Traditional Chinese

/tɹəˈdɪʃənəl tʃaɪˈniːz/

Chinese written using the traditional form of Chinese characters, as opposed to Simplified Chinese (introduced by the PRC as script reform).

حُرُوف صِينِيَّة تَقْلِيدِيَّة

Chinese written using traditional characters


Simplified Chinese

Chinese written using the forms of Chinese characters introduced by the PRC as script reform. The characters are simplified (with a reduced number of strokes, etc.) compared to their pre-reform shapes.

حُرُوف صِينِيَّة مُبَسَّطَة

Chinese written using simplified characters


English

en-noun

English (countable and uncountable, plural English or Englishes)

From Middle English Englisch, English, Inglis, from Old English Englisċ (“of the Angles; English”), from Engle (“the Angles”), a Germanic tribe + -isċ; equivalent to Engle + -ish. Compare West Frisian Ingelsk, Scots Inglis (older ynglis), Dutch Engels, Danish engelsk, Old French Englesche (whence French anglais), German englisch, Spanish inglés, all ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- (“narrow”) (compare Sanskrit अंहु (áṃhu, “narrow”), अंहस् (áṃhas, “anxiety, sin”), Latin angustus (“narrow”), Old Church Slavonic ѫзъкъ (ǫzŭkŭ, “narrow”)).

cog

Sorry, my English isn't very good. I wish I had better English.

en:degree of facility with the English language

(uncountable) Facility with the English language, ability to employ English correctly and idiomatically.

անգլերեն

one's ability to employ the English language

What's the English for 'à peu près'? It depends: how is it being used?

(uncountable) A particular instance of the English language, including:

The English term or expression for some thing or idea.

The specs are all correct, but the English in the instructions isn't as clear as it should be.

The English text or phrasing of some spoken or written communication.

Data: I have completed my analysis of the anomaly. It appears to be a multi-phasic temporal convergence in the space-time continuum.
Dr. Crusher: In English, Data.

1994, Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, “All Good Things...”, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 7, episodes 25-26, Brent Spiner and Gates McFadden (actors):

Thank you, doctor. Now, please say that again in English.

A clear and readily understandable expression of some idea in English.

This reflects that in English, students learn a range of text types, such as procedures, editorials, poetry, and not just academic essays.

2018, Clarence Green, James Lambert, “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects”, in Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 35, →DOI, page 109:

I loved reading until 7th grade English.

Synonym of language arts, the class dedicated to improving primary and secondary school students' mastery of English and the material taught in such classes.


English

en-prop

English (countable and uncountable, plural Englishes)

English (surname)
English#Places in the United States

English language, literature, composition as a subject of study

акӑлчан чӗлхи

ak̬ălč̬an č̬ĕlh̬i

A number of places in the United States:

An unincorporated community in Brazoria County, Texas.

Red River County
Red River County#English

An unincorporated community in Red River County, Texas.


English

en-verb

English (third-person singular simple present Englishes, present participle Englishing, simple past and past participle Englished)

Englishes (present singular third-person)
Englishing (participle present)
Englished (participle past)
Englished (past)

While the man Clive—he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game,
Conquered and annexed and Englished!

1880, Robert Browning, “Clive”, in Dramatic Idylls: Second Series, page 12, lines 7–8:

(transitive; archaic or rare) To make English; to claim for England.


German

en-noun

German (countable and uncountable, plural Germans)

/ˈd͡ʒɜː.mən/

From Latin Germānus, Germānī (“the peoples of Germānia”), as distinct from Gauls (in the writings of Caesar and Tacitus), and of uncertain ultimate origin (possibly Celtic/Gaulish).
Not related to german (“closely related”) or germane (from the Latin adjective germānus, through Old French).
Attested since at least 1520. Replaced the older terms Almain and Dutch (from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz) in English. Besides cognates of German, Almain, and Dutch, two other categories of words for the Germans in other languages are cognates of Saxon and descendants of Proto-Slavic *němьcь; see those entries for more.
The surname is generally from the noun, though sometimes confused with Herman, Hermann under Russian influence. As a German surname, Americanized from Germann. Compare Germán, Germain, Jerman.

[…] tie them tightly in a thickly floured cloth, and boil them for three hours and a half. We can recommend this as a remarkably light small rich pudding : it may be served with German, wine, or punch sauce.

1858, Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery in All Its Branches: Reduced to a System of Easy Practice, for the Use of Private Families : in a Series of Receipts, which Have Been Strictly Tested, and are Given with the Most Minute Exactness : to which are Added Directions for Carving, Garnishing, and Setting Out the Table, with a Table of Weights and Measures, page 279:

The wine list harbours some great bottles, mature clarets and Burgundies as well as a clutch of fine Germans (gold-dust these days in restaurants) […]

1996, Jim Ainsworth, Passport's Guide to Britain's Best Restaurants:


German

/ˈd͡ʒɜː.mən/

Meronyms: Low German (Plattdeutsch), High German

German has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.

(uncountable) An Indo-European (Indo-Germanic) language, primarily spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, South Tyrol, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and a small part of Belgium.

A number of townships in the United States, listed under German Township.


German

en-adj

German (comparative more German, superlative most German or Germanest)

more German (comparative)
most German (superlative)
Germanest (superlative)

/ˈd͡ʒɜː.mən/

Duits

of or relating to the country of Germany

National Socialist German Workers' Party

Meronyms: Low German, High German

Because the instructions were German, Yves couldn't read them.

In this manner there existed, about the time of the Reformation, three grand divisions of the German language, viz. the Upper German (Ober Deutsch), the Low German (Nieder Deutsch, or Platt Deutsch), and lastly the High German (Hoch Deutsch).

1816, George Henry Noehden, A Grammar of the German Language, 3rd edition, page 3:

To trace its progress, it will be necessary to enter into detail, and to examine the German language in its two great divisions, the Low and High German.

1838, Joseph Bosworth, A Dictionary of the Anglo-saxon Language, page xiii:

This volume is intended to provide a survey of the linguistic characteristics of modern German dialects …. These are defined geographically as those within the borders of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, Austria, the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and Alsace in France ([..]).

1990, Charles V.J. Russ, Introduction, in: Charles V.J. Russ (ed.), The Dialects of Modern German: A Linguistic Survey, p. xviii (note: the work covers Frisian, Low and High German dialects)

Of, in or relating to the German language.


Lemko

The language of this group of Carpatho-Rusyns, which is sometimes considered a dialect of Ukrainian or of Rusyn.


Irish

From Middle English Irish (12th c.), from Old English *Īrisċ, from Old English Īras (“Irishmen”), from Old Norse Írar, from Old Irish Ériu (modern Irish Éire (“Ireland”)), further origin heavily debated but probably from Proto-Celtic *Φīweriyū (“fat land, fertile”), from Proto-Indo-European *péyh₂wr̥ (“fat, swelling”), from *peyh₂- (“to swell; to be fat”), akin to Ancient Greek πίειρα (píeira, “fertile land”), Sanskrit पीवरी (pīvarī, “fat”).

cog

A female given name of chiefly Philippine usage.


