User:Mcostag1/Language selection

By the beginning of the Thursday class during the first week of classes (this semester: 11:20 on 19 January 2016), turn in the following:

List in order of preference three languages you would like to work on this semester.

1. Lingala

Lingala uses a tonal morphology with a highly agglutinative verbal morphology. There are two types of tones used - a low tone and a high tone. ^[1]

Number of speakers: There are over 10 million speakers of Lingala world-wide

Location: Spoken primarily in the Southern Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo. ^[3]
Other languages native speakers may know: There are 211 languages spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Lingala is primarily spoken. ^[4]
Current status of the language: Its main center of use, the city of Kinasha, has grown in size and importance and the language has grown with it. ^[5] It is also Statutory provincial language in northwestern regions (2006, Constitution, Article 1(8)). ^[6]
Orthography: Written in the Latin alphabet. There are 35 letters and digraphs in the Lingala alphabet. In borrowed words, the letters r and h sometimes appear. Tones are indicated by accents. ^[7]
ISO code: [lin]

Very likely - I found an online bible translation.

Number of speakers: 510,000 as of 2015 ^[8]
Location: Spoken in the Samoan Islands. It is one of the official languages in both the Independent State of Samoa and the Territory of American Samoa. There is also a large concentration of individuals who speak Samoan in New Zealand. ^[9]
Other languages native speakers may know: English, because it is the other official language of the Samoan islands. ^[10]
Current status of the language: The language is fairly well preserved - an official language in the Samoan languages and the 4th most spoken language in New Zealand. It is not experiencing a significant decline. in speakers. ^[11]
Orthography: Samoan is written with the Latin alphabet. It has only 14 letters: 5 vowels (a e i o u) and 9 consonants (f g l m n p s t v). It also uses two diacritics, a macron to indicate long vowels and a reverse apostrophe is used to indicate a glottal stop. ^[12]
ISO code: [smo]

Very likely - I found an online bible translation in Samoan. ^[13]

Number of speakers: 25,800 in Guam (2013 UNSD). Total users in all countries: 58,000 ^[14]
Location: Spoken primarily in Guam although also spoken in The Northern Mariana Islands and the United States. ^[15]
Other languages native speakers may know: English ^[16]
Current status of the language: Severely threatened - with a significant drop in fluency over the past century. Approximately 75% of the population of Guam knew the Chamorro language in 1898 (when the US captured Guam in the Spanish-American War). As of the 2000 U.S. Census, less than 20% of Guam inhabitants speak the language, and of that 20% most are over the age of 55. However, it is gaining in importance again, as it is taught at the University of Guam. ^[17]
Orthography: Written with the Latin alphabet. There are 23 letters in the Chamorro alphabet, and the apostrophe is used to indicate a glottal stop. ^[18]
ISO code: [cha]

Very likely - I found an online bible translation as well as a number of Chamorro songs with accompanying lyrics. CITE