Homonym
Homonym is a group of words that share the same spelling or pronunciation (or both) but have different meanings. The word “homonym” comes from Greek prefix homo- (“same”) and suffix -onym (“name”). Thus, it refers to two or more distinct words sharing the “same name”. Examples of homonyms in English are: stalk – part of a plant stalk – to follow someone around the trio of words to, too and two bow – To bend forward at the waist in respect (e.g. “bow down”) bow – the front of the ship (e.g. “bow and stern”) bow – the weapon which fires arrows (e.g. “bow and arrow”) bow – a kind of tied ribbon (e.g. bow on a present, a bowtie) bow – to bend outward at the sides (e.g. a “bow-legged” cowboy) bough – a branch on a tree. (e.g. “when the bough breaks…”) Similarly, a river bank, a savings bank, a bank of switches, and a bank shot in...
Read MoreSpanish language
Spanish language is a Romance language originally from the northern area of Spain. It is the official language of Spain, most Latin American countries and Equatorial Guinea. In total, twenty nations and several territories use Spanish as their primary language. Spanish originated as a Latin dialect in the provinces of Northern Spain. From there, its use gradually spread inside the Kingdom of Castile, where it evolved and eventually became the principal language of the government and trade. It was later brought to the Americas and other parts of the world in the last five centuries by Spanish explorers and colonists. The language was spoken by roughly 364 million people worldwide in the year 2000, making Spanish the most popular Romance language. It is estimated that the combined total of native and non-native Spanish speakers is 400–480 million. Spanish is also one of...
Read MoreRussian language
Russian language is the most widely spoken language of Eurasia and the most widespread of the Slavic languages. Russian is a Slavic language in the Indo-European family. From the point of view of the spoken language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian and Belarusian, the other two national languages in the East Slavic group. The basic vocabulary, principles of word formation, inflections and literary style of Russian have been also influenced by Church Slavonic, a developed and partly adopted form of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic language used by the Russian Orthodox Church. The vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been greatly influenced by Greek, Latin, French, German, and English. Modern Russian also has a considerable number of words adopted from Bulgarian, Tatar and some other Turkic languages. Russian is classified as a level III language in terms...
Read MoreGerman language
German (Deutsch) is a West Germanic language and one of the world’s major languages. German is closely related to English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 95 to 100 million native speakers and another 20 million non-native speakers. German is the second most spoken native language in Europe after Russian, above French and English. German is the third most taught foreign language worldwide, also in the United States (after Spanish and French). It is one of the official languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission, along with English and French. German is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, in two-thirds of Switzerland, in the South Tirol province of Italy, in the small East Cantons of Belgium, and in some border villages of the South Jutland County...
Read MoreFrench Language
French language is a Romance language spoken originally in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and today by about 300 million people around the world as a mother tongue. French (français), is a Romance language spoken originally in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and today by about 300 million people around the world as a mother tongue. It is an official language in 41 countries, most of which form what is called in French La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. French as a foreign language is the second most frequently taught language in the world after English. Along with English, it is perhaps the most used language in the European Commission. Descended from the Latin of the Roman Empire, along with Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Romanian and Portuguese languages, its development was influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul, and...
Read MorePortuguese language
Portuguese language is a Romance language originated in what is now Galicia (Spain) and northern Portugal from the Latin spoken by romanized Celtiberians, about a thousand years ago. It spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th centuries as Portugal set up a colonial and commercial empire (1415–1999) which spanned from Brazil in the Americas to Goa in India and Macau in China. Today, it is one of the world’s major languages, ranked seventh according to number of native speakers (over 200 million). It is the language with the largest number of speakers in South America (186 million, over 51% of the continent’s population), and also a major lingua franca in Africa. Portuguese is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Mozambique, and co-official with Chinese in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau. Classification and...
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