1.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
2.
Geographical distribution of French speakers
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This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the French language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. French-based creoles are considered separate languages for the purpose of this article, French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the language of European courts, the following figures are from a 2014 report of the Francophonie. No distinctions are made between native speakers of French and those who learnt it as a language, between different levels of mastery or how often the language is used in daily life. For African countries where French is the language of education. It is estimated that 75 million people worldwide speak French as a main or first language, from the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, Argentina received the second largest group of French immigrants worldwide, second only to the United States. Between 1857 and 1946 Argentina received 239,503 French immigrants - out of which 105,537 permanently settled in the country, in 1976116,032 were settled in Argentina. France was the source of immigration to Argentina before 1890, constituting over 10% of immigrants, only surpassed by Italians. Today more than 6 million Argentines have some degree of French ancestry, French is the second most common language in Canada, after English, and both are official languages at the federal level. French is the official language in the province of Quebec, being the mother tongue for some 7 million people. About 95% of the people of Quebec speak French as either a first or second language, New Brunswick and Manitoba are the only officially bilingual provinces, though full bilingualism is enacted only in New Brunswick, where about one third of the population is Francophone. French is also a language of all of the territories. Out of the three, Yukon has the most French speakers, comprising just under 4% of the population, about 6,827,860 Canadians speak French as their first language, or around 20% of the country, with 2,065,300 constituting secondary speakers. Bilingualism with French has been declining in English Canada in recent years, French is one of two official languages of Haiti, together with Haitian Creole, which is French-based. French is the language of culture and business in Haiti, French is used most by the elite and the middle class. Attempts to increase the legitimacy of Creole as a language and in the media, on radio and television in particular. Most teachers of French suffer from a low level of skills in the language, according to the U. S. French remains the second most-spoken language in the states of Louisiana, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Louisiana is home to many dialects, collectively known as Louisiana French
3.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
4.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
5.
Moroccan Darija
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Moroccan Darija or Moroccan Arabic is a language derived from a variety of Arabic spoken in Morocco. It belongs to the Maghrebi Arabic language continuum and is intelligible, to some extent, with Algerian Arabic. It shows a strong historical and linguistic Berber, French. The Standard Arabic language, not spoken in daily life, is used for official communications by the government, however, Moroccan Darija has a strong presence in Moroccan television entertainment, cinema and commercial advertising and is the most spoken language in daily life. Moroccan Darija is a term for several distinct dialects of Arabic several belonging to two genetically different groups, pre-Hilalian and Hilalian dialects. The dialects are classified in three types, urban, village and mountain sedentary and Jewish dialects. In Morocco, several dialects are spoken, urban dialects of Fes, Rabat, Salé, Taza, Tetouan, Ouezzane, Chefchaouen, Tangiers, Asilah, Larache, Ksar el-Kebir, Meknes. Mountain dialects of the southern and western Rif can be classified in two subdialects, northern dialects and southern dialects, sedentary dialects of Zerhoun and Sefrou and their neighboring tribes, remnants of pre-Hilalian dialects that were more widely spoken before the 12th century. Judeo-Moroccan, nearly extinct but with an extensive remnant literature, Hilalian, or Bedouin, dialects were introduced to Morocco following the settlement of several Hilalian and Mâqilian tribes in western Morocco brought by the Berber Almohad king Yaqub Mansur. Among the dialects, Hassaniya is often considered as distinct from Moroccan Darija, Modern urban koines are also based on the Hilalian dialects and have mainly Hilalian features. According to Elimams studies, the origin of language would go back to over 3,000 years. This Semitic language would be strongly Arabized after the Arab invasion to be assimilated into the language of the conquerors. Moroccan Darija is characterized by a strong Amazigh stratum, following the Arab conquest, Amazigh languages remained widely spoken. More recently, the influx of Andalusi Muslims and Spanish-speaking–Moriscos influenced Urban dialects with Spanish substrate, most vocabulary of Moroccan Darija is derived from Old Arabic and Amazigh, supplemented by French and Spanish loanwords. There are noticeable differences between Moroccan Darija and most other languages. Some words are unique to Moroccan Darija, daba now. Others are shared with Algerian Arabic such as talk, from Classical hadhar babble. There are a number of Moroccan Darija dictionaries in existence, A Dictionary of Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan-English, washington, DC, Georgetown University Press,1963 Mujam al-fuṣḥā fil-āmmiyyah al-maghribiyyah معجم الفصحى في العامية المغربية, Muhammad Hulwi, Rabat, al-Madaris 1988
6.
