Check out this infographic about languages (look at the images not just the bulleted list at the top.)
http://www.edudemic.com/language-quiz/
Write a reaction in English of at least three sentences.
Ideas: what surprised you? what did you Google to find out more about? how do some of these facts compare with things in the US or Columbiana County?
I was surprised that 25% of the world knows English as an oral language. I didn't Google anymore information because I am going to get a bowl of cereal. Columbiana County fits in because we different from the Vatican City, where we don't have an ATM that does Latin.
ReplyDeleteA lot of places in the world start learning English at a younger age then we start learning our other languages. In Europe, most begin learning from 6 to 9 years old. I want a bowl of cereal now though.
DeleteEnglish is considered the language of business, so that's a key reason why so many others learn it. What kind of cereal did you get, David? You say you don't eat sugar, so did you eat the "healthy" kind of cereal?
DeleteI ate a bowl of Crispy Rice; although I recently had a dream about Raisin Bran, so I am going to have to go get some.
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DeleteProud of you, David.
DeleteGood choice Dave. I just had a bowl of Mini Wheats.
DeleteI want Cap'n Crunch now.
DeleteIt surprises me that a language dies every 14 days. That seems like a short span of time for that to actually happen. It doesn't surprise me that the US has no official language because we have evolved so much. Google tells me however that English is spoken by about 82% of the population as a native language and Spanish is the second most common at 12%.
ReplyDeleteThat is surprising that a language dies that often. Then again, if something isn't being used it will eventually be forgotten. Although two weeks seems like a sufficient amount of time, it really is a rather short span, as you'd said.
DeleteI'm still baffled at the fact that there are about 7,000 languages in the world. And yet here we are talking about endangered languages and the death of languages, treating them as if they are animals. Weird.
DeleteI am curious to see if any languages will be invented sometime in the future.
DeleteEnglish is spoken by 82% of the world? Or just the United States?
DeleteI was surprised to read that the pope tweets in nine different languages. Kudos to him for being tech-savvy for his age, plus having the language knowledge to do it. I went on Google to find out about endangered languages and found that Nigeria has 15 endangered languages, like the Yangkam language, which is the most endangered. I also read that the US has no official language, which surprises me because you would think that it would be English.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the pope actually knows that many languages or if he has a staff that translates for him. I know he speaks Spanish because he is from Argentina, and then Italian and Latin, obviously.
DeleteJenna, I read that whole thing in your voice.
DeleteThere was a lot of interesting information in this. I particularly liked the language that is made entirely of click sounds; I think it would be a hard one to learn. I was surprised that German and French were voted the most helpful in ensuring a job because I thought it would have been Spanish (at least in the U.S.). When I googled it, Spanish was #3.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that Furbies have their own language. I always knew they were up to no good...
I agree that the language with click sounds would be a hard one to learn. I feel like you could only make so many sounds and some people would be able to make more sounds than others and it would still sound differently depending on the person. Those Furbies have always been up to no good though..
DeleteBeing friends with Chris, I know plenty about Lord of the Rings even though I've never watched them on my own, I did not, however, realize how many languages the author made up just for the book to seem more real to the reader. I find that kind of dedication enriching. I googled the language that consists of clicks and I'm honestly scared to ever think about learning a language like that.
ReplyDeleteI have never watched Lord of the Rings either! I'm glad to know I am not the only one!
DeleteYou should know from being friends with me that the producers of the Harry Potter films also had to create Parseltounge. It's not very developed, but the phonetics had to be fine tuned and taught to actors!
DeleteI am so surprised that there are about 2,200 languages in Asia alone. I googled Lisbon Ohio's population, and there is just over 2,700 people that live here. It is astonishing to see how we all are apart of the same world.
ReplyDeleteDo those languages share similar characters?
DeleteIt's incredible that there were over 7000 languages in the world. There are more languages than people in Lisbon! It's amazing how humans developed so many different ways of communicating to one another.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how many languages are in the world! Many countries must speak so many different languages.
DeleteImagine if every person in Lisbon spoke a different language...
DeleteI am surprised that there are 50,000 characters in the Chinese language. I googled how many letters are in the Chinese alphabet to make sure that a Chinese character is a letter. The dictionary of Chinese characters includes 46964 characters and is spread out throughout 42 books. I am amazed and curious about how many characters they have while the English language only has 26. I would like to know how it compares to the English language and how they work with the large difference in characters.
ReplyDeleteThere keyboard is probably on a wheel or something where it just keeps moving to more letters so you will eventually find the one you want, or it is like math you have to add some characters to get to a whole new one.
DeleteI find it interesting that there is no official language in America when English is taught early on so that the majority of Americans can speak, read, and write in it. I wonder why English isn't set up as the official language when people who move here from different countries often make an effort to learn English, and tend to have a necessity to once they become citizens.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised at exactly how many languages J.R.R. Tolkein wrote for his books. I knew from my brother-in-law that he'd made up his own languages, but I didn't know how many. I googled some of the languages that he's made up to see what races he'd written for: he's written Elvish, Quenya, Telerin and Taliskan, which has two dialects.
I think we don't have an official language because of our status as a huge immigration nation. Since it is the majority language, that's why its important for new Americans to learn! I also think its important that English speaking Americans learn other languages to, so communication is easier!
DeleteI really wish we were taught other languages earlier than we do now. It makes learning and retaining the languages so much easier than starting in high school. Young people retain information easier than older people, so it only makes sense for foreign languages to be taught sooner. Yet, it also makes sense that foreign languages are only electives due to the majority of the American population speaking English; however, children would benefit from learning other languages. In my personal experience, teaching myself Finnish has helped me pronounce more than just Finnish words; also, being in Spanish class for the past four years help me use proper syntax and gave me a better understanding of how certain accents are pronounced.
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting that there are over 50,000 Chinese characters, but you only need about 2,000 to read a newspaper. I wonder how long it takes to completely understand and know every character. I really want to learn Russian in college; I wonder if learning a language like that would be as hard as learning Chinese.
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