Italys Piedmontese language, casually spoken | Giorgio speaking Piedmontese | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-10-20 | Italys Piedmontese language, casually spoken | Giorgio speaking Piedmontese | Wikitongues
The East Frisian Low Saxon language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-04-09 | East Frisian Low Saxon, or Oostfräisk, is spoken by 200,000 people in northwestern Germany. It is one of the Low German (or Low Saxon) languages, which together have up to 7 million native speakers.This video was recorded by Onno Dirk (Oen Diirk Feldman) in Westoverledingen, Lower Saxony, Germany and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: "East Frisian Low German or East Frisian Low Saxon is one of the Northern Low Saxon dialects, a West Low German dialect spoken in the East Frisian peninsula of northwestern Lower Saxony. It is used quite frequently in everyday speech there. About half of the East Frisian population in the coastal region uses the language. By the speakers it is often called Plat, or Ōstfräisk. A number of individuals, despite not being active speakers of Low Saxon, are able to understand it to some extent. However, both active and passive language skills are in a state of decrease. East Frisian Low Saxon is not to be confused with the Eastern Frisian language; the latter, spoken by about 2,000 individuals in the Saterland region, is a Frisian language, not Low German. There are several dialects in East Frisian Low Saxon. There are two main groups of dialects. The dialects in the east, called Harlinger Platt, are strongly influenced by Northern Low Saxon of Oldenburg. The western dialects are closer to the Low Saxon Language spoken in the Dutch province of Groningen, Gronings.East Frisian Low Saxon differs from Northern Low Saxon in several aspects, which are often linked to Frisian heritage. The language originally spoken in East Frisia and Groningen was Frisian, so the current Low Saxon dialects of East Frisia, as part of the Friso-Saxon dialects, build on a Frisian substrate which has led to a large amount of unique lexical, syntactic, and phonological items which differ from other Low Saxon variants. Some Old Frisian vocabulary is still in active speech today. East Frisian features frequent use of diminutives, as in the Dutch language, e.g. fautjes ‘little feet’, kluntje ‘lump of rock sugar’. In many cases, diminutives of names, especially female ones, have become names of their own. For example: Antje (from Anna), Trientje (from Trina = Katharina) etc. The dialects spoken in East Frisia are closely related to those spoken in the Dutch province of Groningen (Grunnegs, Grünnigs) and in Northern Drenthe (Noordenvelds). The biggest difference seems to be that of loanwords (from Dutch or German, resp.). The standard greeting is Moin (moi in Gronings), used 24 hours a day."
The Lombard language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-04-04 | Western Lombard is a variety of the Lombard language, which is spoken by up to 3.8 million people, primarily in Lombardy, Northern Italy. A Gallo-Romance language, it is closely related to Catalan, Occitan, and Ligurian.This video was recorded by Guido Negretti, Ezio Negretti, and Eva Leonardi Negretti in Lombardy, Italy and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: Lombard (native name lumbàart, lumbard or lombard, depending on the orthography; pronounced [lũˈbɑːrt] or [lomˈbart]) is a language belonging to the Cisalpine or Gallo-Italic group, within the Romance languages. It is a cluster of homogeneous varieties used by at least 3,500,000 native speakers in Northern Italy (most of Lombardy and some areas of neighbouring regions, notably the eastern side of Piedmont), Southern Switzerland (cantons of Ticino and Graubünden), and Brazil (Botuverá, Santa Catarina). The languages closest to Lombard are Franco-Provençal, French, Romansh, Occitan and Piedmontese.
The Navajo language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-04-02 | The Diné language, or Navajo, is spoken by as many as 170,000 people, primarily in the Navajo Nation of the Southwestern United States. It is an Athabaskan language, Indigenous to North America.This video was recorded by Verónica Wood and Melissa Yaiva in the Navajo Nation and is published under a CC0 mark. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. More from Wikipedia: "Navajo or Navaho (Navajo: Diné bizaad [tìnépìz̥ɑ̀ːt] or Naabeehó bizaad [nɑ̀ːpèːhópìz̥ɑ̀ːt]) is a Southern Athabaskan language of the Na-Dené family, through which it is related to languages spoken across the western areas of North America. Navajo is spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States, especially in the Navajo Nation. It is one of the most widely spoken Native American languages and is the most widely spoken north of the Mexico–United States border, with almost 170,000 Americans speaking Navajo at home as of 2011. The language has struggled to keep a healthy speaker base, although this problem has been alleviated to some extent by extensive education programs in the Navajo Nation. The language has a fairly large phoneme inventory; it includes several uncommon consonants that are not found in English. Its four basic vowels are distinguished for nasality, length, and tone. It has both agglutinative and fusional elements: it relies on affixes to modify verbs, and nouns are typically created from multiple morphemes, but in both cases these morphemes are fused irregularly and beyond easy recognition. Basic word order is subject–object–verb, though it is highly flexible to pragmatic factors. Verbs are conjugated for aspect and mood, and given affixes for the person and number of both subjects and objects, as well as a host of other variables. The language's orthography, which was developed in the late 1930s after a series of prior attempts, is based on the Latin script. Most Navajo vocabulary is Athabaskan in origin, as the language has been conservative with loanwords since its early stages."
The East Frisian Low Saxon language, casually | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-03-28 | East Frisian Low Saxon, or Oostfräisk, is spoken by 200,000 people in northwestern Germany. It is one of the Low German (or Low Saxon) languages, which together have up to 7 million native speakers.This video was recorded by Tido Specht (Tîd Specht) in Aurich, Lower Saxony, Germany and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: "East Frisian Low German or East Frisian Low Saxon is one of the Northern Low Saxon dialects, a West Low German dialect spoken in the East Frisian peninsula of northwestern Lower Saxony. It is used quite frequently in everyday speech there. About half of the East Frisian population in the coastal region uses the language. By the speakers it is often called Plat, or Ōstfräisk. A number of individuals, despite not being active speakers of Low Saxon, are able to understand it to some extent. However, both active and passive language skills are in a state of decrease. East Frisian Low Saxon is not to be confused with the Eastern Frisian language; the latter, spoken by about 2,000 individuals in the Saterland region, is a Frisian language, not Low German. There are several dialects in East Frisian Low Saxon. There are two main groups of dialects. The dialects in the east, called Harlinger Platt, are strongly influenced by Northern Low Saxon of Oldenburg. The western dialects are closer to the Low Saxon Language spoken in the Dutch province of Groningen, Gronings.East Frisian Low Saxon differs from Northern Low Saxon in several aspects, which are often linked to Frisian heritage. The language originally spoken in East Frisia and Groningen was Frisian, so the current Low Saxon dialects of East Frisia, as part of the Friso-Saxon dialects, build on a Frisian substrate which has led to a large amount of unique lexical, syntactic, and phonological items which differ from other Low Saxon variants. Some Old Frisian vocabulary is still in active speech today. East Frisian features frequent use of diminutives, as in the Dutch language, e.g. fautjes ‘little feet’, kluntje ‘lump of rock sugar’. In many cases, diminutives of names, especially female ones, have become names of their own. For example: Antje (from Anna), Trientje (from Trina = Katharina) etc. The dialects spoken in East Frisia are closely related to those spoken in the Dutch province of Groningen (Grunnegs, Grünnigs) and in Northern Drenthe (Noordenvelds). The biggest difference seems to be that of loanwords (from Dutch or German, resp.). The standard greeting is Moin (moi in Gronings), used 24 hours a day."
The Amharic language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-03-26 | Amharic is spoken by around 60 million people, primarily in the East African nation of Ethiopia, where it is one of five official languages. A Semitic language, it is related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew.This video was recorded by Amlaku B. Eshetie in the U.S. state of Colorado. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: "Amharic (natively, አማርኛ) is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas and as a lingua franca by other populations residing in major cities and towns of Ethiopia. The Amharic language possibly originated as result of a pidginization process with a Cushitic substratum and a Semitic superstratum to enable communication between people who spoke a mix of different languages. The language serves as the working language of Ethiopia, and is also the working language of several of the states within the Ethiopian federal system. With 21,811,600 total speakers as of 2007, including around 4,000,000 second language speakers, Amharic is the second-most common language of Ethiopia (after Oromo) and second-most commonly spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic).Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Ge'ez script. The writing system is called fidäl (ፊደል) in Ethiopian Semitic languages. Fidäl means 'script', 'alphabet', 'letter', or 'character'. The writing system is also called abugida (አቡጊዳ), from the first four symbols; from this the modern term abugida is derived.There is no universally agreed way of romanising Amharic into Latin script. The Amharic examples in the sections below use one system that is common among linguists specialising in Ethiopian Semitic languages."
