Misplaced Pages

#52947

84-585: The Upper Sûre Lake ( Luxembourgish : Stauséi Uewersauer , French : Lac de la Haute-Sûre , German : Obersauer-Stausee ) is a large reservoir in north-western Luxembourg . It is the largest body of water in the country. It gives its name to the commune of Lac de la Haute-Sûre , which was formed in 1979. It was created by the Esch-sur-Sûre Dam which was built in the 1950s to meet Luxembourg's drinking water and electricity needs. The town of Esch-sur-Sûre /Esch-Sauer nestles at one end of

168-417: A dialect continuum of gradual change. Spoken Luxembourgish is relatively hard to understand for speakers of German who are generally not familiar with Moselle Franconian dialects (or at least other West Central German dialects). They can usually read the language to some degree. For those Germans familiar with Moselle Franconian dialects, it is relatively easy to understand and speak Luxembourgish as far as

252-530: A dictionary of Sri Lankan Tamil. As a result of the Pure Tamil Movement , Indian Tamil tends to avoid loanwords to a greater extent than Sri Lankan Tamil. Coinages of new technical terms also differ between the two. Tamil policy in Singapore and Malaysia tends to follow that of Tamil Nadu regarding linguistic purism and technical coinages. There are some spelling differences, particularly in

336-442: A few nominal phrases such as der Däiwel ("the devil") and eiser Herrgott ("our Lord"). Rare examples of the genitive are also found: Enn des Mounts ("end of the month"), Ufanks der Woch ("at the beginning of the week"). The functions of the genitive are normally expressed using a combination of the dative and a possessive determiner: e.g. dem Mann säi Buch (lit. "to the man his book", i.e. "the man's book"). This

420-705: A large dialect continuum defined as a unit culturally. Medieval Hindustani (then known as Hindavi ) was based on a register of the Delhi dialect and has two modern literary forms, Standard Hindi and Standard Urdu . Additionally, there are historical literary standards, such as the closely related Braj Bhasha and the more distant Awadhi , as well as recently established standard languages based on what were once considered Hindi dialects: Maithili and Dogri . Other varieties, such as Rajasthani , are often considered distinct languages but have no standard form. Caribbean Hindi and Fijian Hindi also differ significantly from

504-490: A maximum of some 285,000 native speakers, resources in the language like books, newspapers, magazines, television, internet etc. are limited. Since most Luxembourgers also speak Standard German and French, there is strong competition with these languages, which both have large language resources. Because of this, the use of Luxembourgish remains limited. Luxembourgish belongs to the West Central German group of

588-595: A pluricentric language with four standards: Bulgarian (based on the Rup , Balkan and Moesian (" Eastern Bulgarian ") dialects), Macedonian (based on the Western and Central Macedonian dialects ), Gorani (based on the Torlakian dialects ), and Paulician (including Banat Bulgarian ). Politicians and nationalists from Bulgaria are likely to refer to this entire grouping as 'Bulgarian', and to be particularly hostile to

672-529: A polycentric language. In Arabic-speaking countries different levels of polycentricity can be detected. Modern Arabic is a pluricentric language with varying branches correlating with different regions where Arabic is spoken and the type of communities speaking it. The vernacular varieties of Arabic include: In addition, many speakers use Modern Standard Arabic in education and formal settings. Therefore, in Arabic-speaking communities, diglossia

756-592: Is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg . About 300,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. The language is standardized and officially the national language of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. As such, Luxembourgish is different from the German language also used in the Grand Duchy. The German language exists in a national standard variety of Luxembourg, which is slightly different from

840-614: Is a pluricentric language with historically more than one written form. Malayalam script is officially recognized, but there are other standardized varieties such as Arabi Malayalam of Mappila Muslims , Karshoni of Saint Thomas Christians and Judeo-Malayalam of Cochin Jews . The Persian language has three standard varieties with official status in Iran (locally known as Farsi), Afghanistan (officially known as Dari ), and Tajikistan (officially known as Tajik ). The standard forms of