Berber languages
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Berber or the Berber languages or the Amazigh language are a family of similar and closely related languages and dialects indigenous to North Africa. Large Berber-speaking migrant communities, numbering today about 4 million, have been living in Western Europe, about half of this population was born in Europe. Berber constitutes a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, and has been attested since ancient times, the number of Berbers is much higher than the number of Berber speakers. The bulk of the populations of the Maghreb countries are considered to have Berber ancestors, in Algeria, for example, a majority of the population consists of Arabized Berbers. There is a cultural and political movement among speakers of the closely related varieties of Northern Berber to promote and unify them under a standard language, called. The name Tamaziɣt is the current native name of the Berber language in the Moroccan Middle-Atlas region, the Rif regions, in other Berber-speaking area this name was lost. There is historical evidence, from medieval Berber manusctipts, that all native North Africans from Libya to Morocco have called their language, Tamaziɣt. The name Tamaziɣt is currently being used by educated Berbers to refer to the written Berber language. Around 90 percent of the Berber-speaking population speak one of six major varieties of Berber and they are, in the order of demographic weight, Tashelhit, Kabyle, Atlas Tamazight, Riffian, Shawi and Tuareg. The Berber languages and dialects have had a tradition, on and off, for about 2,500 years, although the tradition has been frequently disrupted by cultural shifts. They were first written in the Libyco-Berber and Tifinagh abjad, still used by the Tuareg, the oldest dated inscription is from about 200 BCE. The Berber Latin alphabet was used by most European and Berber linguists during the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th and 20th century European and native Berber linguists, a modernized form of the Tifinagh alphabet, called Neo-Tifinagh, was adopted in Morocco in 2003 for writing Berber, but many Moroccan Berber publications still use the Berber Latin alphabet. Algerians mostly use the Berber Latin alphabet in Berber language education at public schools, Mali and Niger recognize a Tuareg-Berber Latin alphabet customized to the Tuareg phonological system. However, traditional Tifinagh is still used in those countries, the term Berber has been used in Europe since at least the 17th century, and is still used today. It was borrowed from Latin Barbari, the Latin word is also found in the Arabic designation for these populations, البربر, al-Barbar, see names of the Berber people. Etymologically, the Berber root Mazigh means free man, noble man, the feminine Tamazight traditionally referred specifically to the Riffian and Central Atlas Tamazight languages. European languages distinguish between the words Berber and barbaric, while Arabic has the same word al-barbari for both meanings, some other Berber writers, especially in Morocco, prefer to refer to Berber with Amazigh when writing about it in French or English
7.
Tashlhit
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Shilha or Sussian /ˈʃɪlhə/ is a Berber language native to Sussians. It is spoken by around 4 million people in western Morocco, the endonym is Tašussit or Tašlḥiyt /taʃlʜijt/, and in recent English publications the language is often rendered Tasussit or Tashelhit. In Moroccan Arabic the language is called Šussia or Šəlḥa, from which the alternative English name Shilha is derived, in French sources the language is called Soussi, Tasussit, tachelhit or chelha. Sussian is spoken in an area covering c, the largest urban centres in the area are the coastal city of Agadir and the towns of Guelmim, Taroudannt, Oulad Teima, Tiznit and Ouarzazate. In the north and to the south, Sussian borders on Arabic-speaking areas, in the northeast, roughly along the line Marrakesh-Zagora, there is a dialect continuum with Central Atlas Tamazight. Within the Sussian area, there are several Arabic-speaking enclaves, notably around the town of Taroudannt, Sussian possesses a distinct and substantial literary tradition that can be traced back several centuries before the colonial era. Many texts, written in Arabic script and dating from the late 16th century to the present, are preserved in manuscripts, a modern printed literature in Sussian has developed since the 1970s. Sussian speakers usually refer to their language as Tasussit or Tašlḥiyt and this name is morphologically a feminine noun, derived from masculine Ašussi or Ašlḥiy male speaker of Sussian. Sussian names of languages are formed in the same way, for example Aɛṛab an Arab. The noun Ašussi, though now used as an endonym among Sussian speakers, is exonymic in origin. The initial A- in Ašlḥiy is the Sussian nominal prefix, the ending -iy forms denominal nouns and adjectives. There are also variant forms Ašlḥay and Tašlḥayt, with -ay instead of -iy under the influence of the preceding consonant ḥ, the plural of Ašlḥiy is Išlḥiyn, a single female speaker is a Tašlḥiyt, plural Tišlḥiyin. In Moroccan colloquial Arabic, a speaker is called a Šəlḥ, plural Šluḥ, and the language is Šəlḥa. The Moroccan Arabic names have been borrowed into English as a Sussi, the Sussian, and Sussi, and into French as un Soussi, les Soussis, and Sussia or, more commonly, le Soussi. The now usual names Tašlḥiyt and Išlḥiyn seem to have gained the upper hand relatively recently, in older texts, the language is still referred to as Tamaziɣt or Tamazixt Tamazight. For example, the author Awzal speaks of nnaḍm n Tmazixt ann ifulkin a composition in that beautiful Tamazight, because Sous is the most heavily populated part of the language area, the name Tasussit is often used as a pars pro toto for the entire language. The number of around 4 million speakers mentioned in Ethnologue is based on the data of the census of 2004. There is no reason to assume that the number of speakers is substantially higher
8.