A song in the Tatar language | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-03-22 | Dobrujan Tatar is spoken by about 70,000 people in Romania, where it is a recognized minority language, as well as in parts of Turkey and Bulgaria. A Turkic language, it is a variety of Crimean Tatar.This video was recorded by Berkant Gemil in Dobruja, Romania. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: Crimean Tatar (qırımtatar tili, къырымтатар тили), also called Crimean (qırım tili, къырым тили), is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the languages are related, but belong to two different subgroups of the Kipchak languages and thus are not mutually intelligible. It has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz dialects.
The Aheri Gondi language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-02-29 | Gondi (also called Koitur) is spoken across in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, by as many as 3 million people. Shamrao speaks the Aheri variety.This video was recorded by Shamrao Uik and Rohini Lakshané in India and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Enggano language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2024-02-27 | Enggano (also called Engganese) is spoken on Enggano Island, some 100 km (60 mi) southwest of Sumatra, Indonesia. There are at least 700 speakers, of a cultural community of about 1,500 people. This video was recorded by Milson Kaitora, Engga Zakaria, and Daniel Krauße in Oxford, United Kingdom and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Valley Zapotec language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2023-05-05 | The Valley Zapotec language, also called Tlacolula Valley Zapotec and Dizhsa, is a variety of the Zapotec languages, which are spoken by as many as 490,000 people, primarily in the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The speaker @rodrigogarcia4591, is a musician and songwriter.Note: an earlier version of this description mislabeled this video as Tejalapam Zapotec.This video was recorded by Nicholas Biniaz-Harris in San Lucas Quiaviní, Oaxaca, Mexico, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: "Tlacolula Valley Zapotec or Valley Zapotec, known by its regional name Dizhsa, and formerly known by the varietal name Guelavia Zapotec (Zapoteco de San Juan Guelavía) is a Zapotec language of Oaxaca, Mexico. Tlacolula Valley Zapotec is a cluster of Zapotec languages spoken in the western Tlacolula Valley, which show varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. All varieties of Valley Zapotec are endangered. The languages in this group include: Santa Ana del Valle Zapotec Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec, San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, Tlacolula de Matamoros Zapotec, San Juan Guelavía Zapotec, San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya Zapotec, and San Juan Teitipac Zapotec. Teotitlán del Valle dialect is divergent, 59% intelligible to San Juan Guelavía proper. Valley Zapotec is also spoken in the city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of Oaxaca. In April 2014, linguist Brook Danielle Lillehaugen, along with students from Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges, visited Tlacolula de Matamoros to present an online Tlacolula Valley Zapotec talking dictionary to local leaders. It was estimated that about 100 elderly speakers of this Zapotecan language remain. Tlacolula Valley Zapotec is a VSO language."
The Torwali language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2023-05-03 | The Torwali language is spoken by about 110,000 people, primarily in Swat District, Pakistan. An Indo-European language, it is related to others across South Asia, and more distantly to many European languages. In this video, Torwali elder Inam speaks with Zubair, who has been working to safeguard and revitalize the language.More from Wikipedia: "Torwali (Urdu: توروالی) is a Dardic language of the Northwestern Indo-Aryan family mainly spoken in the Bahrain and Chail areas of the Swat District in Northern Pakistan. It is said to have originated from the pre-Muslim Dardic communities of Pakistan. It has two dialects (Bahrain and Chail). The language and its community, like other communities, Gawri in Swat and in Dir, and the ones in Indus Kohistan, is often referred to as ""Kohistani"" which is a name given by the Swat Pathans. Fredrik Barth says ""By the Swat Pathans, the people are known as Kohistanis, together with the other non-Pathan peoples given that name; together with the Torwalis, Kohistanis of Swat Kohistan"". The Afghans call them 'Kohistani'--a name everywhere given by Pathans to 'the Musulmans of Indic descent living' in the Hindu Kush. Close to 30-35% of its speakers have migrated permanently to the bigger cities of Pakistan where their language is either being replaced by the national language Urdu, or by other languages of wider communication such as Pashto or Punjabi. The language Torwali is said to have originated from the pre-Muslim Dardic communities of Swat. Endangerment: Torwali is among the 27 endangered languages according to UNESCO's Atlas of endangered languages. Glottolog categorizes it as 'vulnerable. Efforts to revitalize the Torwali language were started back in 2004 and mother-tongue community schools were planned and established by Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT). Zubair Torwali founded Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT)--the Institute for Education and Development. He and his team introduced mother tongue-based multilingual education in Bahrain Swat and started advocacy for its revitalization."
The Gascon language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2023-04-22 | The Gascon language is a Romance variety from the Gascony and Béarn regions of Southern France, and the Aran Valley in Catalonia. It is widely, though not unanimously, considered a variety of Occitan.This video was recorded by Paulina Kamakine in France and is in the public domain. You can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.More from Wikipedia: "Gascon (Occitan: [ɡasˈku], French: [ɡaskɔ̃]) is a dialect of Occitan, considered by some linguists to be a separate language. It is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France (in parts of the following French départements: Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Landes, Gers, Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Haute-Garonne, and Ariège) and in the Aran Valley of Catalonia. Aranese, a southern Gascon variety, is spoken in Catalonia and has been greatly influenced recently by Catalan and Spanish. Both these influences tend to differentiate it more and more from the dialects of Gascon spoken in France. Since the 2006 adoption of the new statute of Catalonia, Aranese is co-official with Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia (before, this status was valid for the Aran Valley only)."
The Kildin Sámi and Russian languages, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2023-04-20 | The Kildin Sámi language, also called Kola Sámi, Eastern Sámi, and killt saam'kill, is an Indigenous Uralic language of the Kola Peninsula, modern-day Murmansk Oblast, Russia. In this video, Anna also speaks Russian. This video was recorded by Valentina Sovkina in Revda, Murmansk Oblast, Russia and is published under a CC0 mark. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. More from Wikipedia: "Kildin Sámi (sometimes spelled Saami, and also known as Kola Sámi, Eastern Sámi, and Lappish, though the last is ambiguous), is a Sámi language that is spoken on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia that today is and historically was once inhabited by this group. Russian (русский язык, tr. rússkiy yazýk) is an East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe. It is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages alongside, and part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. Russian was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 26 December 1991. Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states. Large numbers of Russian speakers can also be found in other countries, such as Israel and Mongolia. Russian is the largest native language in Europe, and the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. It is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, with over 258 million total speakers worldwide. Russian is the seventh-most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers and the eighth-most spoken language in the world by total number of speakers. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second-most widespread language on the Internet, after English. Russian is written using the Cyrillic script; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or a soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Stress, which is unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress, such as to distinguish between homographic words, for example замо́к (zamók – a lock) and за́мок (zámok – a castle), or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names."
The Purgi and Shina languages, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2023-03-26 | The Purgi and Shina languages are spoken in parts of India and Pakistan. Purgi, also called Purik, is a Tibetic language, while Shina is an Indo-Aryan language. This video was recorded by Wikitongues community members Anwar (right - speaking Purik/Purgi), Tufail (left - speaking Shina), and Nicholas Biniaz-Harris.More from Wikipedia: Purgi (alternative spellings: Purgi or Puriki) is a Tibetic language spoken by the Purikpa in parts of the Indian union territory of Ladakh and neighboring regions of Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan territory. The Purikpa live south of the Balti in Ladakh. Most of them live in Ladakh and Baltistan, especially in Kargil although significant numbers reside in Leh. Many Purikpa are also present in China. Because they inhabit the higher reaches of the arid Himalayas, they depend on glacial runoff for irrigation of their crops. Barley, wheat, and millet are grown where water is sufficient, especially along small rivers. The hot summer temperatures also allow for a wide variety of fruits to be raised. Unlike the Dards and the Shina, the Purikpa are not nomads. They transfer their livestock from one grazing ground to another upon the arrival of autumn. During the summer months, they drive the cattle to alpine pastures. All households own at least one female dzo, which is a cross between a cow and a yak. That animal produces milk. Most of them are Shia Muslims by religion although significant Sunni Muslims and a small minority of Buddhists and Bön followers reside in areas like Fokar valley, Mulbekh, Wakha. Like the Balti, they speak an archaic Tibetan dialect closely related to Balti and Ladakhi, but they are not easily intelligible with each other., Shina (ݜݨیاٗ = ݜݨیاٗ = Šiṇyaá) is a language from the Dardic sub-group of the Indo-Aryan family spoken by the Shina people, a plurality of the people in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and a number of people in Ladakh, India (Dah Hanu, Dras), as well as in pockets in Jammu and Kashmir, India, such as in Gurez. Until recently, there was no writing system of the language. A number of schemes have been proposed and there is no single writing system used by all of the speakers of the Shina language.The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Wenglingnese language, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2023-03-23 | The Wenlingnese language, also called Wenling Hua (温岭话), is a variety of the Taizhou Wu language from Zhejiang Province, China. This video was recorded by Wikitongues community members Jiali Lee and Elliot.More from Wikipedia: The Wu group (Southern Wu in particular) is well known among linguists and sinologists as being one of the most internally diverse among the Sinitic groups, with very little mutual intelligibility between varieties across subgroups. Among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech: 吴侬软语, which literally means "the tender speech of Wu". On the other hand, some Wu varieties like Wenzhounese have gained notoriety for their high incomprehensibility to both Wu and non-Wu speakers alike, so much so that Wenzhounese was used during the Second World War to avoid Japanese interception. Wu dialects are typified linguistically as having preserved the voiced initials of Middle Chinese, having a majority of Middle Chinese tones undergo a register split, and preserving a checked tone typically terminating in a glottal stop, although some dialects maintain the tone without the stop and certain dialects of Southern Wu have undergone or are starting to undergo a process of devoicing. The historical relations which determine Wu classification primarily consist of two main factors: firstly, geography, both in terms of physical geography and distance south or away from Mandarin, that is, Wu varieties are part of a Wu–Min dialect continuum from southern Jiangsu to Fujian and Chaoshan. The second factor is the drawing of historical administrative boundaries, which, in addition to physical barriers, limit mobility and in the majority of cases more or less determine the boundary of a Wu dialect.This video is in the public domain. You can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
Language Revitalization Accelerator Q&A Wikitongues 2022-11-05 | Our annual language revitalization accelerator provides funding, training, and networking to up to 20 grassroots language revitalization projects. Watch our livestream to learn more about the application process and what we look for when choosing the grant recipients.
