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| Languages |
| Royal Canadian can provide you with translations in almost any written language, on almost any topic. (Click flag to view language) |
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| English is the principal language of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The only other language in the world to be spoken by more people is Chinese. English is a Germanic language and is related to Dutch and German. The English vocabulary is more extensive than any other vocabulary in the world. English is also said to have the most complicated spelling system in the world, as spelling has little to do with pronunciation. |
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German, the national language of both Germany and Austria, and one of the four official languages of Switzerland, is spoken by approximately 100 million people worldwide. Written German is uniform, however the spoken dialects vary greatly, to the point where communication can become difficult. German is generally divided into two different types, High and Low, that are differentiated by a strong variation in
pronunciation. High German is spoken in the southern and central areas of Germany, and Low German in the Northern areas. |
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| French is one of the world's most widely-spoken languages. It is spoken in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Haiti, Canada, and other countries. French is a Romance language descended from Latin. In the 17th century, the French Academy compiled a dictionary, which was a very important step in the standardization of French. During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries it was the preeminent international language, and it was only in the 20th century that it was partially eclipsed by English. |
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Italian is a Romance language and has remained closer to Latin than any other language. It is spoken in Italy and is one of the four official
languages of Switzerland. During its development as a language, many dialects of Italian have sprung up. In the 16th century an effort was made to unify these dialects by combining the Tuscan dialect with
Classical Italian. |
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| Spanish is the most widely spoken Romance language in the world, both in terms of the number of speakers and the number of countries in which it is spoken. Pronunciation and vocabulary in Spanish varies from country to country, but not to the point as to impede communication too greatly. Most Spanish words come from Latin, but since Spanish is spoken by so many people in so many places throughout the world, it adopts new words from other languages quite frequently. The creation of a standard Spanish language began in the 13th century with King Alfonso X. In the 15th century, Spanish explorers, conquistadors and colonizers carried Spanish to the Americas and the Philippines. In the United States, at the beginning of the 1990's, there were more than 17 million people who spoke Spanish as a first language. |
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Russian is the mostly widely spoken of all Slavic languages and is one of the major
languages of the world. Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet which dates from the 9th century. On first sight, to someone who is unfamiliar to the alphabet, it looks rather intimidating, but is in fact relatively easy to learn. It is the grammar and
pronunciation which are the most difficult to tackle. There are three main dialects in Russian, northern, southern and central. Standard Russian is based on the dialect spoken in Moscow. |
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Portuguese is the national language of both Portugal and Brazil.
Portuguese is a Romance language directly descendent from Latin. However, unlike other Romance languages, it is descended from the Latin of soldiers and colonists, not the Latin of a cultured Roman citizen. The language has been influenced by many different languages. There were words taken from the Germanic tribes that invaded from the
5th - 8th centuries, and the invasion of the Moors brought Arabic words into the language.
Portuguese is similar to, yet at the same time distinctly different from, Spanish. The differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese are similar to the differences between British and American English in that they are mostly differences of vocabulary and accent, but people from the different countries can converse easily. |
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| Polish is spoken by about 43 million people. The majority are in Poland, but there are also a large number of speakers in the United States and the Ukraine. The Polish language is written with the Roman Alphabet, without q, v, or x, but with a number of diacritical marks. Polish resembles other Slavic languages, and overlaps some vocabulary with Russian, Czech and Bulgarian. |
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Turkish is the official language of Turkey. Following the conversion of the Turks to Islam, Turkish was written in Arabic script. However, in 1926, a slightly modified version of the Roman Alphabet was
introduced. The Turkish Language Institute was developed in 1932 to study the language and development of the languages. As a result, Turkish is being rid of foreign influences. |
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| Hungarian is the language of Hungary, however it has its roots in Asian languages. The Hungarian people came from Asia and brought their language with them. It is an extremely difficult language for foreigners to learn as its grammar has many complex features not found in most Western languages. There are in fact only two languages that are closely related to Hungarian, the remote Ostyak and Vogul languages of Siberia. |
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| Arabic is one of the world's major languages as it is the mother tongue of over 125 million people. In 1974 Arabic was made the 6th official language of the United Nations. Spoken Arabic varies from country to country and not all dialects are mutually intelligible. |
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| Japanese is one of the ten most widely-spoken languages of the world. Although it uses Chinese characters in writing, it is not related to Chinese, and in fact has not been definitively linked to any language. Japanese is generally written vertically, however in order to include English words, Arabic numerals and formulas, it can also be written horizontally. Japanese includes an extensive system of word markers which express politeness and honor. One must keep social standing in mind when speaking; words have one form when you are speaking to or of a friend or family member, another form if you are speaking to or of someone you do not know, and yet another form if you are speaking to or of someone of superior social standing. |
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| Persian (Farsi) is the official language of Iran and Afghanistan. About 35 million people speak Persian worldwide. Though today it is spoken primarily in Iran (Farsi) and Afghanistan (Dari), but was historically a more widely understood language in an area ranging from the Middle East to India. It was an important language during the reign of the Moguls in India till 1837. Persian is written in Arabic script. It has no grammatical gender or articles. Words are stressed on the last syllable. Iranian, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Sindhi, Hebrew and Persian have influenced each other. |
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