Elements of language

People learn to speak in a natural way, but they must be taught to write. Spoken language comes

from sounds that form words and sentences that have a certain meaning. We use language to

express our ideas and feelings.

Words can describe things, objects or actions. Some words are used to connect parts of a

sentence. Languages have rules, called grammar. Sometimes grammar is easier, at other times

people find it hard to learn all the rules of a language.

Thousands of languages have developed around the world during history. They all use different

sounds and different words. Almost all languages are influenced by other languages and borrow

words from them. Kindergarten, for example, is a word borrowed from German.

Written languages use an alphabet to form words and sentences. The Latin alphabet is the most

popular, used by many important languages. Other languages, for example Chinese and Arabic

use other writing systems.

Languages in our world

There are about 7000 languages spoken in our world today. Only very few are so called world

languages, widely spoken by millions of people, the rest are local languages that are only spoken

in certain areas. The most common languages are Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish.

Almost all countries have an official language that is used when you go to authorities or which

is taught in school. Sometimes a country may have second languages that have developed

through the ages. In India, Hindi is the official language, but most Indians can speak English

quite well because of its history as a British colony. In Canada, English and French are

recognised as official languages. In Switzerland, people speak German, French and Italian.

Within a country, people often speak dialects of the same language. In England, different

dialects of Standard English are spoken between London in the south and Scotland in the north.

Languages that are related to each other form groups. Germanic languages are English and

German, as well as the Scandinavian languages. French, Italian and Spanish are Romance

languages. All of these belong to the Indo-Germanic language family. Chinese, on the other

hand belongs to the group of Sino-Tibetan languages.

Some societies also have minorities who do not speak the official language. Especially in

countries in which immigration has played an important part in history, you can find several

spoken languages. In the United States Spanish is the most common language next to English,

but there are hundreds of thousands who speak Polish, Russian or Italian because their families

have gone to the US during some point in history.

All over the world, millions of translators translate one language into another. Such people are

especially needed in international organizations, like the United Nations or the European Union.