The Mugat language, casually spoken | Akmal and his children speaking Mugat | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-08-25 | The Mugat language is spoken by as many as 17,000 people, primarily in the Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It is likely a distinct variety of Tajik, although further study is needed.This video was recorded by Nicholas Biniaz-Harris in Uzbekistan and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Okinawan language, casually spoken | Gijs and Takako speaking Uchinaaguchi | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-08-17 | The Okinawan language, or Uchināguchi, is primarily spoken on the island of Okinawa in Japan's Ryukyu archipelago. It is related to Japanese and other Ryukyuan languages, like Kunigami and Miyako. In this video, Takako-san speaks Uchināguchi's Ishikawa (Ihichaa) dialect, and occasionally code-switches into Japanese.This video was recorded by Gijs van der Lubbe in Japan. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: "The Okinawan language (沖縄口/ウチナーグチ, Uchināguchi, [ʔut͡ɕinaːɡut͡ɕi]) or Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages are listed by UNESCO as endangered.Though Okinawan encompasses a number of local dialects, the Shuri–Naha variant is generally recognized as the de facto standard, as it had been used as the official language of the Ryūkyū Kingdom since the reign of King Shō Shin (1477–1526). Moreover, as the former capital of Shuri was built around the royal palace, the language used by the royal court became the regional and literary standard, which thus flourished in songs and poems written during that era. Today, most Okinawans speak Okinawan Japanese, although there is a small number who still speaks the Okinawan language, most often the elderly. Within Japan, Okinawan is often not seen as a language unto itself but is referred to as the Okinawan dialect (沖縄方言, Okinawa hōgen) or more specifically the Central and Southern Okinawan dialects (沖縄中南部諸方言, Okinawa Chūnanbu Sho hōgen). Okinawan speakers are undergoing language shift as they switch to Japanese, since language use in Okinawa today is far from stable. Okinawans are assimilating and accenting standard Japanese due to the similarity of the two languages, the standardized and centralized education system, the media, business and social contact with mainlanders and previous attempts from Japan to suppress the native languages. Okinawan is still kept alive in popular music, tourist shows and in theaters featuring a local drama called Uchinā shibai, which depict local customs and manners.,Japanese (日本語, Nihongo [ɲ̟ihõŋɡo] (listen)) is an East Asian language spoken by about 128 million people, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, and its relation to other languages, such as Korean, is debated. Japonic languages have been grouped with other language families such as Ainu, Austroasiatic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance.Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial texts did not appear until the 8th century. During the Heian period (794–1185), Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) included changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, and the first appearance of European loanwords. The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo (modern Tokyo) region in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid-19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly. English loanwords, in particular, have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person. Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. Japanese has no clear genealogical relationship with Chinese, although it makes prevalent use of Chinese characters, or kanji (漢字), in its writing system, and a large portion of its vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system primarily uses two syllabic (or moraic) scripts, hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名) and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名).."
The Mugat language, casually spoken | Nur Ali speaking Mugat | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-08-13 | The Mugat language is spoken by as many as 17,000 people, primarily in the Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It is likely a distinct variety of Tajik, although further study is needed.This video was recorded by Nicholas Biniaz-Harris in Uzbekistan and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Judeo-Arabic language, casually spoken | Joseph speaking Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-08-11 | Joseph "Yusuf" Samuels, author of "Beyond the Rivers of Babylon", speaks a variety of the Judeo-Arabic language from Baghdad, Iraq. Judeo-Arabic languages emerged over 1,000 years ago from the convergence of Hebrew and Arabic and were widely spoken across Arabia, Mesopotamia, the Levant, and North Africa until the mid-20th century. Today, most speakers live in Israel-Palestine and parts of North America.Transcription and translation by Eli Timan, Dr. Assaf Bar-Moshe (PhD, Hebrew University), and Andrew Kline. Special thanks to Dr. Evgeniya Gutova (PhD, Sorbonne Université) for coordinating transcription and translation. Interview filmed by Jacob Kodner for Wikitongues and the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project. Judeo-Arabic is an ethnolect that has been spoken and written in various forms by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. The Iraqi dialects are particularly distinct from the local Christian and Muslim dialects. You can learn more about Judeo-Arabic at jewishlanguages.org/judeo-arabic.More from Wikipedia: "Baghdad Jewish Arabic (Arabic: عربية يهودية بغدادية, עַרָבִּיָּה יְהוּדִיַּה בַּגדָאדִיַּה) or autonym haki mal yihud (Jewish Speech) or el-haki malna (our speech) is the Arabic dialect spoken by the Jews of Baghdad and other towns of Southern Iraq. This dialect differs from the dialect spoken by the Jews in Northern Iraq, such as Mosul and 'Ana. The Baghdadi and Northern dialects may be regarded as subvarieties of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic. As with most Judeo-Arab communities, there are likely to be few, if any, speakers of the Judeo-Iraqi Arabic dialects who still reside within Iraq. Rather these dialects have been maintained or are facing critical endangerment within respective Judeo-Iraqi diasporas, namely those of Israel and the United States. In 2014, the film Farewell Baghdad (Arabic: مطير الحمام; Hebrew: מפריח היונים, lit. "The Dove Flyer"), which is performed mostly in Jewish Baghdadi Arabic dialect, became the first film to be almost completely performed in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic."
The Manchu language, casually spoken | Shihuan, Ronglu, and Shiyu speaking Manchu | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-07-27 | Manchu is a Tungusic language from Manchuria in Northeast China. Spoken in the Qing Dynasty, it is critically endangered, and its linguistic traditions continue with the Sibe people in the Northwest.More from Wikipedia: "Manchu (Manchu:ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ ᡤᡳᠰᡠᠨ, manju gisun) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was one of the official languages of the Qing dynasty (1636–1912) of China, although today the vast majority of Manchus now speak only Mandarin Chinese. The Xibe (or Sibe) are often considered to be the modern custodians of the written Manchu language. The Xibe live in Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County near the Ili valley in Xinjiang, having been moved there by the Qianlong Emperor in 1764. Modern written Xibe is very close to Manchu, although there are slight differences in the writing system which reflect distinctive Xibe pronunciation. More significant differences exist in morphological and syntactic structure of the spoken Xibe language."Ronglu and Shiyu (at the center and left) are both Sibe and from Qapqal. Shihuan (at the right) is Manchu and lives in a village near the Heilong (“Black Dragon”) River, referred to in Manchu as Sahaliyan Ula.For additional Manchu language material, feel free to consult minibuleku.github.io — a resource created by our intern Jacob Kodner and members of the Manchu speaking community.This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy or inquire about use, please contact minibuleku@gmail.com.— Contents of this video —0:00 - The Manchu language1:30 - Shihuan’s house3:28 - Story of the Heilong (“Black Dragon”) River5:46 - More about language
The Korean language in Uzbekistan | Olga speaking Koryo-mar and Russian | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-07-22 | Koryo (also, Koryo-mar, Goryeomal, Koryŏmal, or Gore-mal) is an endangered variety of the Korean language from Uzbekistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan and spoken by the Koryo-saram community. In this video, Olga also speaks Russian.More from Wikipedia: "Koryo-mar, Goryeomal, or Koryŏmal (Korean: 고려말, Russian: Корё мар), otherwise known as Gore-mal (고레말) by speakers of the dialect, is a dialect of Korean spoken by the Koryo-saram, ethnic Koreans in the countries of the former Soviet Union. It is descended from the Hamgyŏng dialect and multiple other varieties of Northeastern Korean.[1] Koryo-saram is often reported as difficult to understand by speakers of standard Korean; this may be compounded by the fact that the majority of Koryo-saram today use Russian and not Korean as their first language.[2] According to German Kim, Koryo-mar is not widely used in the media and is not taught in schools. Thus it can be classified as endangered.[3]" "Russian (русский язык, tr. rússkiy yazýk) is an East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe. It is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages alongside, and part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. Russian was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 26 December 1991. Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states. Large numbers of Russian speakers can also be found in other countries, such as Israel and Mongolia. Russian is the largest native language in Europe, and the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. It is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, with over 258 million total speakers worldwide. Russian is the seventh-most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers and the eighth-most spoken language in the world by total number of speakers. The language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second-most widespread language on the Internet, after English.Russian is written using the Cyrillic script; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or a soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Stress, which is unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress, such as to distinguish between homographic words, for example замо́к (zamók – a lock) and за́мок (zámok – a castle), or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names."