924-664: Is a popular idea in Bulgarian politics, but an unpopular one in North Macedonia. English is a pluricentric language, with differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling, etc., between each of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, North America, the Caribbean, Ireland, English-speaking African countries, Singapore, India, and Oceania. Educated native English speakers using their version of one of

SECTION 10

#1732779675053

1008-486: Is a uniform stage pronunciation based on a manual by Theodor Siebs that is used in theatres, and, nowadays to a lesser extent, in radio and television news all across German-speaking countries, this is not true for the standards applied at public occasions in Austria, South Tyrol and Switzerland, which differ in pronunciation , vocabulary , and sometimes even grammar . (In Switzerland, the letter ß has been removed from

1092-748: Is currently also the only political party in Luxembourg that wishes to implement written laws also in Luxembourgish and that wants Luxembourgish to be an officially recognized language of the European Union . In this context, in 2005, then- Deputy Prime Minister Jean Asselborn of the LSAP rejected a demand made by the ADR to make Luxembourgish an official language of the EU, citing financial reasons and

1176-460: Is formed using the adverb méi : e.g. schéin → méi schéin The superlative involves a synthetic form consisting of the adjective and the suffix -st : e.g. schéin → schéin st (compare German schönst , English prettiest ). Attributive modification requires the emphatic definite article and the inflected superlative adjective: Predicative modification uses either the same adjectival structure or

1260-471: Is frequent. The Armenian language is a pluricentric language with two standard varieties, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian , which have developed as separate literary languages since the eighteenth century. Prior to this, almost all Armenian literature was written in Classical Armenian , which is now solely used as a liturgical language . Eastern and Western Armenian can also refer to

1344-562: Is influenced by Kanak languages in its vocabulary and grammatical structure. African French is another variety. Standard German is often considered an asymmetric pluricentric language; the standard used in Germany is often considered dominant, mostly because of the sheer number of its speakers and their frequent lack of awareness of the Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German varieties. Although there

1428-675: Is known as a periphrastic genitive , and is a phenomenon also commonly seen in dialectal and colloquial German, and in Dutch. The forms of the personal pronouns are given in the following table (unstressed forms appear in parentheses): The 2pl form is also used as a polite singular (like French vous , see T-V distinction ); the forms are capitalised in writing: Like most varieties of colloquial German, but even more invariably, Luxembourgish uses definite articles with personal names. They are obligatory and not to be translated: A feature Luxembourgish shares with only some western dialects of German

1512-461: Is much smaller than the number of non-native speakers of English of reasonable competence. In 2018, it was estimated that for every native speaker of English, there are six non-native speakers of reasonable competence, raising the questions of English as a lingua franca as the most widely spoken form of the language. Philippine English (which is predominantly spoken as a second language) has been primarily influenced by American English. The rise of

1596-507: Is now the world's second-largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico in total number of speakers (L1 and L2 speakers). A report said there are 41 million L1 Spanish speakers and another 11.6 million L2 speakers in the U.S. This puts the US ahead of Colombia (48 million) and Spain (46 million) and second only to Mexico (121 million). The Spanish of Latin Americans has a growing influence on

1680-540: Is quite similar to that of Standard German . Luxembourgish has three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and three cases ( nominative , accusative , and dative ). These are marked morphologically on determiners and pronouns . As in German, there is no morphological gender distinction in the plural. The forms of the articles and of some selected determiners are given below: As seen above, Luxembourgish has plural forms of en ("a, an"), namely eng in

1764-490: Is related to British English in its common pronunciation and vocabulary; a similar relationship exists between Canadian English and American English.) English was historically pluricentric when it was used across the independent kingdoms of England and Scotland prior to the Acts of Union in 1707. English English and Scottish English are now subsections of British English. In the modern era, there are several major loci of

SECTION 20

#1732779675053

1848-586: Is rolled, and with heavier contact with the English language than any of the above the pronunciation has shifted to harder sounding consonants in the 20th century. Cajun French equally has been an oral language for generations and it is only recently that its syntax and features been adapted to French orthography. Minor standards can also be found in Belgium and Switzerland , with particular influence of Germanic languages on grammar and vocabulary, sometimes through

