far northwestern corner of the country.
There are a significant number of Russian speakers, originating from Yemeni-Russian cross-marriages occurring mainly in the 1970s and 1980s. A small Cham-speaking community is found in the capital city of Sana'a, originating from refugees expatriated from Vietnam after the Vietnam War in the 1970s.[citation needed]

Abkhaz /æpˈhɑːz/[3] (sometimes spelled Abxaz; Аԥсуа бызшәа) is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mostly by the Abkhaz people. It is the official language of Abkhazia[a] where around 100,000 people speak it.[1] Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan and several Western countries. The Russian census of 2010 reported 6,786 speakers of Abkhaz in Russia.[4]

Geographical distribution[edit]

Abkhaz is spoken primarily in Abkhazia. Abkhaz is also spoken by members of the large Abkhaz Muhajir diaspora, mainly located in Turkey with smaller groups living in Syria, Iraqand Jordan; Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara; throughout the former USSR (e.g. Armenia and the Ukraine) and through more recent emigration in Western countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. However, the exact number of Abkhaz speakers in these countries remains unknown due to a lack of official records.

Dialects[edit]

Abkhaz is generally viewed as having three major dialects:
  • Abzhywa, spoken in the Caucasus, and named after the historical area of Abzhywa (Абжьыуа), sometimes referred to as Abzhui, the Russified form of the name ("Abzhuiski dialekt", derived from the Russian form of the name for the area, Абжуа).
  • Bzyb or Bzyp, spoken in the Caucasus and in Turkey, and named after the Bzyb (Abkhaz Бзыԥ) area.
  • Sadz, nowadays spoken only in Turkey, formerly also spoken between the rivers Bzyp and Khosta.
The literary Abkhaz language is based on the Abzhywa dialect.

The official language of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is Armenian. Ethnic Armenians make up roughly 95% of the population. There are also minority groups of Russians, Assyrians, Kurds, Jews and Greeks.[1] Prior to the Nagorno-Karabakh War the former ethnic Azeri population was much higher, with many people being displaced from the area during and after the war thus reducing the percentage of Azeri language speakers in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The languages of Palestine are the languages spoken or once spoken in the territory of the State of Palestine.

Overview[edit]

Palestinian Arabic is the primary language spoken by Palestinians that has a unique dialect. It is a Levantine Arabic dialect subgroup spoken in Palestine, by Arab citizens of Israel (mostly Palestinians) and in most Palestinian populations around the world.[1] However, Palestinian refugees in other parts of the world may have a different dialect to the Palestinian Arabic. In the West Bank, there are many Israeli settlements where since the turn of the 20th century Hebrew has become more common. However, Russian andAmharic has also started to appear resulting from aliyah from Ethiopia. Other Jewish migrants have also brought other European languages.[2]
In premodern and medieval time periods, many other languages had also been spoken in Palestine for ceremonial purposes or otherwise, including Latin, French, Italic languages, Germanic languages, classical Arabic and Greek. However these languages gradually faded away along with geopolitical shifts and disestablishment of feudalism.[3]



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