Esperanto

/ˌɛspəˈɹæntəʊ/

/ˌɛspəˈɹɑːntəʊ/

/ˌɛspəˈɹæntoʊ/

/ˌɛspəˈɹɑntoʊ/

A learned borrowing from Esperanto Esperanto. Originally, this was the pseudonym assumed by the creator of the language, L. L. Zamenhof, and the language was called Lingvo Internacia (“international language”). The term first appears in the publication Science in 1892.

lbor

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Esperanto.

An international auxiliary language designed by L. L. Zamenhof.


Dutch

en-adj

Dutch (comparative more Dutch or Dutcher, superlative most Dutch or Dutchest)

more Dutch (comparative)
Dutcher (comparative)
most Dutch (superlative)
Dutchest (superlative)

PIE word
 *tewtéh₂
Derived from Middle English Duch (“German, Low German, Dutch”), from Middle Low German dütsch, düdesch (“German, Low German, Dutch”) and Middle Dutch dūtsch, duutsc (“German, Low German, Dutch”), from Proto-West Germanic *þiudisk, from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz (“of one’s people”), derived from *þeudō (“people”), from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂. Doublet of Deutsch and Doitsu.
Compare Middle English thedisch (“native, endemic”) from Old English þēodisċ (“of one’s people”), Old Saxon thiudisk (German Low German düütsch (“German”)), Old High German diutisc (modern German deutsch (“German”)), modern Dutch Duits (“German”) alongside elevated Diets (“Dutch”) (a secondary distinction, fully accepted only in the 19th century). See also Derrick, Teuton, Teutonic.
The pejorative senses (Dutch courage, Dutch wife, Dutch uncle, etc.) are said to stem from the Anglo-Dutch Wars and the accompanying rivalry.

cog

(South Africa, derogatory, ethnic slur) Pertaining to Afrikaner culture (Cape Dutch).


Dutch

→ Hindi: डच (ḍac)

A male given name, more often given as a nickname to someone of Dutch or German ancestry than as an official given name


Dutch

(collective, South Africa, derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur) Afrikaner people (Cape Dutch).

(collective) The Pennsylvania Dutch people.


Kiribati

→ Japanese: キリバス (Kiribasu)

From Gilbertese Kiribati, from English Gilberts adapted to Gilbertese phonotactics, a shortening of Gilbert Islands. First entry in the Dictionnaire gilbertin-français of Ernest Sabatier (1954).

The Micronesian language spoken in Kiribati.


French

en-prop

French (countable and uncountable, plural Frenches)

desc

⇒ American Sign Language: 9@InsideNeckhigh-PalmDown 9@SideNeckhigh-PalmUp

→ Choctaw: Filanchi

→ Punjabi: ਫ਼੍ਰੈਂਚ (fraiñc)

→ Zulu: isiFulentshi

Inherited from Middle English Frenche, Frensch, Frensc, Frenshe, Frenk, Franche, from Old English Frenċisċ (“Frankish, French”), from Proto-West Germanic *Frankisk (“Frankish”), equivalent to Frank + -ish (compare Frankish). Cognate with Middle Low German vranksch, frenkisch, vrenkesch, vrenksch (“Frankish, French”), Middle High German vrenkisch, vrensch ("Frankish, Franconian; > German fränkisch (“Frankish, Franconian”)), Danish fransk (“French”), Swedish fransk, fransysk (“French”), Icelandic franska (“French”).
Doublet of Frankish.
In reference to vulgar language, from expressions such as pardon my French in the early 19th century, originally in reference to actual (but often mildly impolite) French expressions by the upper class, subsequently adopted ironically by the lower class for English cursewords under the charitable conceit that the listener would not be familiar with them.
In reference to vermouth, a shortened form of French vermouth, distinguished as usually being drier than Italian vermouth.

gl

"Frankish, Franconian; > German <i class="Latn mention" lang="de">fränkisch</i> (“Frankish, Franconian”)

She speaks French.

Ne mowe we alle Latin wite...
Ne French...

c. 1390, Robert Grosseteste, translating Chateau d'Amour as The Castle of Love, ll. 25 ff.

I... wolde also be bolde in such french as is peculiare to the lawys of this realme, to leue it wyth them in wrytynge to.

1533, Thomas More, The Debellacyon of Salem & Bizance, fol. 96

I could speak but little French.

1720, Daniel Defoe, Memoirs of a Cavalier, page 13:

Thus, complementary to the French of France, the Quebecois (and in a lesser degree the Frenches of Africa, Swiss French, etc.) would constitute languages in their own right.

1991, Michael Clyne, Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 169:

Almost three quarters of the population 65 and older reported speaking French.

1997, Albert Valdman, French and Creole in Louisiana, page 29:

Although he would spend the rest of his life in France, Picasso never mastered the language, and during those early years he was especially self-conscious about how bad his French was.

2004, Jack Flam, Matisse and Picasso: The Story of Their Rivalry and Friendship, page 18:

The Frenches of England remain as working languages in the different registers of various occupational communities and for particular social rituals. Beyond the fifteenth century, French is a much less substantial presence in England, though[…]

2013, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England, C.1100-c.1500, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, →ISBN, page 361:

(chiefly uncountable) The language of France, shared by the neighboring countries Belgium, Monaco, and Switzerland and by former French colonies around the world.

Frans

principal language of France and other related countries

lingua Francogallica (lingua francogallica f)

I'm taking French next semester.

(uncountable) French language and literature as an object of study.

Pardon my French.

The enraged headsman spares no 'bad French' in explaining his motives.

1845, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, Adventure in New Zealand, volume I, page 327:

Cameron: Pardon my French, but you're an asshole!

1986, John Hughes, Ferris Bueller's Day Off'

The book... is a welcome change from theory-infected academic discourse, pardon my French.

2005 May 29, New York Times Book Review, page 12:

(uncountable, euphemistic, now often ironic) Vulgar language.


French

en-adj

French (comparative more French or Frencher, superlative most French or Frenchest)

more French (comparative)
Frencher (comparative)
most French (superlative)
Frenchest (superlative)

→ Choctaw: Filanchi

→ Tamil: பிரஞ்சு (pirañcu)

French verbs


Rwanda

From Rwanda-Rundi u Rwanda from the archaic verb -anda (“to expand”). Compare Zulu anda (“to multiply”).

The standardized dialect of the Bantu language Rwanda-Rundi spoken in Rwanda.


Interlingua

/ˈɪntə(ɹ)ˌlɪŋɡwə/

Coined possibly independently multiple times in multiple languages, but modern use derives from the Interlingua word. The word itself comes from Latin inter (“between”) + lingua (“language”).

A constructed interlanguage based on Romance languages, English, German, Russian and Latin, developed by the International Auxiliary Language Association, and first published in 1951.


Spanish

en-noun

Spanish (countable and uncountable, plural Spanish or Spanishes)

From Middle English Spainish, Spanish, equivalent to Spain + -ish.

Sixty-four percent more Spanish are functionally illiterate compared to Anglos in Lubbock (only 15 percent more of nonwhites than Anglos).

1970, Henry Sioux Johnson, William J. Hernández-Martinez, Educating the Mexican American, page 87:

(US, informal, nonstandard, collective in the plural) People of Hispanic origin; one whose first language is Spanish.