Tarifit
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Riffian is spoken mainly in the Moroccan Rif on the Mediterranean coast and in the Rif mountains, with a large minority in the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla. There are also speakers of Riffian in Morocco outside the Rif region, the neighbour state of Algeria is also home to Rif minorities. A Riffian-speaking community exists in the Netherlands and Belgium as well as to a lesser extent other European countries and its own speakers simply call it Tamazight, a term also often applied in a broader sense to the Berber language across North Africa in general. Dialects include Arzew, Urrighel, and Igzennaian, Iznasen is counted as a dialect in Kossman, but Blench classifies it as one of the closely related Mzab–Wargla languages. Majority of them are spoken in Northern Morocco, this includes the varieties of Al Hoceima, Temsamane, Nador, Ikbadene, besides Riffian, two other unrelated and smaller Berber languages are spoken in North Morocco, the Sanhaja de Srair and the Ghomara languages. Riffians most noticeable differences from other Berber dialects are that, /l/ in other dialects corresponds to ⟨ř⟩ in Riffian /ll/ in other dialects corresponds to ⟨ǧǧ⟩ in Riffian, /lt/ in other dialects corresponds to ⟨č⟩ in Riffian. These variations dont occur in the Riffian dialects of Ikebdanen and Iznasen, postvocalic /r/ preceding a consonantal coda is dropped, as in taddart → taddaat. Thus in tamara the /r/ is conserved because it precedes a vowel, /k/ usually becomes /ʃ/, while in some local sub-accents it is merely softened. Additionally, the initial masculine a- prefix is dropped in words, e. g. afus becomes fus. This change, characteristic of Zenati Berber varieties, further distances Riffian from neighbouring dialects such as Atlas-Tamazight, Tarifit or Tarifiyt is often pronounced as. Like other Berber languages, Riffian has been written several different systems over the years. Most recently, Tifinagh has become official throughout Morocco, the Arabic script is not used anymore for writing Riffian Berber. The Berber Latin alphabet continues to be used unofficially online and in most publications in Morocco, however, unlike the nearby Tashelhit, Riffian Berber has little written literature before the twentieth century. Etude sur le dialecte des Bettioua du Vieil-Arzeu, etude sur les dialectes berbères du Rif. Atlas linguistique des variétés berbères du Rif, the Interrelations of Syntax, Narrative Structure, and Prosody in a Berber Language. Lewiston, NY, Edwin Mellen Press,2000, etude sur les dialectes berbères des Beni Iznassen, du Rif et des Senhaja de Sraïr. Tarifiyt Berber Vocabulary List INALCO report on Tarifit Site 100% in Tarifit
9.
