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English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century,Ammon, pp. 2245-2247.Schneider, p. 1.Mazrui, p. 21.Howatt, pp. 127-133. it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world.Crystal, pp. 87-89.Wardhaugh, p. 60. It is used extensively as a second language and as an official language in Commonwealth countries and many international organizations.

Historically, English originated from several dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers beginning in the 5th century. The language was heavily influenced by the Old Norse language of Viking invaders. After the Norman conquest, Old English developed into Middle English, borrowing heavily from the Norman (Anglo-French) vocabulary and spelling conventions. Modern English developed from there notably with the Great Vowel Shift that began in 15th-century England, and continues to adopt foreign words from a variety of languages, as well as coining new words. A significant number of English words, especially technical words, have been constructed based on roots from Latin and ancient Greek.

Arabic ( ' or ') is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Syriac. In terms of speakers, Arabic is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as a first language and by 250 millionEthnologue (1999) more as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Middle East and North Africa. Different spoken varieties of Arabic exist and differ according to region. Not all of the varieties are mutually intelligible and speakers may use a sort of medial language with features common to most Arabic varieties to communicate with speakers of mutually unintelligible varieties. Standard Arabic is widely taught in schools, universities, and used in the office and the media.

Modern Standard Arabic derives from Classical Arabic, the only surviving member of the Old North Arabian dialect group, attested in Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions dating back to the 4th century.Versteegh, 1997, p. 33. Classical Arabic has also been a literary language and the liturgical language of Islam since its inception in the 7th century.

Arabic has lent many words to other languages of the Islamic world. During the Middle Ages, Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed numerous words from it. Arabic influence is seen in Mediterranean languages, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, Maltese, and Sicilian, due to both the proximity of European and Arab civilization and 700 years of Arab rule in the Iberian peninsula (see Al-Andalus).

Arabic has also borrowed words from many languages, including Hebrew, Persian and Syriac in early centuries, and contemporary European languages in modern times.

Cantonese (known academically as Yue (Pinyin) or Yüeh (Wade-Giles), after the Mandarin pronunciation of Category: wiktionary - :?|? yuèEthnologue) is a primary branch of Chinese. The name "Cantonese" is also commonly used in a narrower sense for Standard Cantonese, the prestige dialect of Cantonese in the broader sense.

The issue of whether Cantonese in the broader sense (Yue) should be regarded as a language in its own right or as a dialect of a Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language is. Like the other primary branches of Chinese, Cantonese is considered to be a dialect of a single Chinese language for ethnic and cultural reasons, but is also considered a language in its own right because it is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese.

The exact number of Cantonese speakers is unknown due to a lack of statistics and census data. The areas with the highest concentration of speakers are Guangdong and parts of Guangxi in southern mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau; with Cantonese-speaking minorities in Southeast Asia, Canada, and the United States.Lau, Kam Y. 1999 (1999). Cantonese Phrase book. Lonely planet publishing. ISBN 0864426453.

Spanish (español), sometimes called Castilian (castellano), is a Romance language that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade. It was taken most notably to the Americas, and also to Africa and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Today, about 400 million people speak Spanish as a native language, making it the world's second most spoken language in terms of native speakers but fourth in terms of total speakers. Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers.

Spanish is growing increasingly popular as a second or third language in a number of countries due to logistical, economic, and touristic interest towards the many nations which chiefly use Spanish as the primary language. This phenomenon is most notable in Brazil, the United States, Italy, France, Portugal, and much of the Anglosphere in general. It is widely considered to be the most beneficial second language for native speakers of English when studying a language out of general interest or for future travel possibilities.

French (français, ) is a Romance language spoken, around the world, by about 130 million people as a first language (mother tongue), by 190 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated. The rest live essentially in Canada (Quebec), Belgium, Switzerland, Francophone Africa, Luxembourg, and Monaco. Most second-language speakers of French live in Francophone Africa, arguably exceeding the number of native speakers. La Francophonie dans le monde 2006?2007 published by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Nathan, Paris, 2007. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the Francophone country with the largest population.

French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are national languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Romanian, and minority languages ranging from Catalan and Occitan to Neapolitan and many more. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

It is an official language in 29 countries, most of which form what is called, in French, La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations. According to the European Union, 129 million (26% of the 497,198,740) people in 27 member states speak French, of which 65 million (12%) are native speakers and 69 million (14%) claim to speak it either as a second language or as a foreign language, which makes it the third most spoken second language in the Union, after English and German. In addition, prior to the mid 20th century, French served as the preeminent language of diplomacy among European and colonial powers as well as a lingua franca among the educated classes of Europe.

Mandarin ( or ), is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin language has more native speakers than any other language. The "standard" in Standard Mandarin refers to the standard Beijing dialect of the Mandarin language.

Mandarin is also a general term describing any grade of nobility in the Chinese Imperial Court.

In English, Mandarin can refer to either of two distinct concepts:

*In everyday use Mandarin refers to Standard Chinese or Standard Mandarin (Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu), which is based on the particular Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing. Standard Mandarin functions as the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China, the official language of the Republic of China (Taiwan), and one of the four official languages of Singapore. "Chinese"?in practice Standard Mandarin?is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

*In its broader sense, Mandarin is a diverse group of Mandarin dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China (Guanhua / Beifanghua / Beifang fangyan). This group of dialects is the focus of this article.

The latter grouping is defined and used mainly by linguists, and is not commonly used outside of academic circles as a self-description. Instead, when asked to describe the spoken form they are using, Chinese speaking a form of non-Standard Mandarin will describe the variant that they are speaking, for example Southwestern Mandarin or Northeastern Mandarin, and consider it distinct from "Standard Mandarin" (putonghua); they may not recognize that it is in fact classified by linguists as a form of "Mandarin" in a broader sense. Nor is there a common "Mandarin" identity based on language; rather, there are strong regional identities centred on individual dialects, because of the wide geographical distribution and cultural diversity of its speakers.

Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is significant dispute as to whether Mandarin is a language or a dialect. See Identification of the varieties of Chinese for more on this issue.

Persian (local names: Category: wikt - :?????|?????, Farsi ; or Category: wikt - :?????|?????, Parsi ) is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Bahrain and has official-language status in the first three countries under different names. Persian is a pluricentric language.

The Persian language has been a medium for literary and scientific contributions to the Islamic world as well as the Western. It has had an influence on certain neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages of Central Asia, Caucasus, Punjabi and Anatolia as well as a smaller influence on Urdu, Hindi, Saraiki and other Indian languages. It has had a lesser influence on Arabic and other languages of Mesopotamia.

:This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.

Korean (, see below) is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. It was formerly written using Hanja, borrowed Chinese characters pronounced in the Korean way. In the 15th century a national writing system was developed by Sejong the Great, currently called Hangul.

The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated. Some linguists place it in the Altaic language family, while others consider it to be a language isolate. It is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.