1932-674: Is spoken mainly in the Armenian diaspora , especially in the Middle East, France, the US, and Canada. Additionally, Armenian is written in two standard orthographies: classical and reformed Armenian orthography. The former is used by practically all speakers of Western Armenian and by Armenians in Iran , while the latter, which was developed in Soviet Armenia in the 20th century, is used in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh . In

2016-400: Is taught in schools with British curriculum in countries with descendants of British settlers.) Due to globalization and the resulting spread of the language in recent decades, English is becoming increasingly decentralized, with daily use and statewide study of the language in schools growing in most regions of the world. However, in the global context, the number of native speakers of English

2100-416: Is that women and girls are most often referred to with forms of the neuter pronoun hatt : Adjectives show a different morphological behaviour when used attributively and predicatively . In predicative use, e.g. when they occur with verbs like sinn ("to be"), adjectives receive no extra ending: In attributive use, i.e. when placed before the noun they describe, they change their ending according to

2184-928: Is the primary language of 48% of the population. It is also spoken in the Arelerland region of Belgium (part of the Province of Luxembourg ) and in small parts of Lorraine in France . In the German Eifel and Hunsrück regions, similar local Moselle Franconian dialects of German are spoken. The language is also spoken by a few descendants of Luxembourg immigrants in the United States and Canada . Other Moselle Franconian dialects are spoken by ethnic Germans long settled in Transylvania , Romania (Siebenbürgen). Moselle Franconian dialects outside

2268-430: Is usually pronounced by a Swedo-Finn as [ t͡ʃ ] ; in addition, the two tones that are characteristic of Swedish (and Norwegian) are absent from most Finnish dialects of Swedish, which have an intonation reminiscent of Finnish and thus sound more monotonous when compared to Rikssvenska . There are dialects that could be considered different languages due to long periods of isolation and geographical separation from

2352-726: The Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . North American French is the result of French colonization of the New World between the 17th and 18th centuries. In many cases, it contains vocabulary and dialectal quirks not found in Standard Parisian French owing to history: most of the original settlers of Quebec , Acadia , and later what would become Louisiana and northern New England came from Northern and Northwest France, and would have spoken dialects like Norman, Poitevin , and Angevin with far fewer speaking

2436-702: The High German languages and is the primary example of a Moselle Franconian language . Furthermore, it is closely related to Transylvanian Saxon which has been spoken since the High Middle Ages by the Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania , present-day central Romania . Luxembourgish is considered the national language of Luxembourg and also one of the three administrative languages, alongside German and French . In Luxembourg, 77% of residents can speak Luxembourgish, and it

2520-592: The Sanskritized standard Hindi spoken in India. The Malay language has many local dialects and creolized versions, but it has two main normative varieties which are Malaysian and Indonesian : Indonesian is codified by Indonesia as its own lingua franca based on the dialect spoken in Riau Islands , whereas Malaysia codifies Malaysian based on the vernacular dialect of Johor . Thus, both lects have

2604-587: The call center industry in the Philippines has encouraged some Filipinos to "polish" or neutralize their accents to make them more closely resemble the accents of their client countries. Countries such as Australia , New Zealand , and Canada have their own well-established varieties of English which are the standard within those countries but are far more rarely taught overseas to second language learners. (Standard English in Australia and New Zealand

Upper Sûre Lake - Misplaced Pages Continue

2688-571: The langues d'oïl . However, government policy made it so that the dialect of Paris would be the method of instruction in schools, and other dialects, like Norman , which has influence from Scandinavian languages, were neglected. Controversy still remains in France over the fact that the government recognizes them as languages of France, but provides no monetary support for them nor has the Constitutional Council of France ratified

2772-466: The standard forms of English are almost completely mutually intelligible, but non-standard forms present significant dialectal variations, and are marked by reduced intelligibility. British and American English are the two most commonly taught varieties in the education systems where English is taught as a second language . British English tends to predominate in Europe and the former British colonies of

