topaztrex Triglot Newbie Indonesia Joined 6169 days ago 20 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Indonesian*, English
| Message 1 of 9 12 April 2011 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
From what I know, the "World Languages" are:
1. English
2. Chinese
3. Spanish
4. Russian
5. Arabic
6. French
To a lesser extent, the list could also include "Supra-Regional Languages". What do you
think about the languages on the list below? Would they classify as one of the "Supra-
Regional Languages"?
1. Portuguese
2. Dutch-Afrikaans
3. Malay-Indonesian
4. Persian
5. Italian
6. German
7. Swahili
8. Hindi-Urdu
9. Bengali
10. Japanese
What other languages that would fall into this category?
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 2 of 9 12 April 2011 at 3:46pm | IP Logged |
You'll have to define the category for us to be able to answer that. What makes a language supra-regional?
Edited by Ari on 12 April 2011 at 4:39pm
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topaztrex Triglot Newbie Indonesia Joined 6169 days ago 20 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Indonesian*, English
| Message 3 of 9 12 April 2011 at 3:54pm | IP Logged |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_language
http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2010111619083 9AAYXhHK
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Leftcoaster Diglot Newbie China Joined 5031 days ago 22 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian
| Message 4 of 9 12 April 2011 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
Is portuguese really a supra-national language? It's spoken in Brazil and Portugal but beyond that, its influence is severely limited by other languages like English and Spanish.
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tbone Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4991 days ago 92 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian
| Message 5 of 9 12 April 2011 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
Japanese isn't very regional. Dutch and Italian still have scattered colonial outposts where they're spoken, but that's
not very regional in nature, either. Latin might have a better shot at the list.
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Jon1991 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5365 days ago 98 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Russian
| Message 6 of 9 12 April 2011 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
tbone wrote:
Japanese isn't very regional. Dutch and Italian still have scattered colonial outposts where they're spoken, but that's
not very regional in nature, either. Latin might have a better shot at the list. |
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But I wouldn't say there's a high possibility of running into a Dutch speaker in Indonesia anymore (Suriname of course) or an Italian speaker in Libya or Somalia.
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Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5081 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French
| Message 7 of 9 12 April 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_ native_speakers
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kenshin Triglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 5030 days ago 17 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English Studies: Japanese, German, French
| Message 8 of 9 13 April 2011 at 11:27am | IP Logged |
I tried to come up with the idea here how a Supra-Regional Language would be :
#1 A language has a number of speakers between 35 million - 100 million.
#2 Besides, it is an official language of at least one country and also spoken and taught
in adjacent regions.
Also another thought on the topic. Any language belonging to Eskimo-Aleut languages group
also makes me think they are"Supra-Regional ", since they are sort of confined to the
vast arctic territory. Probably not many people outside that region know much about those
languages.
Edited by kenshin on 13 April 2011 at 11:45am
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