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A world language is a language that is spoken internationally and is learned by many people as a second language. A world language is characterized not only by the total number of speakers (native and second language speakers), but also by its geographical distribution, as well as use in international organizations and diplomatic relations.〔Fischer Verlag ''Weltalmanach'' (stichwort_weltsprachen )〕〔Baker & Jones (Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education )〕 By these criteria, the major world languages are of Western European origin. The historical reason for this is the period of European exploration and colonialism. The world's most widely used language is English, which has over 1.38 billion users worldwide. French, which has long been the language of diplomacy, still remains one of the working languages of many international organizations. Arabic gained international prominence because of the medieval Islamic conquests and the subsequent Arabization of the Middle East and North Africa, and is also a liturgical language amongst Muslim communities outside of the Arab World. Standard Chinese is the direct replacement of Classical Chinese, which was a historical lingua franca in Far East Asia until the early 20th century, and today provides a common language between speakers of other varieties of Chinese not only within China proper (between the Han Chinese and other unrelated ethnic groups), but in overseas Chinese communities. It is also widely taught as a second language internationally. Russian was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and today is in use and widely understood in near abroad and former Eastern Bloc. It remains the lingua franca in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Spanish was used in the Spanish Empire and today is in use in Spain, in Latin American countries (except Brazil, French Guyana, Haiti and other Caribbean islands), and is widely understood and spoken throughout the United States, particularly in the Southern United States. German served as a lingua franca in large portions of Europe for centuries, mainly the Holy Roman Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It remains an important second language in much of Central and Eastern Europe, and in the international scientific community. The major languages of the Indian subcontinent have numbers of speakers comparable to those of major world languages primarily due to the large population in the region rather than a supra-regional use of these languages, although Hindustani (including all Hindi dialects, and Urdu), Bengali and to a lesser extent Tamil may fulfill the criteria in terms of supra-regional usage and international recognition. As an example, the native speaking population of Bengali vastly outnumber those who speak French as a first language, and it is one of the most spoken languages (ranking fifth or sixth〔 〕) in the world with nearly 230 million total speakers, and is known for its long and rich literary tradition. However, while French is spoken intercontinentally, is internationally recognized to be of high linguistic prestige and used in diplomacy and international commerce, as well as having a significant portion of second language speakers throughout the world, the overwhelming majority of Bengali speakers are native Bengali people, with not much influence outside of its regionally limited ''sprachraum'' or language space. == History == Historical languages which had international significance as the ''lingua franca'' of a historical empire include Egyptian in Ancient Egypt; Sumerian, Akkadian and Aramaic in the various Mesopotamian civilizations and empires in the Ancient Near East; Ancient Greek in the Greek colonies in the form of various dialects, evolving to Koine Greek in the Hellenistic world, after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Empire, and subsequently in the eastern part of the Roman Empire and the territories of the Byzantine Empire; Latin in the Roman Empire and presently as the standard liturgical language for the Catholic faithful worldwide; Classical Chinese in East Asia during the Imperial era of Chinese history; Persian during the various succeeding Persian Empires, and once served as the second lingua franca of the Islamic World after Arabic;〔Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ''Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization'', HarperCollins,Published 2003〕 Sanskrit during the ancient and medieval historical periods of various states in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia, and like Latin an important liturgical language of the Vedic religions. The Romance languages bear testimony to the role of Latin as the ''lingua franca'' of the Roman Empire; for example, Italian has always been important in the Mediterranean region, and nowadays it is the most-spoken language among members of the Roman catholic hierarchy and it is also used in music (especially Opera) and the fashion industry. Turkish was similarly important as the primary language of the Ottoman Empire. Koine Greek was the "world language" of the Hellenistic period, but its distribution is not reflected in the distribution of Modern Greek due to the linguistic impact of the Slavic, Arabic and Turkic expansions. The distribution of the Arabic and Turkic languages, in turn, are a legacy of the Caliphates and the Turkic Khaganate, respectively. Just as all the living world languages owe their status to linguistic imperialism, the suggestion of a given language as a world language or "universal language" has strong political implications. Thus, Russian was declared the "world language of internationalism" in Soviet literature, which at the same time denounced French as the "language of fancy courtiers" and English as the "jargon of traders".〔Pei, p. 105〕 A number of international auxiliary languages have been introduced as prospective world languages, the most successful of them being Esperanto, but none were learned by as many people as the world languages were. Many natural languages have been proffered as candidates for a global ''lingua franca''.〔 Image:3Byzantium476lightblue.PNG | Eastern Roman Empire - Koine Greek Image:Western-Roman-Empire-AD395.png | Western Roman Empire - Vulgar Latin (Latin Europe) Image:First Turk Khaganate(600).PNG | Turkic Khaganate - Turkic languages 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「world language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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