2856-487: The French language, including Standard French (also known as Parisian French), Canadian French (including Quebec French and Acadian French ), Belgian French , American French (for instance, Louisiana French ), Haitian French , and African French . Until the early 20th century, the French language was highly variable in pronunciation and vocabulary within France, with varying dialects and degrees of intelligibility,

2940-501: The German-speaking area of Europe), and by different terminology employed in law and administration. A list of Austrian terms for certain food items has even been incorporated into EU law , even though it is clearly incomplete. Scholarly scepticism in German dialectology about the pluricentric status of German has led some linguists to detect a One Standard German Axiom (OSGA) as active in the field. The Hindi languages are

3024-631: The Luxembourg state border tend to have far fewer French loanwords, and these mostly remain from the French Revolution. The political party that places the greatest importance on promoting, using and preserving Luxembourgish is the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) and its electoral success in the 1999 election pushed the CSV-DP government to make knowledge of it a criterion for naturalisation . It

3108-616: The West Indies, Africa, and Asia, where English is not the first language of the majority of the population. (The Falkland Islands , a British territory off the southeast coast of South America with English as its native language, have their own dialect , while British English is the standard.) In contrast, American English tends to dominate instruction in Latin America, Liberia, and East Asia (In Latin America, British English

3192-431: The adoption of the "OLO" ( ofizjel lezebuurjer ortografi ) on 5 June 1946. This orthography provided a system for speakers of all varieties of Luxembourgish to transcribe words the way they pronounced them, rather than imposing a single, standard spelling for the words of the language. The rules explicitly rejected certain elements of German orthography ( e.g. , the use of ⟨ ä ⟩ and ⟨ ö ⟩ ,

3276-437: The adverbial structure am + - sten : e.g. schéin → am schéinsten : Some common adjectives have exceptional comparative and superlative forms: Several other adjectives also have comparative forms, not commonly used as normal comparatives, but in special senses: Luxembourgish exhibits "verb second" word order in clauses. More specifically, Luxembourgish is a V2 - SOV language , like German and Dutch. In other words, we find

3360-459: The alphabet, with ss as its replacement.) Sometimes this even applies to news broadcasts in Bavaria , a German state with a strong separate cultural identity. The varieties of Standard German used in those regions are to some degree influenced by the respective dialects (but by no means identical to them), by specific cultural traditions (e.g. in culinary vocabulary, which differs markedly across

3444-818: The basis of the standard orthography that became official on 10 October 1975. Modifications to this standard were proposed by the Permanent Council of the Luxembourguish language and adopted officially in the spelling reform of 30 July 1999. A detailed explanation of current practice for Luxembourgish can be found in Schanen & Lulling (2003). The Luxembourgish alphabet consists of the 26 Latin letters plus three letters with diacritics: ⟨é⟩ , ⟨ä⟩ , and ⟨ë⟩ . In loanwords from French and Standard German, other diacritics are usually preserved: In German loanwords,

Upper Sûre Lake - Misplaced Pages Continue

3528-688: The capitalisation of nouns). Similarly, new principles were adopted for the spelling of French loanwords. This proposed orthography, so different from existing "foreign" standards that people were already familiar with, did not enjoy widespread approval. A more successful standard eventually emerged from the work of the committee of specialists charged with the task of creating the Luxemburger Wörterbuch , published in 5 volumes between 1950 and 1977. The orthographic conventions adopted in this decades-long project, set out in Bruch (1955), provided

3612-584: The central dialects of Svealand and Götaland that came to constitute the base for the standard Rikssvenska . Dialects such as Elfdalian , Jamtlandic , and Gutnish all differ as much, or more, from standard Swedish than the standard varieties of Danish . Some of them have a standardized orthography, but the Swedish government has not granted any of them official recognition as regional languages and continues to look upon them as dialects of Swedish. Most of them are severely endangered and spoken by elderly people in

