What is your mother tongue?

[Torsten]

Hello everybody,

What do you think about introducing your mother tongue to us? For example, you could tell us what family your native language belongs to. How many speakers does your language have in total? What countries is your language spoken in? What about the history of your mother tongue - how did it emerge? What do you like about your language, can you think of any reasons why other people should learn it?
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[newmind]

OK. I'll go first. My mother tongue has almost 300 million native speakers. It's mainly spoken by people in Europe and Asia. Some speakers of that language also live in North America because they emigrated and settled there. I understand almost a dozen other languages which are similar to my mother tongue and now I'm curious if you can guess where I'm from

[rich7]

My mother tongue is the one rising up in the world, in my opinion will be the univesal tongue in the long run. Every day more and more people are interested in learning it.

As for you my friend openmind my guess is China.
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I should have been born in the USA.
I've got this thing about America.

[newmind]

Rich, there are at least 1 billion people in the world who speak Chinese as their mother tongue and most of them live in Asia, don't you think? Regarding your native language since you are from the Venezuela you speak Spanish. I know that Spanish is spoken in so many countries and I wonder if you can tell what country a person is from when you hear them speak? For example if you hear a Spaniard speak, can you determine that he is from Spain?

[Andreana]

Hello Rich! Why do you think Spanish will become the universal language of the world? My father works for a large telecom company and he has to travel a lot. Every time he returns home he calls my brother and me and then he tells us how important it is for us to learn English. He has been to the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe and also to North America. He says as soons as he leaves South America English is the most important language for him to use. Do you really think this will change any time soon? We leave here in South America which is a Spanish speaking world and maybe there are a few Spanish speakers in the US and Europe. But why would Spanish be the universal language as you call it?

[Mosteque]

HI,
My language is spoken by about 40 mln ppl.
It belongs to indo-european family same as german, french, russian, english....
Why do I like it?? Cos it's very complex and..... i just don't know what to write :d
Openminded, your language is Russian, right?
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[newmind]

Mosteque you guessed my mother tongue correctly. I understand and speak a little Polish too. The language sounds pleasant to me. I like the intonation. What languages do you know apart from Polish and English?

[Nicole]

I think there are about 100 million who speak my language. Most of them live in Europe, in three countries actually. What else can I say about my native language? I could say a lot but then it would be way to easy for you to guess
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[Mosteque]

Hi Openmind,
I speak only Polish and English as for now. But in two weeks I'm going to take up German. I've already downloaded Primsleur and Rosetta Stone programms. Let's check what they're worth
I'll keep you all up to date with my progress
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[rich7]

Yes, you're right openmind I do speak spanish and can tell different spanish apart in seconds but there are a few accents that could take longer to distiguish them like "uruguayo" and "paraguayo" pretty much alike.

As for your native language, it was my off hand guess so I dicided to do some research and would like you to check it out:

Taken from other forum:

Most Widely Spoken Languages
in the World

Language Approx. number
of speakers
 1. Chinese (Mandarin) 1,075,000,000
 2. English 514,000,000
 3. Hindustani 496,000,000
 4. Spanish 425,000,000
 5. Russian 275,000,000
 6. Arabic 256,000,000
 7. Bengali 215,000,000
 8. Portuguese 194,000,000
 9. Malay-Indonesian 176,000,000
10. French 129,000,000

Source: Ethnologue, 13th Edition, and other sources

Do you see spanish's place? that indicates that the number of spanish speakers has been increasing through the years taking into account that those 425 millions are not all
natives in comparison with the probably 1.075 of the chinese population.

On a related matter what criterions are most important to you?
- Number of speakers of the language
- Number of countries where the language is spoken
- Number of continents where the language is spoken
- Beauty of the language
- The language is spoken in countries you want to visit
_________________
I should have been born in the USA.
I've got this thing about America.

[Andreana]

Hello Rich! Thank you for posting those language statistics. You said that Spanish will be the universal language in the long run and I have shown our conversation to my father because he is the one in our family who is urging every one to learn English. We had a discussion about this. I mean about the question which language will be the leading one in the next years and I think our mother tongue will not be able to displace English. Think about this: How many books in English are published and sold every year throughtout the world? What is the language of science and entertainment? What is the language of communication technology? What is the language of international business?
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[Nicole]

[Mosteque]

use your brain and use the internet
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[rich7]

Yes, Andreana your progenitor is absolutely right, what I mean by "in the long run" is many years ahead and of course that books are written in English, most of the film industry is English spoken and technology speaks the same language but, and I insist Spanish is the rising sun.
_________________
I should have been born in the USA.
I've got this thing about America.

[Nicole]