Yiddish songs with Russian explanations | Olga speaking Russian and Yiddish | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-04-28 | Olga sings in Yiddish, a Jewish diaspora language, and explains the songs in Russian. Yiddish emerged about 800 years ago from contact between Hebrew and Germanic and Slavic languages.More from Wikipedia: "Yiddish (ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish or idish, pronounced [ˈ(j)ɪdɪʃ], lit. 'Jewish'; in older sources ייִדיש-טײַטש, Yidish-Taytsh, lit. ' Judaeo-German') is a High German-derived language historically spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a High German-based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. Yiddish writing uses the Hebrew alphabet. As of the 1990s, there were around 1.5–2 million speakers of Yiddish, mostly Hasidic and Haredi Jews. The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז (loshn-ashknaz, "language of Ashkenaz") or טײַטש (taytsh), a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, lit. 'mother tongue'), distinguishing it from לשון־קודש (loshn koydesh, "holy tongue"), meaning Hebrew and Aramaic. The term "Yiddish", short for Yidish Taitsh ("Jewish German"), did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century, the language was more commonly called "Jewish", especially in non-Jewish contexts, but "Yiddish" is again the more common designation today. Modern Yiddish has two major forms. Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern (Ukrainian–Romanian), Mideastern (Polish–Galician–Eastern Hungarian), and Northeastern (Lithuanian–Belarusian) dialects. Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern (Swiss–Alsatian–Southern German), Midwestern (Central German), and Northwestern (Netherlandic–Northern German) dialects. Yiddish is used in a number of Haredi Jewish communities worldwide; it is the first language of the home, school, and in many social settings among many Haredi Jews, and is used in most Hasidic yeshivas. The term "Yiddish" is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with "Jewish", to designate attributes of Yiddishkeit ("Ashkenazi culture"; for example, Yiddish cooking and "Yiddish music" – klezmer). Prior to the Holocaust, there were 11–13 million speakers of Yiddish among 17 million Jews worldwide. 85% of the approximately 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, leading to a massive decline in the use of the language. Assimilation following World War II and aliyah, immigration to Israel, further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and among Yiddish-speakers from other countries (such as in the Americas). However, the number of Yiddish-speakers is increasing in Hasidic communities."This video was recorded by Dmitriy Babichenko in Pittsburgh, USA. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
Announcing the 2022 grant recipients Wikitongues 2022-04-14 | Our first annual language revitalization accelerator provides funding, training, and networking to 15 grassroots language revitalization projects. Watch our livestream to learn more about the cohort, the supported projects, and ways to get involved!Join the mailing list: http://eepurl.com/gr-ZQHInstagram: instagram.com/wikitonguesEmail: revitalization@wikitongues.org
The Louisiana Creole language, casually spoken | Taalib speaking Kouri-Vini | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-03-10 | Louisiana Creole, also called Kouri-Vini, is spoken by as many as 10,000 people, primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana. A French Creole language, it is closely related to Haitian and Antillean Creole.More from Wikipedia: "Louisiana Creole or Kouri-Vini is a French-based creole language spoken by fewer than 10,000 people, mostly in the state of Louisiana. It is spoken today by people who racially identify as white, black, mixed, and Native American, as well as Cajun, Louisiana Creole, and African American, and should not be confused with its sister language, Louisiana French, which is a dialect of the French language. Due to the rapidly shrinking number of speakers, Louisiana Creole is considered an endangered language."This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Manx language, casually spoken | Owen speaking Manx | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-02-24 | Manx is spoken by as many as 1,800 people, primarily on the Isle of Man. A Celtic language, Manx was once driven into decline by English-only policies and fell dormant in 1974, but is growing again today.More from Wikipedia: "Manx (Manx: Gaelg or Gailck, pronounced [ɡilɡ] or [ɡilk] or [ɡeːlɡ]), also known as Manx Gaelic, and also historically spelled Manks, is a Goidelic language of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. The language of the Manx people was spoken as a first language on the Isle of Man until the death of the last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, in 1974. Despite this, the language has never fallen completely out of use, with a minority having some knowledge of it as a heritage language, and it is still an important part of the island's culture and cultural heritage. Manx has been the subject of language revival efforts; in 2015, around 1,800 people had varying levels of second language conversational ability. Since the late 20th century, Manx has become more visible on the island, with increased signage, radio broadcasts, and a Manx-medium primary school. The revival of Manx has been made easier because the language was well recorded: for example, the Bible had been translated into Manx, and audio recordings had been made of native speakers."The video was self-recorded by Owen Williams in Liverpool, United Kingdom, and is published under a CC0 mark. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
The Mazanderani language, casually spoken | Negar speaking Mazanderani | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-02-18 | The Mazanderani language is spoken by over 2 million people, primarily in Mazanderan Province, Iran. An Indo-Iranian language, it is related to Farsi, as well as hundreds of languages from India.More from Wikipedia: "Mazandarani (مازندرانی) or Tabari (تبری) is an Iranian language of the Northwestern branch, spoken by Mazandarani people. As a member of the Northwestern branch (the northern branch of Western Iranian), etymologically speaking it is rather closely related to Gilaki, and also related to Persian, which belongs to the Southwestern branch. Though the Persian language has influenced Mazandarani to a great extent, the Mazandarani language still remains as an independent language with a northwestern Iranian origin. Mazandarani is closely related to Gilaki and the two languages have similar vocabularies. The Gilaki and Mazandarani languages (but not other Iranian languages) share certain typological features with Caucasian languages (specifically South Caucasian languages), reflecting the history, ethnic identity, and close relatedness to the Caucasus region and Caucasian peoples of Mazandaranis and Gilak people."This video was self-recorded in Mazanderan, Iran by Negar Ghaffari and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Hakka language, casually spoken | Dungsan speaking Hakka Chinese | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-02-11 | Hakka, also called Keija, is spoken by as many as 25 million people, primarily the Hakka culture of southern China and Taiwan. A Sinitic language, it is related to Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, among others.More from Wikipedia: "Hakka is a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people throughout Southern China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and in overseas Chinese communities around the world. Due to its primary usage in scattered isolated regions where communication is limited to the local area, Hakka has developed numerous varieties or dialects, spoken in different provinces, such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Guizhou, as well as in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin, or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintelligible varieties. It is most closely related to Gan and is sometimes classified as a variety of Gan, with a few northern Hakka varieties even being partially mutually intelligible with southern Gan. There is also a possibility that the similarities are just a result of shared areal features. Taiwan (where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the island's residents) is a center for the study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland China's Hakka dialects; even in Taiwan, two major local varieties of Hakka exist. The Meixian dialect (Moiyen) of Northeast Guangdong in China has been taken as the "standard" dialect by the People's Republic of China. The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created an official romanization of Moiyen in 1960, one of four languages receiving this status in Guangdong."This video was recorded by Laura Lyn and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Mahasuvi languages Rohruri dialect, casually spoken | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2022-02-04 | The Mahasuvi language, also called Mahasu Pahari in English, is spoken by a million people in the Himachal Pradesh state of northern India. More from Wikipedia: Mahasu Pahari (Takri: 𑚢𑚩𑚭𑚨𑚱 𑚞𑚩𑚭𑚪𑚯) is a Western Pahari (Himachali, Takri: 𑚩𑚮𑚢𑚭𑚏𑚥𑚯) language spoken in Himachal Pradesh. It is also known as Mahasui or Mahasuvi. The speaking population is about 1,000,000 (2001). It is more commonly spoken in the Himachal Pradesh, Shimla (Simla), and Solan districts. It is to be known that Shimla and Solan were parts of the old Mahasu district. Himachal Pradesh State on 1 September, 1972 reorganized the districts dissolving the Mahasu district. The Solan district was carved out of Solan and Arki tehsils of the then Mahasu district and tehsils of Kandaghat and Nalagarh of the then Shimla District of Punjab.This video was recorded by Aniket Chauhan in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh India. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Hokkien language, casually spoken | Selly speaking Median Hokkien | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-12-23 | Medan Hokkien is spoken by nearly a million people, primarily in Medan, Indonesia. A variety of Min Chinese, it may be closest to the Penang Hokkien language of Malaysia, although more research is needed.This video was recorded by Martin Schibel in Bali, Indonesia, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.More from Wikipedia: "Medan Hokkien is a local variant of Hokkien spoken among the Chinese in Medan and Jakarta, Indonesia. It is the lingua franca in Medan as well as other northern city-states of North Sumatra surrounding it, and is a subdialect of Zhangzhou (漳州) dialect, together with the widespread use of Indonesian and English borrowed words. It is predominantly a spoken dialect: it is rarely written in Chinese characters as Indonesia had banned the use of Chinese characters back in the New Order era, and there are official romanizations of Hokkien such as 白話字 and 臺羅. Comparing Medan Hokkien to Hokkien dialect in other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, Medan Hokkien is still understandable to a certain extent. Medan Hokkien speakers may have a similar accent as Malaysian and Singaporean speakers. The closest comparison to Medan Hokkien is the Penang Hokkien dialect. Both are so similar that it is hard to tell the difference between the two if the Medan Hokkien speaker does not mix Indonesian language borrowings in their conversation."