3696-749: The countryside. The vast majority of Tamil speakers reside in southern India, where it is the official language of Tamil Nadu and of Puducherry , and one of 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India . It is also one of two official languages in Sri Lanka , one of four official languages in Singapore , and is used as the medium of instruction in government-aided Tamil primary schools in Malaysia . Other parts of

3780-652: The dialect of Bogotá) is valued for its clear pronunciation. The Judeo-Spanish (also known as Ladino ; not to be confused with Latino ) spoken by Sephardi Jews can be found in Israel and elsewhere; it is usually considered a separate language. Two varieties exist, though only one written standard remains (regulated by the Swedish Academy of Sweden): Rikssvenska (literally "Realm Swedish", also less commonly known as "Högsvenska", 'High Swedish' in Finland),

3864-462: The dialect of Paris. This, plus isolation from developments in France, most notably the drive for standardization by L'Académie française , make North American dialects of the language quite distinct. Acadian French, spoken in New Brunswick , Canada, has many words no longer used in modern France, much of it having roots in the 17th century, and a distinct intonation. Québécois, the largest of

3948-452: The dialects, has a distinct pronunciation that is not found in Europe in any measure and a greater difference in vowel pronunciation, and syntax tends to vary greatly. Cajun French has some distinctions not found in Canada in that there is more vocabulary derived from both local Native American and African dialects and a pronunciation of the letter r that has disappeared in France entirely. It

4032-521: The digraphs ⟨ eu ⟩ and ⟨ äu ⟩ indicate the diphthong /oɪ/ , which does not appear in native words. Like many other varieties of Western High German, Luxembourgish has a rule of final n -deletion in certain contexts. The effects of this rule (known as the "Eifel Rule") are indicated in writing, and therefore must be taken into account when spelling words and morphemes ending in ⟨n⟩ or ⟨nn⟩ . For example: The consonant inventory of Luxembourgish

4116-653: The establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the standard was known as Pǔtōnghuà (普通话/普通話, literally "common speech"), but was defined in the same way as Guóyǔ in the Republic of China now governing Taiwan. It also became one of the official languages of Singapore , under the name Huáyǔ (华语/華語, literally "Chinese language"). Although the three standards remain close, they have diverged to some extent. Most Mandarin speakers in Taiwan and Singapore came from

4200-473: The ethnic variants of the standard language makes translation and second language teaching impossible"; however there have been many cases of Serbian films shown with subtitles in cinemas and on TV in Croatia, to the amusement of the audience. Spanish has both national and regional linguistic norms, which vary in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, but all varieties are mutually intelligible and

4284-399: The everyday vocabulary is concerned. The large number of French loanwords in Luxembourgish may hamper communication about certain topics or with certain speakers (those who use many terms taken from French). A number of proposals for standardising the orthography of Luxembourgish can be documented, going back to the middle of the 19th century. There was no officially recognised system until

SECTION 50

#1732779675053

4368-465: The following finite clausal structures: Non-finite verbs (infinitives and participles) generally appear in final position: These rules interact so that in subordinate clauses, the finite verb and any non-finite verbs must all cluster at the end. Luxembourgish allows different word orders in these cases: This is also the case when two non-finite verb forms occur together: Luxembourgish (like Dutch and German) allows prepositional phrases to appear after

4452-527: The grammar of their pronominal systems. The result is that communication between the two varieties of the language without previous exposure can be occasionally difficult, although speakers of European Portuguese tend to understand Brazilian Portuguese better than vice versa, due to the heavy exposure to music, soap operas etc. from Brazil . Word ordering can be dramatically different between European and Brazilian Portuguese, without significantly hampering mutual intelligibility . A unified orthography for all

4536-428: The grammatical gender, number and case of the noun: The definite article changes with the use of an attributive adjective: feminine d' goes to déi (or di ), neuter d' goes to dat , and plural d' changes to déi . The comparative in Luxembourgish is formed analytically, i.e. the adjective itself is not altered (compare the use of - er in German and English; tall → taller , klein → kleiner ). Instead it