Portuguese

en-adj

Portuguese (comparative more Portuguese, superlative most Portuguese)

more Portuguese (comparative)
most Portuguese (superlative)

/ˌpɔː.t͡ʃəˈɡiːz/

Portugees

of or relating to the region of Portugal

Portugees

of or relating to the people/gentilese of Portugal

Portuguese verbs

The latter feature indicates that a Portuguese consonant cannot constitute the nucleus of a syllable.

1981, Milton Mariano Azevedo, A Contrastive Phonology of Portuguese and English, page 31:

Of or pertaining to the Portuguese language.

Portugees

of or relating to the Portuguese language


Portuguese

en-noun

Portuguese (plural Portuguese or (archaic) Portugueses)

Portuguese (plural)
Portugueses (archaic plural)

/ˌpɔː.t͡ʃəˈɡiːz/

[…] but so close lay the boats that even single hooks snarled, and Harvey found himself in hot argument with a gentle, hairy Newfoundlander on one side and a howling Portuguese on the other.

1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous:

With a view to securing its more efficient working, a Portuguese was placed in charge of the entire department as Vidane.

1920, Paulus Edward Pieris, Ceylon and the Portuguese, 1505-1658, page 184:

Beresford required all materials for coatees, waistcoats and pantaloons to be sent out unmade, as the Portuguese were perfectly capable of making the suits up properly after delivery.

2000, René Chartrand, Bill Younghusband, The Portuguese Army of the Napoleonic Wars, volume 1, page 23:

(chiefly in the plural) A person native to, or living in, Portugal.


Portuguese

/ˌpɔː.t͡ʃəˈɡiːz/

Portuguese, however, is slightly different from Catalan, Spanish, and Romanian in that there is no strict adjacency requirement between wh-words and the verbal cluster in indirect questions.

2000, João Costa, Portuguese Syntax: new comparative studies, page 65:

Overall it is Taipa (which means mudflats in Portuguese and its Cantonese name Tam-zai also means mud flats) that has changed the most through reclamation followed by the east coast of the Macau Peninsula.

2001, Richard Louis Edmonds, William John Kyle, “Land Use in Macau: Changes between 1972 and 1994”, in Arthur H. Chen, editor, Culture of Metropolis in Macau: An International Symposium on Cultural Heritage: Strategies for the Twenty-first Century, Cultural Affairs Bureau [文化局], →ISBN, →OCLC, page 255, column 2:

A Romance language originating in Portugal, and now the official language of Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guiné Bissau (Guinea-Bissau), Cape Verde, East Timor, and Brazil.


Greek

en-proper noun

Greek (countable and uncountable, plural Greeks)

Inherited from Old English Grēcas (“Greeks”), variant of Crēcas, from Proto-West Germanic *Krēkō, from Latin Graecus of uncertain origin, perhaps derived from the toponym Γραῖα (Graîa) or from other Paleo-Balkanic forms from a tribal name Graii.
Greek in any case has the cognate Γραικός (Graikós), the mythological ancestor of the Γραίοι (Graíoi, “Graecians”). Germanic cognates include Dutch Griek, German Grieche. The ⟨g⟩ in English and Germanic cognates was restored under influence from French grec and classical Latin Graecus. The adjective dates to 14th-century Middle English, replacing Old English Grēċisċ (“Greekish”) and earlier Middle English Gregeis. In reference to fraternities and sororities, a clipping of earlier Greek-letter in reference to their usual names being initialisms of mottos in the Greek language. In reference to terms used to analysize financial derivatives, from their usual names consisting of Greek letters.

inh+

The language spoken by people of Greece, particularly, depending on context, Ancient Greek or Modern Greek.


Albanian

Caucasian Albanian
Caucasian Albanian#English


Albanian

en-noun

Albanian (countable and uncountable, plural Albanians)

The Albanians honored old-age in all men, death in none, accounting it vnlawfull to mention a dead man; with whom they alſo buried his wealth.

1613, Samuel Purchas, “[Asia.] Of Armenia Maior, and Georgia: and the neighbouring Nations.”, in Purchas His Pilgrimage. Or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discouered, from the Creation vnto this Present. […], London: […] William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, […], →OCLC, book IV (Of the Armenians, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Scythians, Tartarians, Chinois, and of Their Religions), page 291:


Myanmar

/ˈmaɪ̯ænˌmɑː/

From Burmese မြန်မာ (mranma), the formal Burmese name of the main ethnic group in Myanmar; ဗမာ (ba.ma), from which Burma is derived, is the informal name. Both Burmese terms are also adjectives meaning "Burmese" (related to Myanmar/Burma, its, people, language, etc). When certain words are attached, the combination may mean specifically Myanmar (Burma) (country) or Burmese (person, language, etc.) - a noun.

The Sino-Tibetan official language of the country of Myanmar.

The script in which the Myanmar language is written.


Icelandic

Although it's hard for us to imagine, they see the pixels in a raw, uninterpreted fashion, and thus to them a TV screen is as drained of long-ago-and-far-away meaning as is, to you or me, a pile of fall leaves, a Jackson Pollock painting, or a newspaper article in Malagasy (my apologies to you if you speak Malagasy; in that case, please replace it by Icelandic — and don't tell me that you speak that language, too!).

2007, Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop:

A North Germanic language, the national tongue of Iceland.


Yiddish

From Yiddish ייִדיש (yidish), from Yiddish ייִדיש־דוײַטש (yidish-daytsh), cognate with German jüdisch (“Jewish”).

der

ייִדיש־דוײַטש

Holonym: High German

Meronyms: Eastern Yiddish, East Yiddish, Western Yiddish, West Yiddish

Yiddish is a High German language [...] two varieties of Yiddish developed [...]

1983, Philip Baldi, An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages, page 128:

A West Germanic, or more specifically High German, language that developed from Middle High German dialects, with an admixture of vocabulary from multiple source languages including Hebrew-Aramaic, Romance, Slavic, English, etc., and mostly written in Hebrew characters which is used mainly among Ashkenazic Jews from central and eastern Europe.


Finnish

The Finno-Ugric language spoken by the majority of the people living in Finland, one of the two official languages of the country (the other is Swedish).

a variety of Finnish spoken in Northern Sweden

a variety of Finnish spoken in Northern Norway


Catalan

From Middle English Catalane, from French Catalan, from Spanish catalán, from Catalan Catalunya.

By the time this mysterious knight died in the 1360s, his book was available in every European language, including Dutch, Gaelic, Czech, Catalan, and Walloon.

2001 December 2, Giles Milton, “'The Riddle and the Knight'”, in The New York Times:

The Romance language of Catalonia, an autonomous region in the northeast of Spain, also spoken in the Valencian autonomous region (where the language is officially named valencià), the Balearic Islands, Andorra, Roussillon in France, and the Sardinian city of Alghero.

కాటలాన్ భాషా

kāṭalān bhāṣā


Japanese

/ˌd͡ʒæpəˈniːz/

From Japan + -ese after the model of earlier Portuguese japonês, New Latin japonensis, French japonais, etc.

I’ve been studying Japanese for three years, and I still can’t order pizza in Tokyo!

A language that is primarily spoken in East Asia and is the official language of Japan.

જાપાની ભાષા

jāpānī bhāṣā

जापानी भाषा

jāpānī bhāṣā


Slovene

From German Slowene, from Slovene Slovenec. Related to Slovak.