The Kaitag language, casually spoken | Magomed speaking Kaitag | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-12-21 | The Kaitag language is one of the Dargin languages of Dagestan, a republic of Russia. Spoken collectively by nearly 500,000 people, the Dargin languages constitute a branch of the Northeast Caucasian linguistic family. Specifically, Kaitag is most closely related to the Dargwa language, which is co-official in Dagestan alongside Russian, and several others: Aghul, Avar, Azerbaijani, Chechen, Kumyk, Lezgin, Lak, Nogai, Rutul, Tabasaran, Tat, and Tsakhur. This video was self-recorded by Magomed in Russia and is published under a CC0 mark. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Transcript and translation:Ассаламу аӏлайкум, ахӏ баре дигьвав. Дам Махӏамад бикӏвар. Ду Хайдакьан кувла вагь де. Хайдакь санала Дагъистанцци ххаӏр це. Гьелин чехъа дубурте, багӏу дуццурбе, хъаӏчӏа эркӏра — сукке ди. Ччакква мусса це. Ниссала маӏкьи имцӏал дикӏар кувнера ди. Масала: шилан, къумукъ, уӏгъбуган, агъул. Цӏил, уӏгъбуганццил, цӏудахъаранццил, ахъушанццил — чумил зуме дурсидел — ниххьва сукке дарккван кувнала кьяли аргулда.Гьана Аӏрусайцци белучӏутти гьурсул ви де. Дахъил баркьуттий урсси вигьвав де, хвала баргьура гьеж муссал дам деччив. Ахъанайте ахъарара дам чидичив. Гьежтти швел дегур дусли ду цӏакьле варццухур. На царагина дус дел. Цаникӏвалжи хъили червиргьвара хӏадурле де.Гьеж абадцци ниссала баӏркъутти гьалакле дукьул це, урчӏе белкьванагван. Ама децӏ дегъивлехьал дура акь вигьвавле кависсун акква де. Швел дусла сар гьеж белчӏбурххацци каверххурлатин ду уркӏвухъив ви де ниссала декӏил кьаӏйдаче. Аӏссиваӏгьавле буццакьаӏ вуживле цӏикай далга кадатара дул кьастдаривле де. На Къавкъазан кувне четти гьабухъана багьнал сукке нихьхьвала уккара багьлал цангьабирццул ца.На манзи кадигъул це чидажахара ниххьвала баӏст. Духху чев, ирххе акквар, заманалий улбетул шикьвикӏван — четти виргьвар.Гьежтти ца дила дурсанте. Арганте чидаганда.###Greetings, good day. My name is Magomed. I'm speaker of Kaitag language. Kaitag is a reading in the southern Dagestan. There we have everything: high mountains, dense forests, a quick river. It's a beautiful place. Also we have many other languages around us. For example, Tabasaran, Kumyk, Kubachi, Aghul. Then, together with Kubachi, Tsudaqar, Aqusha we form Dargic language branch.Now I'm getting education in Russia. I've learned many skills, and this place gave me big knowledge. And also I've been though quite a lot. These 5 passed years made me very tired. One more year is left. I'm ready to get back home soon, with God's help.These times our culture is disappearing quickly, to huge sorrow. But despite this tragedy I'm not lying at rest. 5 years ago after coming to this university I've became aware of our difficult situation. With anger, being an engineer, I've set the goal to build modern tools. Today all of our people come together to elevate Caucasian langauges.The time comes to show our stand. Wise, fearless, acting in correspondence to the time — will win.This is what I had to say. We will see what's coming.
The Turkic Karachay-Balkar language, casually spoken | Raya speaking Karachay-Balkar | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-08-26 | The Karachay-Balkar language, or "Mountain Turkic", is a Turkic language spoken by the Karachay and Balkar peoples of the Caucasus, primarily in Russia and by diaspora communities in Turkey.Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoExplore: wikitongues.org/languagesMore from Wikipedia: "The Karachay-Balkar language (Къарачай-Малкъар тил, Qaraçay-Malqar til), or Mountain Turkic, Таулу тил, Tawlu til), is a Turkic language spoken by the Karachays and Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay–Cherkessia, European Russia, as well as by an immigrant population in Afyonkarahisar Province, Turkey. It is divided into two dialects: Karachay-Baksan-Chegem, which pronounces two phonemes as /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, and Malkar, which pronounces the corresponding phonemes as /ts/ and /z/. The modern Karachay-Balkar written language is based on the Karachay-Baksan-Chegem dialect. The language is closely related to Kumyk."This video was recorded by Elia Khubieva in Teberda, Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Russia. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Nahuat language, casually spoken | Nantzin speaking Nawat | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-08-19 | The Nawat language, also called Nahuat and Pipil, is an Indigenous language of El Salvador with 500 native speakers and 3,000 learners. It is a cousin of Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire.Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoExplore: wikitongues.org/languagesMore from Wikipedia: "Nawat (academically Pipil, also known as Nicarao) is a Uto-Toltec or Uto-Nahuan language native to Central America. It is the southernmost extant member of the Uto-Aztecan family. It was spoken in several parts of present-day Central America before the Spanish conquest but now is mostly confined to western El Salvador. It has been on the verge of extinction in El Salvador and has already gone extinct elsewhere in Central America, but as of 2012 new second-language speakers are starting to appear. In El Salvador, Nawat was the language of several groups: Nonualcos, Cuscatlecos, Izalcos, and is known to be the Náhua variety of migrating Toltec. The name Pipil for this language is used by the international scholarly community, chiefly to differentiate it more clearly from Nahuatl. In this article, the name Nawat will be used whenever there is no risk of ambiguity."This video was recorded by Gary Quintanilla Ordoñez in Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Sonsonate, El Salvador. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
Yiddish and Scottish English, casually spoken | Harold speaking Yiddish | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-08-06 | Yiddish, a Jewish diaspora language that emerged from Hebrew, Germanic, and Slavic varieties, has been spoken in Scotland since the 18th century, in some cases forming vernacular creolizations with Scots.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Scots-Yiddish is the name given to a Jewish hybrid vernacular between Lowland Scots and Yiddish, which had a brief currency in the Lowlands in the first half of the 20th century. The Scottish literary historian David Daiches describes it in his autobiographical account of his Edinburgh Jewish childhood, 'Two Worlds'. The Glaswegian Jewish poet A. C. Jacobs also refers to his language as Scots-Yiddish. There was even a case of a Jewish immigrant who settled in the Highlands who spoke no English and was only able to speak Gaelic and Yiddish. Yiddish (ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish or idish, pronounced [ˈ(j)ɪdɪʃ], lit. 'Jewish'; in older sources ייִדיש-טײַטש, Yidish-Taytsh, lit. ' Judaeo-German') is a High German-derived language historically spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a High German-based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. Yiddish writing uses the Hebrew alphabet. As of the 1990s, there were around 1.5–2 million speakers of Yiddish, mostly Hasidic and Haredi Jews. The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז (loshn-ashknaz, 'language of Ashkenaz') or טײַטש (taytsh), a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, lit. 'mother tongue'), distinguishing it from לשון־קודש (loshn koydesh, 'holy tongue'), meaning Hebrew and Aramaic. The term 'Yiddish', short for Yidish Taitsh ('Jewish German'), did not become the most frequently used designation in literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century, the language was more commonly called 'Jewish', especially in non-Jewish contexts, but 'Yiddish' is again the more common designation today. Modern Yiddish has two major forms. Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern (Ukrainian–Romanian), Mideastern (Polish–Galician–Eastern Hungarian), and Northeastern (Lithuanian–Belarusian) dialects. Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern (Swiss–Alsatian–Southern German), Midwestern (Central German), and Northwestern (Netherlandic–Northern German) dialects. Yiddish is used in a number of Haredi Jewish communities worldwide; it is the first language of the home, school, and in many social settings among many Haredi Jews, and is used in most Hasidic yeshivas. The term 'Yiddish' is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with 'Jewish', to designate attributes of Yiddishkeit ('Ashkenazi culture'; for example, Yiddish cooking and 'Yiddish music' – klezmer).Prior to the Holocaust, there were 11–13 million speakers of Yiddish among 17 million Jews worldwide. 85% of the approximately 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, leading to a massive decline in the use of the language. Assimilation following World War II and aliyah, immigration to Israel, further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and among Yiddish-speakers from other countries (such as in the Americas). However, the number of Yiddish-speakers is increasing in Hasidic communities."This video was self-recorded by Harold in Glasgow, Scotland and facilitated by Avi Kumar. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Surzhyk language, casually spoken | Andrij speaking Surzhyk | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-08-05 | Surzhyk refers to a diverse spectrum of dialects, sociolects, and macaronic languages that developed from the convergence of Russian and Ukrainian. It is spoken primarily in and around Ukraine.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesSubmit a video: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Surzhyk (Ukrainian: су́ржик, romanized: súrzhyk - a macaronic language, IPA: [ˈsurʒɪk]) refers to a range of mixed (macaronic) sociolects of Ukrainian and Russian languages used in certain regions of Ukraine and adjacent lands. There is no unifying set of characteristics; the term is used for 'norm-breaking, non-obedience to or non-awareness of the rules of the Ukrainian and Russian standard languages'. It originates from the transition from one language to the other through "false friends": words that sound similar in both languages but carry different meanings. Surzhyk is a Ukrainian word for a 'macaronic language' so that, in the Ukrainian language, it could refer to any mixed language, not necessarily including Ukrainian or Russian. When used by non-Ukrainian-speaking people of Ukraine, the word is most commonly used to refer to a mix of Ukrainian with another language, not necessarily Russian. When used in Russia the word almost always specifically refers to a Ukrainian-Russian language mix."This video was recorded by Andrij Andrusiak in Kyiv, Ukraine. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The East Pomeranian language, casually spoken | Lilia Jonat speaking Pomeranian | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-07-23 | East Pomeranian, known natively as Ostpommersch or simply Pomeranian, is a Low German language from Pomerania, modern-day Poland. It is now most actively spoken by diaspora communities in Brazil.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "East Pomeranian (Ostpommersch) is an East Low German dialect that is either moribund or used to be spoken in what was roughly Pomerania (now Northwestern Poland; previously part of Germany until the end of World War II) and today is also spoken in some communities in Brazil. It is part of the Low German language." "Low Saxon, or Low German, is a West Germanic language primarily spoken in Northern Germany and in the northeast of the Netherlands. There are an estimated 6.7 native speakers of Low Saxon. It has been recognized by both the Netherlands and Germany as a regional language, although some linguists argue that Low Saxon is a German dialect. It is also a recognized minority language in Mexico, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Low German may also refer to a group of West Germanic languages; six varieties of Low German are classified by Glottolog as distinct languages due to their limited mutual intelligibility. Low Saxon is most closely related to English and Frisian, two other West Germanic languages. There are two morphologically marked noun cases in Low Saxon, the nominative and oblique cases. Verbs are conjugated for person, number, and tense, and Low Saxon has five tenses: present, preterite, perfect, pluperfect and, in Mennonite Low German, the present perfect. For writing, Low Saxon uses the Latin alphabet; however, there is no true standard orthography, although several guidelines have been developed."This video was recorded by Julio Bremenkamp in Domingos Martins, Brazil. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Low Saxon language, casually spoken | Albert speaking Rouveen Low Saxon | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-07-22 | Rouveen is spoken in parts of Overijssel Province the Netherlands. A variety of the Germanic Low Saxon language, it's related to Dutch, Gronings, and Frisian, as well as Scots and English, among others.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Low Saxon, or Low German, is a West Germanic language primarily spoken in Northern Germany and in the northeast of the Netherlands. There are an estimated 6.7 native speakers of Low Saxon. It has been recognized by both the Netherlands and Germany as a regional language, although some linguists argue that Low Saxon is a German dialect. It is also a recognized minority language in Mexico, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Low German may also refer to a group of West Germanic languages; six varieties of Low German are classified by Glottolog as distinct languages due to their limited mutual intelligibility. Low Saxon is most closely related to English and Frisian, two other West Germanic languages. There are two morphologically marked noun cases in Low Saxon, the nominative and oblique cases. Verbs are conjugated for person, number, and tense, and Low Saxon has five tenses: present, preterite, perfect, pluperfect and, in Mennonite Low German, the present perfect. For writing, Low Saxon uses the Latin alphabet; however, there is no true standard orthography, although several guidelines have been developed."This video was recorded by Daniel Bögre Udell and Kristen Tcherneshoff in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Shona language, casually spoken | Rue speaking Karanga Shona | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-07-16 | Shona is spoken by as many as 15 million people, primarily in the Southeast African nations of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. A Bantu language, it's related to languages across Africa, including Swahili. The Karanga variety is spoken mainly in central and southern Zimbabwe.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Shona (chiShona) is a Bantu language of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. It is one of the most widely spoken Bantu languages. The larger group of historically related languages (called Shona languages by linguists) also includes Ndau (Eastern Shona) and Karanga (Western Shona), but speakers of those languages prefer their distinct identities and usually reject any connection to the term Shona."This video was recorded by Emilio Rosas Gutiérrez in Dilijan, Armenia, in honor of IMLD. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Kayan language, casually spoken | Wahyu speaking Kayan Mahakam | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-07-09 | The Kayan language is a macrolanguage spoken by the Kayan people of Indonesian Borneo. An Austronesian language, it is related to Bahasa Indonesia, and a distant cousin of Malagasy and Hawaiian.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesSubmit: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Kayan (Kajan, Kayan proper) is a dialect cluster spoken by the Kayan people of Borneo. It is a cluster of closely related dialects with limited mutual intelligibility and is itself part of the Kayan-Murik group of Austronesian languages. Baram Kayan is a local trade language. Bahau is part of the dialect cluster, but is not ethnically Kayan."This video was recorded by DeAndre A. Espree-Conaway in Samarinda, Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Portuguese language, casually spoken | Ygor speaking Brazilian Portuguese | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-06-30 | Portuguese is spoken by nearly 300 million people, primarily in Portugal, Brazil, and parts of southern Africa, where it's a lingua franca. An Iberian Romance language, it's closely related to Spanish, Catalan, and Asturian, among others. In this video, Ygor speaks a dialect/variety from northeastern Brazil.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Portuguese (português or, in full, língua portuguesa) is a Western Romance language originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as ""Lusophone"" (Lusófono). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese and Portuguese creole speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal and has kept some Celtic phonology and lexicon. With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 270 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the sixth most natively spoken language in the world. It is also the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers. Being the most widely spoken language in South America and all of the Southern Hemisphere, it's also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa and is an official language of the European Union, Mercosur, OAS, ECOWAS, and the African Union. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries is an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations."This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Juhuri language, casually spoken | Vera speaking Judeo-Tat and Russian | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-06-25 | Juhuri, also called Judeo-Tat, is a Jewish language that emerged from Hebrew, Aramaic, and the Persian variety Tat. It originated in Azerbaijan and parts of Russia but is spoken mainly in the United States and Israel today. In this video, Vera code-switches between Juhuri and Russian.Explore: wikitonuges.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (çuhuri, жугьури, ז׳אוּהאוּראִ) is the traditional language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan, now mainly spoken in Israel. The language is a form of Persian which belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages. The Tat language is spoken by the Muslim Tats of Azerbaijan, a group to which the Mountain Jews were mistakenly considered to belong during the era of Soviet historiography though the languages probably originated in the same region of the Persian empire. The words Juvuri and Juvuro literally translate as "Jewish" and "Jews". Judeo-Tat has Semitic (Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic) elements on all linguistic levels. Judeo-Tat has the Semitic sound "ayin/ayn" (ع/ע), whereas no neighboring languages have it. Judeo-Tat is an endangered language classified as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger., Russian (русский язык, tr. rússkiy yazýk) is an East Slavic language native to the Russians in Eastern Europe. It is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout the Baltic states, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages, one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages alongside, and part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian.This video was recorded by Valeriya_Nakshub in the United States. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Javanese language, casually spoken | Davi and Jonathan speaking Surabaya Javanese | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-06-24 | Javanese is spoken by more than 80 million people, principally on the island of Java in Indonesia and by diaspora communities worldwide. The Surabaya variety is spoken by over 2 million people in Surabaya City in Eastern Java. This video, however, was recorded in Bali.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesExplore: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Javanese (; ꦧꦱꦗꦮ, Basa Jawa, باسا جاوا, Javanese pronunciation: [bɔsɔ d͡ʒɔwɔ]; colloquially known as ꦕꦫꦗꦮ, Cara Jawa, Javanese pronunciation: [t͡ʃɔrɔ d͡ʒɔwɔ]) is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. There are also pockets of Javanese speakers on the northern coast of western Java. It is the native language of more than 98 million people (more than 42% of the total population of Indonesia). Javanese is one of the Austronesian languages, but it is not particularly close to other languages and is difficult to classify. Its closest relatives are the neighboring languages such as Sundanese, Madurese, and Balinese. Most speakers of Javanese also speak Indonesian, the standardized form of Malay spoken in Indonesia, for official and commercial purposes as well as a means to communicate with non-Javanese-speaking Indonesians. There are speakers of Javanese in Malaysia (concentrated in the West Coast part of the states of Selangor and Johor) and Singapore. Javanese is also spoken by traditional immigrant communities of Javanese descent in Suriname (the Dutch colony of Surinam until 1975) and in New Caledonia."This video was recorded by Martin Schibel in Bali, Indonesia. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Sirmauri language, casually spoken | Kirnesh speaking Giripari dialect | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-06-18 | The Sirmauri language is spoken by over 100,000 in the Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh, India. Its two main varieties are Dharthi-Giriwari and Giripari, spoken here. Its Indigenous writing system is the Takri script.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoThis video was recorded by Aniket Chauhan in India and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