4620-634: The influence of local dialects. In Belgium, for example, various Germanic influences in spoken French are evident in Wallonia (for example, to blink in English, and blinken in German and Dutch, blinquer in Walloon and local French, cligner in standard French). Ring ( rocade or périphérique in standard French) is a common word in the three national languages for beltway or ring road. Also, in Belgium and Switzerland, there are noted differences in

4704-536: The lake. Immediately above it, the river has been dammed to form a hydroelectric reservoir extending some 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) up the valley. Its average surface area is 3.8 km (1.5 sq mi), or about 0.15% of Luxembourg's total area. The region around the reservoir forms the Upper Sûre Natural Park , a Luxembourgish national park. The valley of the Upper Sûre surrounding

4788-518: The language across the globe through music, culture and television produced using the language of the largely bilingual speech community of US Latinos. In Argentina and Uruguay the Spanish standard is based on the local dialects of Buenos Aires and Montevideo . This is known as Rioplatense Spanish , (from Rio de la Plata (River Plate)) and is distinguishable from other standard Spanish dialects by voseo . In Colombia , Rolo (a name for

4872-782: The modern era, Catalan is a pluricentric language with differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. This language is internationally known as Catalan , as in Ethnologue . This is also the most commonly used name in Catalonia , but also in Andorra and the Balearic Islands , probably due to the prestige of the Central Catalan dialect spoken in and around Barcelona . However, in the Valencian Community ,

4956-503: The nominative/accusative and engen in the dative. They are not used as indefinite articles, which—as in German and English—do not exist in the plural, but they do occur in the compound pronouns wéi en ("what, which") and sou en ("such"). For example: wéi eng Saachen ("what things"); sou eng Saachen ("such things"). Moreover, they are used before numbers to express an estimation: eng 30.000 Spectateuren ("some 30,000 spectators"). Distinct nominative forms survive in

5040-464: The notion that Macedonian is an autonomous language separate from Bulgarian, which Macedonian politicians and citizens tend to claim. As of 2021, the hypothesis that Eastern South Slavic, 'Greater Bulgarian', 'Bulgaro-Macedonian', or simply 'Bulgarian', is a pluricentric language with several mutually intelligible official standards in the same way that Serbo-Croatian is, and Czechoslovak used to be, has not yet been fully developed in linguistics; it

5124-433: The number system when compared to standard Parisian or Canadian French, notably in the use of septante , octante/huitante and nonante for the numbers 70, 80 and 90. In other standards of French, these numbers are usually denoted soixante-dix (sixty-ten), quatre-vingts (fourscore) and quatre-vingt-dix (fourscore-and-ten). French varieties spoken in Oceania are also influenced by local languages. New Caledonian French

SECTION 60

#1732779675053

5208-412: The official language of Sweden, and Finlandssvenska which, alongside Finnish, is the other official language of Finland. There are differences in vocabulary and grammar, with the variety used in Finland remaining a little more conservative. The most marked differences are in pronunciation and intonation: Whereas Swedish speakers usually pronounce /k/ before front vowels as [ ɕ ] , this sound

5292-511: The official name of this language is Valencian . One reason for this is political (see Serbo-Croatian for a similar situation), but this variant does have its own literary tradition that dates back to the Reconquista . Although mutually intelligible with other varieties of Catalan, Valencian has lexical peculiarities and its own spelling rules, which are set out by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua , created in 1998. However, this institution recognizes that Catalan and Valencian are varieties of

5376-405: The population and the dissemination of the language through mass media such as radio and television are leading to a gradual standardisation towards a "Standard Luxembourgish" through the process of koineization . There is no distinct geographic boundary between the use of Luxembourgish and the use of other closely related High German dialects (for example, Lorraine Franconian ); it instead forms

5460-547: The prestige Shtokavian dialect, major differences in intelligibility are identified not on the basis of standardised varieties, but rather dialects, like Kajkavian and Chakavian . According to at least one linguistics scholar, "[l]exical differences between the ethnic variants are extremely limited, even when compared with those between closely related Slavic languages (such as standard Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian), and grammatical differences are even less pronounced. More importantly, complete understanding between

