The Book of Languages: Talk Your Way around the World
Say Hello Hello in 48 Hej Danish Hello English Hallo Dutch Bonjour French Ullukkut Inuktitut Kuei Innu Helo Welsh Kaixo Basque Kwe Mi’kmaq Hola Spanish Buongiorno Italian Alo Haitian Creole Rimaykullayki Quechua Mbaé'ch'tpa Guaraní Olá Portuguese Walale Umbundu Hallo Afrikaans Aang Aleut-Eskimo Hau Lakota Yá at ééh Navajo Niltse Nahuatl Tanisi Cree Boozhoo Anishinabe Halito Choctaw Sakaric K’iche Hello 4
diff erent languages Hei Finnish Guten Tag German Zdravstvujtye Russian Sain baina uu Mongolian Merhaba Turkish Salaam Iranian Konnichiwa Japanese Annyeong haseyo Korean N hăo Mandarin Sawàt-dii Thai Namaste Hindi-Urdu Nomaashkaar Bengali Selamat pagi Malay Kaya Noongar Kia ora Maori Cześć Polish Szia Hungarian Shalom Hebrew Marhaba Arabic Jambo Swahili Yassou Greek Zdravo Croatian Sawubona Zulu 5
Why language is important One of the most important differences between human beings and other animals is our use of language Language allows us to tell other people what we want what we think and what we feel and also understand what others are saying to us Nearly 7,000 languages are spoken in the world Some languages have many millions of speakers whereas some may have fewer than ten All of these languages do the same thing allow us to communicate with others We all need to greet people say who we are tell stories and jokes discuss and persuade even let off steam if we hit our thumb with a hammer To do these things we need language Qué You what In this book This book looks at 21 of the world’s languages You can fi nd out about their history and where they are spoken You can see what they look like and also learn to speak a few words and phrases pages 12 53 Despite their differences languages are related like humans You can fi nd out about the different language families on pages 10 11 Language is so important to us that we have created ways to communicate even when we cannot speak or hear On pages 54 57 you can fi nd out about some non verbal languages 6 Scripts and pronunciation Not all languages are written in the same way The written forms are called scripts Chinese can be written using characters like tiny paintings (cid:9209)(cid:11658) Russian script uses the Cyrillic alphabet with letters like this Ж English and lots of other languages use the Latin alphabet A B C etc In this book we have changed all the words into the Latin script so you can read them more easily This is called transcription The alphabets for each language with the names of the letters are shown on the side of the right-hand pages To make reading as easy as possible we have used the most simplifi ed transcriptions and also written the alphabets of all languages from left to right You’ll also fi nd short pronunciation guides that describe the way that letters sound when they are spoken
Eh Rrgh Grrr Mmm Ow Huh Hi A short history of language No one knows exactly when or how humans fi rst began to speak At some point between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago the brains of our prehistoric ancestors changed This made us able to use language rather than just grunt like other apes We don’t know whether this ability appeared suddenly or developed gradually over thousands of years Now every child is able to learn his or her own native language called a mother tongue as well as the languages spoken by others Languages travel Separate languages grew up in different places and have traveled with the people who speak them This has happened through trade migration and war For example when the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain in the 5th century they brought their own language with them and it became the basis of English The German language grew up in the region which the Anglo-Saxons came from and so English and German have some similarities They are part of the same language family See page 10 Languages RIP Languages can die out and become extinct just like species of animals This happens when the children stop learning their parents language because another language is more useful When there is no one left to speak a language it is considered dead Of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today half are at risk of dying out There are some 200 languages that are critically endangered with fewer than ten speakers On the other hand we are still discovering unique languages in remote places like the Amazon rain forest Th e oldest language The oldest language still being spoken today is thought to be Tamil According to recent archaeological evidence Tamil was spoken in southern India more than 5,000 years ago However the fi rst written words were probably in the ancient language used by the Sumerian people They lived in Mesopotamia which is now the country of Iraq Their script was found on the Kish tablet above It has been dated to 3,500 BC 7