Kupang Malay, casually spoken | Engelbirth speaking Kupang and Bahasa Indonesia | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-06-17 | Kupang Malay is spoken by as many as 700,000 people, primarily in Kupang and West Timor, Indonesia. A Malay Creole language, Kupang emerged from historic varieties of Malay, Dutch, and Portuguese. The second half of this video contains an explanation in Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia. Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Kupang Malay is spoken in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, on the west end of Timor Island. It is based on archaic Malay which mixed mostly with Dutch, Portuguese, and local languages. Similar to Ambonese Malay with several differences in vocabulary and accent. Its grammatical system resembles that of other East Indonesian Malay Creoles. Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia, [baˈha.sa in.doˈne.sja]) is the official language of Indonesia. It is a standardized variety of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world—of which the majority speak Indonesian, which makes it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Most Indonesians, aside from speaking the national language, are fluent in at least one of the more than 700 indigenous local languages; examples include Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese, which are commonly used at home and within the local community. However, most formal education and nearly all national mass media, governance, administration, and judiciary, and other forms of communication are conducted in Indonesian. The term "Indonesian" is primarily associated with the national standard dialect (bahasa baku). However, in a more loose sense, it also encompasses the various local varieties spoken throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Standard Indonesian is confined mostly to formal situations, existing in a diglossic relationship with vernacular Malay varieties, which are commonly used for daily communication. The Indonesian name for the language (bahasa Indonesia) is also occasionally found in English and other languages." This video was recorded by Martin Schibel and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Basque language, casually spoken | Andrew speaking Biscayan | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-06-11 | Basque, known natively as Euskera or Euskara, is spoken by over a million people, mainly in the Basque Country (Euskadi) of Spain and France. The Biscayan dialect or Bizkaiera is spoken in the coastal Biscay province. Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoExplore: wikitongues.org/languages More from Wikipedia: "Biscayan, sometimes Bizkaian (Basque: Bizkaiera, Spanish: Vizcaíno)[1] is a dialect of the Basque language spoken mainly in Biscay, one of the provinces of the Basque Country of Spain. It is named as Western in the Basque dialects' classification drawn up by linguist Koldo Zuazo,[2] since it is not only spoken in Biscay but also extends slightly into the northern fringes of Alava and deeper in the western part of Gipuzkoa. The dialect's territory bears great similarity to that of the Caristii tribe, as described by Roman authors. While it is treated as stylish to write in Biscayan and the dialect is still spoken generally in about half of Biscay and some other municipalities, it suffers from the double pressure of Unified Basque and Spanish. Biscayan was used by Sabino Arana and his early Basque nationalist followers as one of the signs of Basqueness. Basque (; Basque: Euskara, [eus̺ˈkaɾa]) is a language spoken in the Basque Country, a region that straddles the westernmost Pyrenees in adjacent parts of Northern Spain and Southwestern France. Linguistically, Basque is unrelated to the other languages of Europe and is a language isolate in relation to any other known living language. The Basques are indigenous to, and primarily inhabit, the Basque Country. The Basque language is spoken by 28.4% (751,500) of Basques in all territories. Of these, 93.2% (700,300) are in the Spanish area of the Basque Country and the remaining 6.8% (51,200) are in the French portion. Native speakers live in a contiguous area that includes parts of four Spanish provinces and the three "ancient provinces" in France. Gipuzkoa, most of Biscay, a few municipalities of Álava, and the northern area of Navarre formed the core of the remaining Basque-speaking area before measures were introduced in the 1980s to strengthen the language. By contrast, most of Álava, the western part of Biscay, and the central and southern areas of Navarre are predominantly populated by native speakers of Spanish, either because Basque was replaced by Spanish over the centuries (as in most of Álava and central Navarre), or because it may never have been spoken there (as in parts of the Enkarterri and southeastern Navarre). In Francoist Spain, Basque language use was affected by the government’s repressive policies. In the Basque Country, "Francoist repression was not only political but also linguistic and cultural." The regime placed legal restrictions on the use of language, which was suppressed from official discourse, education, and publishing, making it illegal to register newborn babies under Basque names, and even requiring tombstone engravings in Basque to be removed. In some provinces, the public use of the language was suppressed, with people fined for speaking Basque. Public use of Basque was frowned upon by supporters of the regime, often regarded as a sign of anti-Francoism or separatism. Overall, in the 1960s and later, the trend reversed and education and publishing in Basque began to flourish. As a part of this process, a standardized form of the Basque language, called Euskara Batua, was developed by the Euskaltzaindia in the late 1960s. Besides its standardized version, the five historic Basque dialects are Biscayan, Gipuzkoan, and Upper Navarrese in Spain and Navarrese–Lapurdian and Solution in France. They take their names from the historic Basque provinces, but the dialect boundaries are not congruent with province boundaries. Euskara Batua was created so that the Basque language could be used—and easily understood by all Basque speakers—in formal situations (education, mass media, literature), and this is its main use today. In both Spain and France, the use of Basque for education varies from region to region and from school to school. A language isolate, Basque is believed to be one of the few surviving pre-Indo-European languages in Europe and is the only one in Western Europe. The origin of the Basques and of their languages is not conclusively known, though the most accepted current theory is that early forms of Basque developed before the arrival of Indo-European languages in the area, including the Romance languages that geographically surround the Basque-speaking region. Basque has adopted about 40 percent of its vocabulary from the Romance languages, and Basque speakers have in turn lent their own words to Romance speakers. The Basque alphabet uses the Latin script."This video was self-recorded by Andrew Goiburuntza in Miami, Florida. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Twents language, casually spoken | Martin speaking Twents | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-06-10 | Twents, or the Tweants dialect, is spoken by as many as 340,000 people in the Twente region of the Netherlands. A Germanic variety of Low Saxon, it is closely related to Dutch and Gronings.Explore: wikitongues.org/languagesContribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoMore from Wikipedia: "Tweants (Tweants pronunciation: [tʋɛːn(t)s]; Dutch: Twents, pronounced [tʋɛnts]) is a group of non-standardized, closely related Westphalian, Dutch Low Saxon dialects, descending from Old Saxon. It is spoken daily by approximately 62% of the population of Twente, a region in the eastern Dutch province of Overijssel bordering on Germany. Tweants is part of the larger Low Saxon dialect continuum, spreading from the Veluwe region in the middle of the Netherlands to the German-Polish border. As a consequence, it shares many characteristics with surrounding dialects, such as Sallandic and Achterhooks in the Netherlands, and West-Munsterlandic in Germany. All towns and villages in Twente have their own local, but mutually intelligible variety. Due to this fragmentation and lack of a standard variety, many speakers of Tweants call it by the locality their variety is from (e.g. a person from Almelo would say they speak ""Almeloos"" rather than ""Tweants""). Alternatively, speakers combine the names: a speaker from Rijssen could say they speak ""Riessens Tweants"". In less precise circumstances, its speakers mostly call Tweants plat, which may either be an abbreviated form of Plattdeutsch, or a loanword from Dutch that means 'vernacular'. A widespread misconception is the assumption that it is a variety of Dutch. It is a variety of Dutch Low Saxon, recognized by the Dutch government as a regional language according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. As such, institutions dedicated to Tweants receive minor funding for its promotion and preservation. Its revaluation as a dialect of Low Saxon rather than Standard Dutch is a relatively recent development. Due to ongoing stigmatization, the use of the language declined in the decades following the Second World War. It was considered an inappropriate way of speaking, and thought to hinder children's language learning abilities and diminish their future prospects. Due to a general rise in regional pride, interests in preserving and promoting the language have risen, resulting in dialect writing competitions, teaching materials, festivals, and other culturally engaging projects."This video was recorded by Guillem Belmar in Tresoar, Ljouwert, Friesland in the Netherlands. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy and view relevant attribution information, please visit commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WIKITONGUES-_Martin_speaking_Twents.webm.
Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin, casually spoken by Ayooluwa | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-05-28 | The Yoruba language is spoken by as many as 30 million people, predominantly in the West African nations of Nigeria and Benin, and in the diaspora worldwide. Nigerian Pidgin is an English-based Creole language, spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria.Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoExplore: wikitongues.org/languagesMore from Wikipedia: "Yoruba (Yor. Èdè Yorùbá) is a language spoken in West Africa and most prominently Southwestern Nigeria. Spoken by the ethnic Yoruba people, The number of speakers of Yoruba is estimated at between 45 and 55 million. As a pluricentric language, it is spoken in a wide dialectal area spanning Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, with communities in Sierra Leone and Liberia as well as smaller pockets in other parts of West Africa.Yoruba vocabulary is used in the Afro-Brazilian religion known as Candomblé, in the Caribbean religion of Santería in the form of the liturgical Lucumí language and various Afro-American religions of North America. As the principal Yoruboid language, Yoruba is most closely related to the languages Itsekiri (spoken in the Niger Delta) and Igala (spoken in central Nigeria). Nigerian Pidgin is an English-based creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria. The language is sometimes referred to as "Pijin" or Broken (pronounced "Brokun"). It can be spoken as a pidgin, a creole, slang, or a decreolized acrolect by different speakers, who may switch between these forms depending on the social setting. A common orthography has been developed for Pidgin which has been gaining significant popularity in giving the language a harmonized writing system. Variations of what this article refers to as "Nigerian Pidgin" are also spoken across West and Central Africa, in countries such as Benin, Ghana, and Cameroon. As an example, the English phrase, "how are you?" would be "how you dey?" in Pidgin."This video was recorded by Emilio Rosas Guitiérrez in Dilijan, Armenia, where he and Bisola study. The speaker(s) featured herein have not explicitly agreed to distribute this video for reuse. For inquiries on licensing this video, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Turoyo language, casually spoken | Adam speaking Aramaic | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-05-27 | Turoyo is an Aramaic language spoken in Syria and Turkey, predominantly by Syriac Orthodox Christians. A cousin of Hebrew and Arabic, Aramaic varieties were the predominant languages of Roman Judea during the time of Jesus.Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoExplore: wikitongues.org/languagesMore from Wikipedia: "Turoyo, also referred to as Surayt, is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria by Assyrians. Most speakers use the Classical Syriac language for literature and worship. Turoyo speakers are currently mostly members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, but there are also Turoyo-speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, especially from the town of Midyat, and of the Assyrian Church of the East. It is also currently spoken in the Assyrian diaspora, although classified as a vulnerable language. Turoyo is not mutually intelligible with Western Neo-Aramaic having been separated for over a thousand years, while mutual intelligibility with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is limited. Contrary to what these language names suggest, they are not specific to a particular church, with members of the Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church speaking Assyrian dialects, and members of the Syriac Orthodox Church speaking Turoyo."
The Qʼeqchiʼ language, casually spoken | Amalaia speaking Kekchi Mayan | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-05-21 | Q'eqchi, also spelled Quequchi or Kekchi, is a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala and Belize. It is closely related to Kaqchikel, Sakapulteco, and more distantly to K'iche'/Quiché.Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoExplore: wikitongues.org/languagesMore from Wikipedia: "The Qʼeqchiʼ language, also spelled Kekchi, Kʼekchiʼ, or kekchí, is one of the Mayan languages, spoken within Qʼeqchiʼ communities in Guatemala and Belize. The area where Qʼeqchiʼ is spoken spreads across northern Guatemala into southern Belize. There are also some Qʼeqchiʼ speaking communities in Mexico. In the country of Belize, Qʼeqchiʼ is spoken in the Toledo District. Qʼeqchiʼ is the first language of many communities in the district, and the majority of Maya in Toledo speak it. Terrence Kaufman described Qʼeqchiʼ as having two principal dialect groups: the eastern and the western. The eastern group includes the varieties spoken in the municipalities of Lanquín, Chahal, Chahabón, and Senahú, and the western group is spoken everywhere else."This video was recorded by Daniel Bögre Udell in Cusco, Peru, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
The Teochew language, casually spoken | Widya speaking Pontianak Teochew | Wikitongues Wikitongues 2021-05-07 | Pontianak Teochew or Bahasa Tiochiu is a variety of the Teochew language spoken in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Teochew is a Min Chinese language, along with Hokkien-Taiwanese and Hainanese. In all its varieties, Min Chinese is spoken by 30 million people worldwide.Contribute: wikitongues.org/submit-a-videoExplore: wikitongues.org/languagesMore from Wikipedia: "Chaoshan (Chinese: 潮汕話; pinyin: Cháoshànhuà, Teochew dialect: Diê5suan3 uê7, Shantou dialect: Dio5suan3 uê7) is a Southern Min language spoken by the Teochew people of the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province, China, and by their diaspora around the world. It is closely related to Hokkien, with which it shares some cognates and phonology, though the two are largely mutually unintelligible. Chaoshan preserves many similarities to Old Chinese in its pronunciation and vocabulary that have been lost in most other Sinitic languages. As such, Chaoshan is considered to be one of the more conservative Chinese languages. Southern Min (simplified Chinese: 闽南语; traditional Chinese: 閩南語; lit.: 'Southern Fujian language'), Minnan (Mandarin pronunciation: [mìn.nǎn]) or Banlam (Southern Min pronunciation: [bàn.ɾám]), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwan (many citizens are descendants of settlers from Fujian), Eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and Southern Zhejiang. The Minnan dialects are also spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and New York City. It is the largest Min Chinese branch and the most widely distributed Min Chinese subgroup. In common parlance and in the narrower sense, Southern Min refers to the Quanzhang or Hokkien-Taiwanese variety of Southern Min originating from Southern Fujian in Mainland China. This is spoken mainly in Fujian, Taiwan, as well as certain parts of Southeast Asia. The Quanzhang variety is often called simply ""Minnan Proper"" (simplified Chinese: 闽南语; traditional Chinese: 閩南語). It is considered the mainstream Southern Min Chinese Language. In the wider scope, Southern Min also includes other Min Chinese varieties that are linguistically related to Minnan proper (Quanzhang). Most variants of Southern Min have significant differences from the Quanzhang variety, some having limited mutual intelligibility with it, others almost none. Teochew, Longyan, and Zhenan may be said to have limited mutual intelligibility with Minnan Proper, sharing similar phonology and vocabulary to a small extent. On the other hand, variants such as Datian, Zhongshan, and Qiong-Lei have historical linguistic roots with Minnan Proper but are significantly divergent from it in terms of phonology and vocabulary, and thus have almost no mutual intelligibility with the Quanzhang variety. Linguists tend to classify them as separate Min languages. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with other branches of Min Chinese nor with non-Min varieties of Chinese, such as Mandarin."This video was recorded by Martin Schibel in Bali, Indonesia. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. To download a copy, please contact hello@wikitongues.org.