5544-676: The reservoir has been designated as a Ramsar site , in Luxembourg and in neighboring Belgium , since 2004. Surrounded by luxuriant vegetation and peaceful creeks, the lake is a center for water sports, such as sailing , canoeing , and kayaking . Such outdoor activities, which make it an attractive spot for tourists, has led to the growth of a local crafts industry. The lake has a very high level of water quality. Luxembourgish language Luxembourgish ( / ˈ l ʌ k s əm b ɜːr ɡ ɪ ʃ / LUK -səm-bur-ghish ; also Luxemburgish , Luxembourgian , Letzebu(e)rgesch ; endonym : Lëtzebuergesch [ˈlətsəbuəjəʃ] )

5628-541: The same orthographic rules are shared throughout. In Spain , Standard Spanish is based upon the speech of educated speakers from Madrid . All varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula are grouped as Peninsular Spanish . Canarian Spanish (spoken in the Canary Islands ), along with Spanish spoken in the Americas (including Spanish spoken in the United States , Central American Spanish , Mexican Spanish , Andean Spanish , and Caribbean Spanish ), are particularly related to Andalusian Spanish . The United States

5712-478: The same dialectal basis, and linguistic sources still tend to treat the standards as different forms of a single language. In popular parlance, however, the two varieties are often thought of as distinct tongues in their own rights due to the growing divergence between them and for political reasons. Nevertheless, they retain a high degree of mutual intelligibility despite a number of differences in vocabulary (including many false friends ) and grammar. Malayalam

5796-445: The same language. For their part, there are specific varieties in the two major Balearic islands, Mallorcan ( Catalan : mallorquí ) in Mallorca , Menorcan ( menorquí ) in Menorca , Ibizan ( eivissenc ) in Ibiza . The University of the Balearic Islands is the language regulator for these varieties. Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people spoke only their local varieties of Chinese . These varieties had diverged widely from

5880-699: The southeast coast of China, where the local dialects lack the retroflex initials /tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/ found in northern dialects, so that many speakers in those places do not distinguish them from the apical sibilants /ts tsʰ s/. Similarly, retroflex codas ( erhua ) are typically avoided in Taiwan and Singapore. There are also differences in vocabulary, with Taiwanese Mandarin absorbing loanwords from Min Chinese , Hakka Chinese , and Japanese , and Singaporean Mandarin borrowing words from English, Malay , and southern varieties of Chinese. Some linguists and scholars, mostly from Bulgaria and Greece , but some also from other countries, consider Eastern South Slavic to be

5964-629: The standard European dialect, but have undergone their own phonetic and grammatical developments, sometimes reminiscent of the spoken Brazilian variant. A number of creoles of Portuguese have developed in African countries, for example in Guinea-Bissau and on the island of São Tomé . Serbo-Croatian is a pluricentric language with four standards (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian) promoted in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Montenegro , and Serbia . These standards do differ slightly, but do not hinder mutual intelligibility . Rather, as all four standardised varieties are based on

6048-585: The standard varieties in Germany , Austria or Switzerland . Another important language of Luxembourg is French, which had a certain influence on both the national language Luxembourgish and the Luxembourg national variety of German. Luxembourgish, German and French are the three official languages (Amtssprachen) of Luxembourg. As a standard form of the Moselle Franconian language , Luxembourgish has similarities with other High German dialects and

6132-579: The sufficiency of official German and French . A similar proposal by the ADR was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies in 2024. There are several distinct dialect forms of Luxembourgish including Areler (from Arlon ), Eechternoacher ( Echternach ), Dikrecher ( Diekirch ), Kliärrwer ( Clervaux ), Miseler ( Moselle ), Stater ( Luxembourg ), Veiner ( Vianden ), Minetter (Southern Luxembourg) and Weelzer ( Wiltz ). Further small vocabulary differences may be seen even between small villages. Increasing mobility of