Of or pertaining to Slovenia, the Slovenes or the Slovene language.


Chinese

en-adj

Chinese (not generally comparable, comparative more Chinese, superlative most Chinese)

more Chinese (comparative)
most Chinese (superlative)

/ˌt͡ʃʌɪˈniz/

/ˈt͡ʃʌɪˌniz/

[ˈt͡ʃəɪˌniːz]

From China + -ese under influence of Portuguese chinês, replacing older Chinish. Doublet of chinois. In its orientalist sense of "generically exotic, backwards, or poorly organized", sometimes a deliberate marketing strategy to increase sales, as with the German Chinese checkers. In its sense related to the orientation of stage lighting's barn doors, a reference to a supposed resemblance to East Asian eyes.

sjinese

of, from, or relating to China, its people, its culture, and its language

Chinese fire belly newt

Cynops orientalis ⇒ Hypselotriton orientalis

Chinese gooseberry

especially Actinidia chinensis and Actinidia deliciosa

Chinese painted quail

Coturnix chinensis ⇒ Excalfactoria chinensis

Chinese radish Raphanus sativus var. niger ⇒ Raphanus sativus var. sativus)

Chinese spotbill

Anas poecilorhyncha zonorhyncha ⇒ Anas zonorhyncha

Chinese yam

Dioscorea opposita ⇒ Dioscorea polystchya

have got more chins than a Chinese phone book

have got more chins than a Chinese phonebook

There are four Chinese tones... five, if you count the neutral one.

The construction of a verbal system which is fairly regular and at the same time based on existing languages is a most difficult task, because in no other domain of the grammar do languages retain a greater number of ancient irregularities and differ more fundamentally from one another. Still an attempt will be made here to conciliate the two points of view and to bring about something which resembles the simple Chinese grammar without, however, losing its European character or the power of expressing nuances to which we are accustomed in our own languages.

1928, Otto Jespersen, An International Language, page 82:

The DPRK (Joseon Minjujui Inmin Konghuaguk 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國) is read in Chinese as Chaoxian minzhu zhuyi renmin gonghe guo, and its capital, Pyeonyang, is pronounced Pingrang 平壤.

2012, Endymion Wilkinson, “Introduction”, in Chinese History: A New Manual, 3rd revised edition, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 14:

Of, from, or related to a language native to Han Chinese persons, often used generally of Chinese characters or particularly to refer to Standard Mandarin.


Chinese

/ˌt͡ʃʌɪˈniz/

/ˈt͡ʃʌɪˌniz/

[ˈt͡ʃəɪˌniːz]

The Chinese are present in all parts of the world.

(uncountable, collective) The Han Chinese, whether in China or overseas.

the people of China — see also Han Chinese, overseas Chinese

你好 is read “Nǐ hǎo” and means “Hello” in Chinese.

(uncountable) The Standard Chinese language, written in Chinese characters and spoken and spelled using Standard Mandarin pronunciation.

Sjinees

the standard language of China — see also Mandarin

Suzhounese and Hakka are lesser-known varieties of Chinese.

(uncountable) The branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family including Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Southern Min, and other closely related language varieties and dialects.


Italian

en-noun

Italian (countable and uncountable, plural Italians)

From Middle English Italian, from Medieval Latin Italiānus, from Latin Italia (“Italy”).

(uncountable) The official language of Italy, also spoken in San Marino, the Vatican, and parts of Argentina, Slovenia and Switzerland.


Korean

朝鮮の

North or related to both of Koreas in academic context


Korean

(uncountable) Official language of the people residing on the Korean Peninsula, and language of approximately 60 million people, in Asia, North America, and elsewhere.


Korean

The legacy of the Korean independence movement remains today: nearly two million ethnic Koreans live in China, half of them in the Yenpien Korean Autonomous District in southeast Manchuria.

1995, K. Connie Kang, Home Was the Land of Morning Calm, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 32:

(countable) A native or resident in North Korea or South Korea, or a person of Korean descent.


Hawaiian

ภาษาฮาวาย

phās̄ʹā ḥāwāy


Zuni

From earlier Zuñi, from American Spanish, from Acoma Western Keres sɨ̂‧ni or a cognate thereof.

The language traditionally spoken by members of this tribe.


Welsh

Welsh (countable and uncountable, plural Welsh)

Volcae
Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh people

From Middle English Walsch, Welische, from Old English wīelisċ (“Briton; Roman; Celt”), from Proto-West Germanic *walhisk, from Proto-Germanic *walhiskaz (“Celt; later Roman”), from *walhaz (“Celt, Roman”) (compare Old English wealh), from the name of the Gaulish tribe, the Volcae (recorded only in Latin contexts).
This word was borrowed from Germanic into Slavic (compare Old Church Slavonic Влахъ (Vlaxŭ, “Vlachs, Romanians”), Byzantine Greek Βλάχος (Blákhos)).
Doublet of Vellish. Compare Walloon, walnut, Vlach, Walach, Gaul, Cornwall.

cog

9 minutes to 2. We just stopped to have our horses' mouths washed, and there all people spoke welsh.

1832, Queen Victoria, journal, 6 Aug 1832


Turkish

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

The official language of Turkey, Republic of Cyprus (alongside Greek) and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Turks

official language of Turkey, Republic of Cyprus and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus


Frisian

From Middle English Frisoun, taken from Old French frison (“a Frisian”), itself derived from Latin Frīsiī (“Frisians”). Displaced native Old English Frīsa (“a Frisian”); see the plural Frīsan for more.

In the province of Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands, a high percentage of the population, about 350000, speak Frisian as their first language.

1998, Colin Baker, Sylvia Prys Jones, Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education, page 405:

This means that full competence in both Frisian and Dutch (ie understanding, speaking, reading and writing ability) is aimed at all pupils in the province, whether they speak Frisian or Dutch at home.

2000, Jasone Cenoz, Ulrike Jessner, English in Europe: the acquisition of a third language, page 223:

Many Frisians speak Frisian at home and Dutch at work.

2005, Pat Seward, Sunandini Arora Lal, Netherlands, page 89:

A Germanic language group or language (see Usage notes), or a lect thereof, which descended from Old Frisian, with speakers in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.

(specifically) The West Frisian (or Western Frisian) lect, spoken in the northern Netherlands.


Danish

Borrowed from Urdu دَانِش (dāniś), from Classical Persian دَانِش (dāniš).


Russian

en-noun

Russian (countable and uncountable, plural Russians)

From Medieval Latin (11th century) Russiānus, the adjective of Russia, a Latinization of the Old East Slavic Русь (Rusĭ). Attested in English (both as a noun and as an adjective) from the 16th century. By surface analysis, Russia + -an.

(countable) An ethnic Russian; a member of the East Slavic ethnic group which is native to, and constitutes the majority of the population of, Russia.


Swedish

en-proper noun

Swedish (countable and uncountable, plural Swedishes)

From Swede + -ish. Cognate with Dutch Zweeds, German Schwedisch.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Swedish.

The language of Sweden and Åland (an autonomous part of Finland). Swedish is also one of the two official languages of Finland, spoken by 6% of the citizens. A very small minority in Estonia has Swedish as their mother tongue.


