As a result of political change within Taiwan, the long-suppressed Hokkien language (Taiwanese), spoken by 71 percent of the population, is gaining legitimacy. Although Taiwanese was previously not even spoken in schools, it is now being introduced into school curriculums throughout the country. In addition, it is being used more and more often in the politics, mass media, and everyday speech of the Taiwanese people.
Swahili is a language that is widely spoken in East Africa. It is spoken as a first language in areas along the east coast, i.e. from southern Somalia to the Mozambique-Tanzania border; the islands of Zanzibar, Pembe, Mafia, Lamu, and the Comores; and most of East Africa's urban areas.
Sudanese Arabic is the dialect of Arabic spoken throughout Sudan. It has borrowed much of its vocabulary from local languages (El Rotana). This has resulted in a version of Arabic that is unique to Sudan, reflecting the manner in which the country has been influenced by both African and Arab cultures. Some of the tribes in Sudan still have similar accents to the ones in Saudi Arabia.
Spanish (español) is a Romance language named for its origins as the native tongue of a large proportion of the inhabitants of Spain. It is also named Castilian (castellano listen (help·info)) after the Spanish region of Castile where it originated. Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.
Polish is spoken by about 43 million people, 36.5 million of whom live in Poland, where it is the official language. After the end of Word War II, following border readjustments, Poland became more linguistically and ethnically homogeneous; over 98% of the population spoke Polish. Another 2.5 million Polish speakers live in the USA; 1 million in Ukraine; about 100,000 or so each in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Israel, and Canada; and lesser numbers in Australia and Romania.
Persian has been taught at Penn since 1949, and our program continues to engage students in the language and culture of the Persian-speaking world. The program offers courses at the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels, as well as for heritage speakers. Based in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Persian Program works in collaboration with the university’s Middle East Center and the Penn Language Center.
Pashto is one of the national languages of Afghanistan (Dari Persian is the other), and it is the home language of Pashtuns living in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, as well as of those living in Baluchistan (Iran and Pakistan). Major Pashto-speaking cities include Afghanistan's Qandahar, Jalal Abad, and Kabul, as well as Peshawar in Pakistan. There are 8 million speakers of Pashto in Afghanistan (45% of the population) and almost 9 million in Pakistan (13% of the population). Pashto is one of the East Iranian group of languages.
Punjabi, the language of the land of five rivers, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by over 105 million people - mainly Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims in both India and Pakistan. Punjabi is one of the most widely used languages of South Asian communities in the UK, USA, Canada and many other Asian and African countries. The Punjabi language has many different dialects, spoken in different sub-regions. In India, Punjabi is written with the Gurmukhl script, while in Pakistan it is written with the Persian script known as Shahmukhl.
Modern Greek (Greek: Νέα Ελληνικά or Νεοελληνική γλώσσα, "Neo-Hellenic", historically and colloquially, also known as Ρωμαίικα, "Romaic" or "Roman") refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earlier - from the fourth to the fifteenth century AD.
Marathi is an Indo-European language spoken by the Marathi people. It is the offical language of Maharashtra, Goa and is one of the 23 offical languages of India. It is the 15th most spoken language in the world, and in 2011, there were 91 million speakers. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India. Marathi has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-European, Indic languages, dating from about 1000 AD. The major dialects of Marathi are called Standard Marathi and Warhadi Marathi.