Central Atlas Tamazight
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Central Atlas Tamazight is one of the most-spoken Berber languages, along with Kabyle, Shilha, Riff, and Shawiya, and in Morocco it rivals Shilha as the most-spoken. All five languages may be referred to as Tamazight, but Central Atlas speakers are the ones who use the term exclusively. As is typical of Afro-Asiatic languages, Tamazight has a series of consonants, uvulars, pharyngeals. Tamazight has a phonemic system, but also has numerous words without vowels. Central Atlas Tamazight had no significant writing tradition until the 20th century. The standard word order is verb–subject–object but sometimes subject–verb–object, words inflect for gender, number, and state, using prefixes, suffixes, and circumfixes. Verbs are heavily inflected, being marked for tense, aspect, mode, voice, person of the subject, pervasive borrowing from Arabic extends to all major word classes, including verbs, borrowed verbs, however, are conjugated according to native patterns, including ablaut. Central Atlas Tamazight is one of the four most-spoken Berber languages, in addition to Kabyle, Shilha, and Riff, differentiating these dialects is complicated by the fact that speakers of other languages may also refer to their language as Tamazight. The differences between all three groups are largely phonological and lexical, rather than syntactic, Tamazight itself has a relatively large degree of internal diversity, including whether spirantization occurs. Central Atlas Tamazight speakers refer to themselves as Amazigh, an endonymic ethnonym whose etymology is uncertain, the term Tamazight, the feminine form of Amazigh, refers to the language. Both words are also used self-referentially by other Berber groups to replace local terms such as ašəlḥi or rifi, in older studies, Central Atlas Tamazight is sometimes referred to as Braber / Beraber, a dialetical Arabic term, or its Tamazight equivalent Taberbrit. This is related to the Standard Arabic and English term Berber, used to refer to all Berber dialects/languages, Tamazight is in the middle of a dialect continuum between Riff to its north-east and Shilha to its south-west. The basic lexicon of Tamazight differs markedly from Shilha, and its system is more similar to Riff or Kabyle. Moreover, Tamazight has an amount of internal diversity than Shilha. Southern dialects may also be differentiated syntactically, while other dialects predicate with the auxiliary /d/, the differences between each of the three groups are primarily phonological. There is some ambiguity as to the boundary of Central Atlas Tamazight. The Berbers have lived in North Africa between western Egypt and the Atlantic Ocean since before recorded history began in the region about 33 centuries ago. By the 5th century BC, the city of Carthage, founded by Phoenicians, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa, in the wake of the Punic Wars, Rome replaced it as regional hegemon
10.
Sunni Islam
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Sunni Islam is the largest group of Islam. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the behavior of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to Sunni tradition, Muhammad did not clearly designate a successor and this contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad intended his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib to succeed him. Political tensions between Sunnis and Shias continued with varying intensity throughout Islamic history and they have been exacerbated in recent times by ethnic conflicts, as of 2009, Sunni Muslims constituted between 87–90% of the worlds Muslim population. Sunni Islam is the worlds largest religious denomination, followed by Catholicism and its adherents are referred to in Arabic as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah or ahl as-sunnah for short. In English, its doctrines and practices are sometimes called Sunnism, while adherents are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis, Sunnites, Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as orthodox Islam. The Quran, together with hadith and binding juristic consensus form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam, sunnī, also commonly referred to as Sunnīism, is a term derived from sunnah meaning habit, usual practice, custom, tradition. The Muslim use of this term refers to the sayings and living habits of the prophet Muhammad, in Arabic, this branch of Islam is referred to as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah, the people of the sunnah and the community, which is commonly shortened to ahl as-sunnah. One common mistake is to assume that Sunni Islam represents a normative Islam that emerged during the period after Muhammads death, and that Sufism and Shiism developed out of Sunni Islam. This perception is due to the reliance on highly ideological sources that have been accepted as reliable historical works. Both Sunnism and Shiaism are the end products of centuries of competition between ideologies. Both sects used each other to further cement their own identities and doctrines, the first four caliphs are known among Sunnis as the Rashidun or Rightly-Guided Ones. Sunni recognition includes the aforementioned Abu Bakr as the first, Umar who established the Islamic calendar as the second, Uthman as the third, Sunnis believe that the companions of Muhammad were the best of Muslims. Support for this view is found in the Quran, according to Sunnis. Sunnis also believe that the companions were true believers since it was the companions who were given the task of compiling the Quran, furthermore, narrations that were narrated by the companions are considered by Sunnis to be a second source of knowledge of the Muslim faith. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 and released January 2011 found that there are 1.62 billion Muslims around the world, Islam does not have a formal hierarchy or clergy. Leaders are informal, and gain influence through study to become a scholar of Islamic law, according to the Islamic Center of Columbia, South Carolina, anyone with the intelligence and the will can become an Islamic scholar. During Midday Mosque services on Fridays, the congregation will choose a person to lead the service
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