Slovak

en-noun

Slovak (countable and uncountable, plural Slovaks)

From Slovak Slovák (“Slovak”), from a shortening of Proto-Slavic *slověninъ (“Slav”) + -ák. Related to Slovene.

(uncountable) The Slavic language of Slovakia.


Hungarian

/hʌŋˈɡɛə.ɹi.ən/

Of, from, or pertaining to present-day Hungary, the ethnic Hungarian people or the Hungarian language.

Of, from, or pertaining to the Kingdom of Hungary, during the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, regardless of ethnicity.


Hungarian

Hungarian (countable and uncountable, plural Hungarians)

/hʌŋˈɡɛə.ɹi.ən/

A person from the former Kingdom of Hungary, during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, regardless of that person's ethnicity.

(uncountable) The main language of Hungary.


Flemish

en-adj

Flemish (comparative more Flemish, superlative most Flemish)

more Flemish (comparative)
most Flemish (superlative)

From Middle English flemmysshe, from Old English flēmisc, from Old Frisian flāmisk, derived from Proto-Germanic *flaumaz (“flowing, current water”) and *-iskaz. Equivalent to English fleam + -ish. More at Flanders.

der

But Wallonian legislators are blocking the changes, fearing that their power is eroding, that the Flemish are doing some legal ethnic cleansing and that a divided Belgium will end the subsidies that flow south from richer Flanders.

2008 May 14, Steven Erlanger, “Seams of Belgium’s Quilt Threaten to Burst”, in The New York Times:

[…] 1302, in which Flemish farmers and civilians armed with goedendags stand in battle formation. The goedendags resemble long clubs, but they have a much wider beating ring around the top and it is possible that a daring combatant […]

2010, Jan Piet Puype, Harm Stevens, Arms and Armour of Knights and Landsknechts in the Netherlands Army Museum, Eburon Uitgeverij B.V., →ISBN, page 245:

Of or relating to Flanders, either as the historical county of Flanders (the current provinces of West Flanders and East Flanders in Belgium, Zeelandic Flanders in the Netherlands and French Flanders); or as the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium.


Czech

From Polish Czech, from Czech Čech, ultimately a variation and contraction of Proto-Slavic *čelověkъ (“human”).

(uncountable) A Slavic language primarily spoken in the Czech Republic.


Volapük

...some authors have claimed that the slang of the criminal was a kind of international language for thieves, a Volapük of crime.

1897 April 21, A. F. B. Crofton, “The Language of Crime”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 50, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 834:

The first practical constructed language was the south-west German Pastor Schleyer's Volapük from 1879; its complicated grammar and irregular vocabulary made learning difficult, however. The most successful has been Esperanto, devised by the Warsaw ophthalmologist Ludwig Zamenhof in 1887, that today can count some one million speakers.

2004, Steven Roger Fischer, A history of language, Reaktion Books, →ISBN, page 180:

constructed language
constructed language

An artificial language (constructed language) created in 1879 by Johann Martin Schleyer.


Castilian

From Castile + -ian as a calque of Spanish castellano (“Of or related to Castile, Spain, or the Spanish language”). Doublet of castellano, castellanus, castellan, and chatelain.

doublet

(inexact) Synonym of Spanish, the language of Spain and its former colonies.


Indonesian

en-noun

Indonesian (countable and uncountable, plural Indonesians)

/ˌɪndəˈniːʒən/

(uncountable) The common language spoken in Indonesia.


Strine

From a pronunciation spelling of Australian spoken with this accent. Coined by “Afferbeck Lauder” (Alastair Ardoch Morrison) and popularised with his 1965 book Let Stalk Strine. Australian from 1965.

Several Strine forms depend on an assumed equivalence between Strine fortis consonants and Cultivated/RP lenis ones, thus garbler mince (couple of minutes), egg jelly (actually). It is doubtful whether this reflects any real phonetic difference.

1982, J. C. Wells, Accents of English, volume 3: Beyond the British Isles, page 595:

A TEAM at Griffith University in Brisbane is working on the development of what the university’s newspaper calls a bionic snorter. Translating into English from Strine, this is a bionic hooter, conk, bugle or nose.

1989 July 8, “Ariadne”, in New Scientist, page 120:

Dell’Oso describes the encounter of an Asian woman with a surly bus driver whose only language is Strine (a form of Australian English, barely intelligible to many of the native-speakers).

1992, Gillian Bottomley, From Another Place: Migration and the Politics of Culture, published 2009, page 133:

(Australia, New Zealand, UK, informal, humorous) Broad Australian English.


Thai

Thai (countable and uncountable, plural Thai or Thais)

Borrowed from Thai ไทย (tai). Doublet of Tai and Dai.

(uncountable) The main language spoken in Thailand (closely related to Lao).


Norwegian

Norwegian (countable and uncountable, plural Norwegians)

From Medieval Latin Norvegia (from Old Norse Norvegr (“Norway”)) + -an, with v replaced by w due to influence from earlier English Norwayan (“Norwegian”).

A kind of fishing boat on the Great Lakes of North America.

(uncountable) The language of Norway, which has two official forms (written standards): Bokmål and Nynorsk.


Norwegian

en-adj

Norwegian (comparative more Norwegian, superlative most Norwegian)

more Norwegian (comparative)
most Norwegian (superlative)

Of or pertaining to the Norwegian language.

Noors

of or pertaining to the Norwegian language


Galician

en-noun

Galician (countable and uncountable, plural Galicians)

From Galicia (“region in northwest Spain”) + -an.

suffix

Rosalia de Castro became a crucial element in this early nationalist cultural campaign: she spoke Galician as her first language and she was literate, educated, and sympathetic to the group's progressive aims.

1998, Catherine Davies, Spanish Women's Writing, 1849-1996, page 63:

(uncountable) The language of Galicia; a Romance language spoken in the northwestern corner of the Iberian peninsula.


Slovio

An artificial language based on the Slavic languages and written in either the Latin or Cyrillic script, intended to be readily understandable by speakers of any modern Slavic language.


Afrikaans

/ˌɑːfɹɪˈkɑːnz/

From Afrikaans Afrikaans or Dutch Afrikaans.

A Germanic language descending from Dutch; the primary language of the descendants of Dutch and other European settlers, as well as many mixed-race (e.g. Rehoboth Basters) living in South Africa and in Namibia. Also, one of the eleven official languages of South Africa and until 1990 one of three official languages of Namibia.


ruby

en-noun

ruby (countable and uncountable, plural rubies)

From Middle English ruby, rube, from Old French rubi, from Medieval Latin rubīnus.

A ruby hummer, a South American hummingbird, Clytolaema rubricauda.


Taiwanese

Language. Mandarin is the official language, but many people speak Taiwanese (a variant of a southern Chinese dialect) and Japanese. The younger generation and those engaged in the tourist trade speak some English.

1975, Lawrence A. Clancy, Sunset Travel Guide to the Orient: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, China, Menlo Park, California: Lane Publishing Co., page 108:

The gay and lesbian movement in Taiwan is composed largely of students and other intellectuals and therefore is largely Mandarin-speaking, middle-class, and young. Koa-a-hi actresses, by contrast, almost always speak Taiwanese as their primary language, are rarely educated beyond elementary school, and can barely make ends meet.