6216-630: The three are based on the Tehrani , Kabuli , and Dushanbe varieties, respectively. The Persian alphabet is used for both Farsi (Iranian) and Dari (Afghan). Traditionally, Tajiki is also written with Perso-Arabic script . In order to increase literacy, a Latin alphabet (based on the Common Turkic Alphabet ) was introduced in 1917. Later in the late 1930s, the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic promoted

6300-470: The two major dialectal blocks into which the various non-standard dialects of Armenian are categorized. Eastern Armenian is the official language of the Republic of Armenia . It is also spoken, with dialectal variations, by Iranian Armenians , Armenians in Karabakh (see Karabakh dialect ), and in the Armenian diaspora , especially in the former Soviet Union (Russia, Georgia , Ukraine). Western Armenian

6384-728: The use of Cyrillic alphabet , which remains the most widely used system today. Attempts to reintroduce the Perso-Arabic script were made. The language spoken by Bukharan Jews is called Bukhori (or Bukharian), and is written in Hebrew alphabet . Apart from the Galician question , Portuguese varies mainly between Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese (also known as "Lusitanian Portuguese", "Standard Portuguese" or even " Portuguese Portuguese "). Both varieties have undergone significant and divergent developments in phonology and

6468-475: The varieties (including a limited number of words with dual spelling) has been approved by the national legislatures of the Portuguese-speaking countries and is now official; see Spelling reforms of Portuguese for additional details. Formal written standards remain grammatically close to each other, despite some minor syntactic differences. African Portuguese and Asian Portuguese are based on

6552-513: The verb cluster in subordinate clauses: Luxembourgish has borrowed many French words. For example, the word for a bus driver is Buschauffeur (as in Dutch and Swiss German ), which would be Busfahrer in German and chauffeur de bus in French. Some words are different from Standard German, but have equivalents in German dialects. An example is Gromperen (potatoes – German: Kartoffeln ). Other words are exclusive to Luxembourgish. Listen to

6636-506: The wider group of West Germanic languages . The status of Luxembourgish as the national language of Luxembourg and the existence there of a regulatory body have removed Luxembourgish, at least in part, from the domain of Standard German, its traditional Dachsprache . It is also related to the Transylvanian Saxon dialect spoken by the Transylvanian Saxons in Transylvania , contemporary central Romania . Luxembourgish

6720-494: The words below. Note: Words spoken in sound clip do not reflect all words on this list. Neologisms in Luxembourgish include both entirely new words, and the attachment of new meanings to old words in everyday speech. The most recent neologisms come from the English language in the fields of telecommunications , computer science , and the Internet . Pluricentric language Pre-Islamic Arabic can be considered

6804-521: The world have Tamil-speaking populations, but are not loci of planned development. Tamil is diglossic , with the literary variant used in books, poetry, speeches and news broadcasts while the spoken variant is used in everyday speech, online messaging and movies. While there are significant differences in the standard spoken forms of the different countries, the literary register is mostly uniform, with some differences in semantics that are not perceived by native speakers. There has been no attempt to compile

6888-526: The written form used by scholars, Literary Chinese , which was modelled on the language of the Chinese classics . As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on northern varieties , known as Guānhuà (官話, literally "speech of officials"), known as Mandarin in English after the officials. Knowledge of this language

6972-475: Was considered a German dialect like many others until about World War II but then it underwent ausbau , creating its own standard form in vocabulary, grammar, and spelling and therefore is seen today as an independent language. Luxembourgish managed to gain linguistic autonomy against a vigorous One Standard German Axiom by being framed as an independent language with a name rather than as a national pluricentric standard variety of German. As Luxembourgish has

7056-527: Was thus essential for an official career, but it was never formally defined. In the early years of the 20th century, Literary Chinese was replaced as the written standard by written vernacular Chinese , which was based on northern dialects . In the 1930s, a standard national language Guóyǔ (國語, literally "national language") was adopted, with its pronunciation based on the Beijing dialect , but with vocabulary also drawn from other northern varieties. After

#52947