1999, Teri Silvio, “Reflexivity, Bodily Praxis and Identity in Taiwanese Opera”, in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, volume 5, number 4, Duke University Press, pages 585–604:

The variant of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan, the native language of the Hoklo.

тайва́ньский

язы́к, диале́кт


Zulu

The language of these people, a Bantu language; isiZulu.


furigana

Borrowed from Japanese 振り仮名 (furigana, “annotating kana”, literally “assigned phonetic character”).

bor

Furigana are indispensable for some names of people and places whose Kanji are not included among the official Kanji list, and whose sounds can be unusual and even idiosyncratic.

2014, Insup Taylor, M. Martin Taylor, Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, revised edition, John Benjamins, →ISBN, page 290:

(Japanese typography) Kana printed next to or above a kanji or other character to indicate the pronunciation.


Guaraní

/ˌɡwɑːɹəˈniː/

Borrowed from Spanish guaraní, from Portuguese guarani ultimately derived from Guaraní guarani (“warrior”).

South-American Indian language of the Tupí-Guaraní family; spoken in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina.


Tupinambá

Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese tupinambá, borrowed from Old Tupi tupinambá.

etymon

An extinct South-American Indian language of the Tupí-Guaraní family.


Basque

Borrowed from French basque, from Gascon Occitan basc, from Latin Vascō, Vascōnēs pl, a pre-Roman era tribe settled in the Atlantic Biscaian gulf and Pyrenean mountain region of south-western Europe, who were ancestors of the current Basque population.


Romanian

The oldest Romanian period (also known as Common Romanian, Proto-Romanian, Primitive Romanian) is the period prior to the separation of the four Romanian dialects: a north-Danubian dialect (Daco-Romanian) and three south-Danubian dialects (Aromanian / Macedo-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian).

2013, Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), Martin Maiden (consultant ed.), The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford University Press, page 4

Of or relating to Romania, the Romanian people, or the Romanian language.

Roemeens

of or relating to Romania, its people, or language


Romanian

en-noun

Romanian (countable and uncountable, plural Romanians)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Romanian.

(uncountable) The official language of Romania and Moldova.

I think there was this one Black guy in there who was practically crying.
I swear I could hear Sir Mixalot in my head whenever I did Romanians.

2010 March 24, Built, “With the big boyz...”, in IronMag Forums:

I did Romanians for a year and worked up to 250 for sets of 5. I couldn't take the DOMS anymore and dropped them.

2015 April 15, OZ-USF-UFGator, “diract Back work: Are Deadlifts and chin ups enough”, in Starting Strength Forum:

Romanian deadlift
Romanian deadlift#English

(countable, weightlifting, slang) Ellipsis of Romanian deadlift.


Bulgarian

Bulgarian (countable and uncountable, plural Bulgarians)

(uncountable) The official language of Bulgaria.


Arabic

General American, Canada, Mary–marry–merry merger

From Latin arabicus, from Arabia + -icus, from Ancient Greek Ἀραβία (Arabía), ultimately from the Arabic عَرَب (ʕarab).

One day my UN students asked me, "Which is the Arabic country where the best Arabic is spoken?" I quickly replied, "Bosnia." They exclaimed, "But Bosnia is not an Arab country!"

2008, Abdallah Nacereddine, To Be Oneself: The Tragicomedy of an Unfinished Life History, →ISBN, page 342:


Arabic

We’d gone to Arabic school as children and taken lessons in the summer holidays, and I still read the news in Arabic, but it wasn’t like I practised reciting the written language any more, with its complex rhythms and grammatical structures.

2023, Isabella Hammad, Enter Ghost, Jonathan Cape, page 74:

A major Semitic language originating from the Arabian peninsula, and now spoken natively (in various spoken dialects, all sharing a single highly conservative standardized literary form) throughout large sections of the Middle East and North Africa.

The Aramaic-derived alphabet used to write the Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Urdu, and Uyghur languages, among others.

ғәрәп яҙыуы

ğərəp yaźıwı


Arabic

Classic Arabic didn't "turn into" the various Arabic vernaculars. There is disagreement over whether the range of spoken Arabics all have a single ancestor (seems unlikely), but Classical Arabic is a somewhat artificial creation based on at least two dialects.

2004 April 22, Peter T. Daniels, “Taiwanese and their language”, in soc.culture.china (Usenet):

That's the majority of working N'Yawkers. Blacks and Hispanics outnumber the arabics.

2000 July 20, Topprolmc, “OT - I participated in an obscene act today!”, in rec.motorcycles.harley (Usenet):


Maori

New Zealand, approximating Māori pronunciation

Borrowed from Maori māori (“aborigine, native; normal, ordinary, plain”). Doublet of Maoli.


British

en-adj

British (comparative more British, superlative most British)

more British (comparative)
most British (superlative)

From Middle English Brittish, from Old English Brettisċ.
The spelling with single -t- appears in the 13th century under the influence of Medieval Latin Britannicus, but spelling with -tt- persists alongside -t- during the 13th to 17th centuries.
In reference to the island of Great Britain from ca. 1400 (Latin natio Anglica sive Britannica, Brittisshe occean 1398, the Britishe nacion 1548).
As a noun, referring to the British people, British soldiers, etc. from ca. 1600.

brythonik

history: of the ancient inhabitants of the southern part of Britain


Pitjantjatjara

/pɪt͡ʃənt͡ʃəˈt͡ʃaːrə/

From Pitjantjatjara Pitjantjatjara, from pitjantja + tjara (literally “having (the word) pitjantja”) (as opposed to the word yankunytja).

Western Desert language
Western Desert language

An Aboriginal language, mainly spoken in central Australia and belonging to the Western Desert language group (Pama-Nyungan subfamily).

皮堅加加拉印地安語 /皮坚加加拉印地安语

the aboriginal language mainly spoken in central Australia

(erroneous) The Western Desert language group as a whole.


Pitjantjatjara

/pɪt͡ʃənt͡ʃəˈt͡ʃaːrə/

Of or pertaining to the Pitjantjatjara language or people.


Lithuanian

en-noun

Lithuanian (countable and uncountable, plural Lithuanians)

(uncountable) The main language of Lithuania.


Cornish

From Corn(wall) + -ish, from Cornish Kernewek, Kernowek.

A habitational surname from Old English [in turn originating as an ethnonym], referring to someone from Cornwall.


kanji

kanji (countable and uncountable, plural kanji or kanjis)

Borrowed from Japanese 漢字(かんじ) (kanji, “Chinese characters”), from Middle Chinese 漢 (MC xanH, “Han dynasty, China”) + Middle Chinese 字 (MC dziH, “[written] character”) (Compare Korean 한자 (hanja), Mandarin 漢字 /汉字 (hànzì), Vietnamese Hán tự, Hokkien 漢字 /汉字 (hàn-jī / hàn-lī), Cantonese 漢字 /汉字 (hon³ zi⁶)). Doublet of hanja and Hanzi.

I know about a thousand kanji.

Any individual Chinese character as used in the Japanese language.


Kalaallisut

From Greenlandic kalaallisut (“Greenlandic”).

The Greenlandic Inuit language, spoken in Greenland.

Specifically the West Greenlandic dialect, spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of Greenland.


Occitan

From French occitan; see there for more.

A Romance language spoken in Occitania, a region of Europe that includes Southern France, Auvergne, Limousin, and some parts of Catalonia and Italy.


Occitan

Someone of the regional culture that speaks this language; an inhabitant of Occitania.


Occitan

en-adj

Occitan (comparative more Occitan, superlative most Occitan)

more Occitan (comparative)
most Occitan (superlative)

Of or pertaining to the Romance language Occitan, or the regional culture of the people who speak it.


Klingon

[Alt: Photograph of two people in Klingon costume]
c. 1960s, from the Star Trek franchise, purportedly by Gene Roddenberry, named for Lieutenant Wilbur Clingan of the Los Angeles Police Department. In-universe, the name was a transcription of Klingon tlhIngan.

An artificial language created by Marc Okrand for the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.


romaji

en-noun

romaji (countable and uncountable, plural romajis)

/ˈɹəʊməd͡ʒi/

/ɹəʊˈmɑːd͡ʒi/

Transliteration from Japanese ローマ字(じ) (rōmaji, literally “Roman letters”).

ja-r

The romaji of the word ローマ字 is “rōmaji”.

The katakana and the hiragana are syllabic forms of writing derived from Chinese characters, while the romaji are the letters used in writing most European languages.

For example, in Japanese advertisements sexy and my house often appear in romaji, making the underlying concepts of eroticism and private ownership more exotic.

2006, Ralph Fasold, Jeffrey Connor-Linton, An Introduction to Language and Linguistics, page 410:

Today people ordinarily use kana-kanji conversion systems for inputting Japanese text. Because many of them can touch-type the romajis for the kanas, the O-code with kana-kanji conversion is more accessible.

2011, T Okadome, J Nakajima, S Ito, K Kakusho, “An Accessible Coded Input Method for Japanese Extensive Writing”, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Advances in Text Input Methods:

A representation of Japanese in Latin script.


Ukrainian

From Ukraine + -ian (suffix meaning ‘from; like; related to’, forming adjectives; or ‘one belonging to, from, like, or relating to’, forming nouns).

suffix

It [Old Slavonic] is the root of both branches of the living Russian language: of Great Russian, which is the literary and official Russian, as well as of Ukrainian, or Southern Russian. There are, moreover, no popular dialects in our country. The fourteen millions of Ukrainians, settled in the plains of south-west Russia, all speak exactly the same language.

1888, Stepniak [i.e., Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky], chapter I, in The Russian Peasantry: Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life, and Religion, 2nd edition, volume II, London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co. […], →OCLC, page 573:

The East Slavic language of Ukrainians, and the official language of Ukraine.


hanja

Borrowed from Korean 한자(漢字) (hanja), from Middle Chinese 漢字 (MC xanH dziH, “Chinese character”, literally “Han Chinese + character”).
Compare Cantonese 漢字 /汉字 (hon³ zi⁶), Japanese 漢字 (kanji), Mandarin 漢字 /汉字 (hànzì), Vietnamese Hán tự. Doublet of kanji and Hanzi.

ltc-l

The Han character script used to write Korean, particularly in classical literature.

hanja

Any individual Han character as used in the Korean language.


Manchu

/ˌmænˈt͡ʃuː/

Borrowed from Manchu ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ (manju), probably from Sanskrit मञ्जुश्री (mañjuśrī, “Manjushri”).

der

(obsolete) A person belonging to the Qing Dynasty (Manchu Dynasty) of China.


Manchu

/ˌmænˈt͡ʃuː/

The indigenous language of the Manchu people, spoken in Manchuria.

(obsolete) The Qing Dynasty (Manchu Dynasty).


Manchu

/ˌmænˈt͡ʃuː/

Manchurian, referring to the Manchu language.


Hindi

Hindi
Hindi (disambiguation)
Hindi language (Hindi belt)
Hindi languages

From Classical Persian هِنْدِی (hindī), from هِنْد (hind, “India”), from Sanskrit सिन्धु (sindhu) + Persian adjectival suffix ـِی (-ī). Not from Iranian Persian هند (hend).

The Central Zone of Indo-Aryan languages. These are also spoken in Fiji, Guyana and as a second language by Indians in many other countries.


Kannada

From Kannada ಕನ್ನಡ (kannaḍa). Doublet of Canara.

The Dravidian language that is the official language of the state of Karnataka, India.


Armenian

Of, from, or pertaining to Armenia, the Armenian people, the Armenian language, or the Armenian alphabet.

аерман

of, from, or pertaining to Armenia, Armenians, the language or alphabet


Armenian

(uncountable) The language of Armenia and the Armenian people, whose older stages are Old Armenian and Middle Armenian.

(uncountable) A branch of Indo-European languages, which includes the various stages of the Armenian language.


Low Saxon

Holonym: Low German (broad sense)

The Low Saxon dialect area is usually divided into West Low Saxon and East Low Saxon.

1961, R. E. Keller, German Dialects: Phonology and Morphology with selected Texts, page 339:

Low German

Synonym of Low German (strict sense: a certain West Germanic language)

There is general agreement that, to the east, Low Saxon should be divided from East Low German (Ostniederdeutsch) approximately though quite coincidentally, along the modern border between the Federal Republic and the GDR, although there is no general agreement as to precisely where the dialect boundary should lie, or as to which isogloss should be crucial to its delineation. [...] The Low Saxon dialects are sometimes referred to collectively as West Low German (Westniederdeutsch) [...]

1990, Stephen Barbour, Patrick Stevenson, Variation in German: A critical approach to German sociolinguistics, Cambridge University Press, page 86f:

A group of related dialects of Low German, spoken in northern Germany and parts of the Netherlands, formerly also in Denmark.


Hispanic

en-adj

Hispanic (comparative more Hispanic, superlative most Hispanic)

more Hispanic (comparative)
most Hispanic (superlative)

From Latin hispānicus, from Hispānia (“Iberia”) + -icus.

Of or pertaining to the Iberian peninsula, its people, its culture or its languages.

Houses in New Mexico, California and Florida exhibit a strong Hispanic architectural influence.

(colloquial) Of or relating to a Spanish-speaking people or culture, as in Latin America.

hispà

Of or relating to Spanish-speaking people or culture


Hispanic

A native or descendant of a Spanish-speaking country.


Hunmin Jeongeum

Borrowed from Korean 훈민정음(訓民正音) (Hunminjeong'eum), literally "correct sounds to educate the people".

This setting was the same in the Revised Nogeoldae, corrected during the King Seongjong (成宗), and was also the same in Translated Nogeoldae and Nogeoldae Eonhae, which Korean Hangeul (Hunmin Jeongeum) pronunciations and interpretations are added based on Revised Nogeoldae.

2003, Gregory K.. Iverson, Ahn Sang-Cheol, Explorations in Korean Language and Linguistics, page 41:

Hunmin-jeongeum (the original name for Hangul) kept coming to mind.

2009, Buddhism and Culture - Issues 1-3, page 61:

Research on Hunmin Jeongeum as the archetype of the current Korean script is practically nonexistent, to the extent that Japanese research on the subject is highly acclaimed.

2013, The Korea Foundation, Korea Focus - February 2013:

(historical) The phonetic script in which Korean is written, now usually called hangul.


Ardhamagadhi

Transliteration of Sanskrit अर्धमागधी (ardhamāgadhī).

translit

Ardhamagadhi Prakrit
Ardhamagadhi Prakrit


Vietnamese

The Vietnamese I own is the one you gave me, the one whose diction and syntax reach only the second-grade level.

2019, Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Jonathan Cape, page 31:

The Austroasiatic language spoken predominantly in Vietnam.


Gaelic

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Gaelic.wav

Goidelic; any Goidelic language.
Irish Gaelic.

Goidelic; any Goidelic language.
Manx Gaelic.

Goidelic; any Goidelic language.
Scottish Gaelic.

She taught herself some Gaelic as a child. It’s hard to pronounce, and with no other Gaelic speakers around that she could practice on, she’s forgotten nearly all of what she learned.

2020, N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became, Orbit, page 342:


Gaelic

Of or relating to the Gaels, the Goidel peoples of Scotland and Ireland, and the Manx, or their languages.


Kurdish

/ˈkɜː(ɹ)dɪʃ/

Family of Indo-Iranian languages of Kurdistan (in the Mesopotamia region, from the Zagros of mid-western Iran to the eastern extension of the chain of the Taurus Mountains).


Sardinian

A Romance language spoken in the Italian region of Sardinia.


Tibetan

en-noun

Tibetan (countable and uncountable, plural Tibetans)


Modern English

The English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550.


Modern Greek

The Greek language as spoken by the Greek people since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It was written using polytonic script until 1982, when this was officially dropped in favour of monotonic.


Modern French

French spoken after the fifteenth century.


Tok Pisin

Borrowed from Tok Pisin Tok Pisin, from English talk + pidgin or business.

A creole of Indo-European, Malayo-Polynesian and Trans-New Guinean languages (principally English and Kuanua); one of the official languages of Papua New Guinea.


kana

Borrowed from Japanese 仮名(かな) (kana, “phonetic character”, literally “borrowed character”, from the way that kana were originally Chinese characters "borrowed" for their phonetic values).

ja-r

The hiragana and katakana syllabaries. These are made up of characters that represent individual syllables, which are used to write Japanese words and particles. Kana are derived from kanji.


Persian

en-noun

Persian (countable and uncountable, plural Persians)

/ˈpɜː(ɹ)ʃən/

From Middle English percynne, from Middle French persien, from Italian persiano, from Medieval Latin Persiānus, from Latin Persia, from Ancient Greek Περσίς (Persís), from Old Persian 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 (p-a-r-s /Pārsa/, “Persia”) (compare Early Classical Persian پارس (pārs) or modern Iranian Persian فارس (fârs), where the shift p > f. Equivalent to Persia + -ian.

der

(uncountable) The Persian language, or a family of languages spoken primarily in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.


Persian

en-adj

Persian (comparative more Persian, superlative most Persian)

more Persian (comparative)
most Persian (superlative)

/ˈpɜː(ɹ)ʃən/

Of or pertaining to the Persian language.

Persies

of or pertaining to the Persian language


Pennsylvania Dutch

en-noun

Pennsylvania Dutch (countable and uncountable, plural Pennsylvania Dutch)

From their primary residence in Pennsylvania and from Palatine German Deitsch (“German”), their own endonym, gradually modified under influence from Dutch.

(uncountable) Their language, Pennsylvania German, a High German language descended from Palatine German.


Vulcan

From Latin Vulcānus, probably from Etruscan although very unclear, but unknown meaning and further origin (see more in Latin entry). Doublet of bolcane and volcano.

A town in Vulcan County, southern Alberta, Canada.

A ghost town in Gunnison County, Colorado.


Vulcan

From Vulcan (etymology 1), from the Star Trek TV series of the 1960s.

language constructed
constructed language

A language constructed for the Star Trek franchise, spoken by the fictional Vulcan species.


Breton

Breton (countable and uncountable, plural Bretons)

From French Breton. Doublet of Briton and Brython.

(uncountable) The Celtic language of Brittany.


Thracian

/ˈθɹeɪʃi.ən/

(uncountable) the extinct language formerly spoken in Thrace.


Piedmontese

A Gallo-Italic language spoken in Piedmont.


Neapolitan

From Latin neāpolītānus, from Neāpolis, from Ancient Greek Νεάπολις (Neápolis, literally “new city”), a Greek city in modern Naples. Doublet of naporitan.

der

A language spoken in South Italy, approximately in the area of the former Kingdom of Naples.


Venetian

From Latin Venetianus (“Venetic; Venetian”), from Venetia (“lands of the Veneti; Venice, Veneto; Armorica”) + -anus (“-ian”), from Veneti + -ia. In the case of the Veneti of northern Brittany, derived from Gaulish Uenetoi (“the friendly ones, the kinsmen”), from Proto-Celtic *wenet, a derivation from *wenyā (“kindred”). In the case of the Veneti of northeastern Italy, of uncertain origin but presumably taken from a Venetic endonym, possibly Illyrian or Celtic. Equivalent to Veneto or Venetia + -ian.

The Romance language spoken mostly in the Veneto region of Italy.


Laurentian

From Latin Laurentius (“Laurence”) + -ian, after the Saint Lawrence River. Piecewise doublet of Laurencian and Lawrentian; compare also lawrencium.

piecewise doublet

(by extension, nonstandard) Of or pertaining to Canada as a whole.


Laurentian

Laurentian language
Saint Lawrence River

An extinct Iroquoian language of Canada.


Laurentian

From Latin Laurentius (“Laurence”) + -ian, after the Latinized name of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Relating to Lorenzo de' Medici, or to the Laurentian Library in Florence named after him.


American English

/əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/

Compound of American + English. First use appears c. 1806, in a dictionary by Noah Webster; as an adjective, c. 1892.

The form of the English language that is chiefly used in the United States, contrasted with British English or Canadian English and that of other places.

Commonwealth English
Commonwealth English

The form of the English language that is chiefly used in North America, contrasted with Commonwealth English (British English and that of other places).


American English

en-adj

American English (comparative more American English, superlative most American English)

more American English (comparative)
most American English (superlative)

/əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/

Of or relating to, or spoken or written in American English.


Chichewa

/t͡ʃɪˈt͡ʃɛwə/

From Chichewa Chicheŵa, from chi- (“language”) + Cheŵa.

The Bantu language of the Chewa tribe belonging to the Bantu linguistic family and one of Malawi’s national tongues promoted as the country’s lingua franca.


Amharic

Fifi smiles and nods, then says “yes” in Amharic with that typical Ethiopian inflection that makes it sound less like a word and more like a sharp intake of air.

2019, Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King, Canongate Books, published 2020, pages 218–219:


Tagalog

/t̪ɐˈɡaː.loɡ̚/

A language spoken in the Philippines, especially in areas of central to southern Luzon.

टागालोग भाषा

ṭāgālog bhāṣā

Kéyah Dańlíinii bikáaʼgi kéédahatʼínígíí bizaad


Serbian

en-noun

Serbian (countable and uncountable, plural Serbians)

(uncountable) The standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs.

Serwies

the standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian


Bali

From Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for 八里 (Bālǐ).

Forty minutes later, we found ourselves seated on boulders on the side of Kuan Yin Shan with a lovely view of the river and the town of Tamsui to the east and the farms and field of Pali to the north.

[1981 October 25, Robert Benjamin Kritzer, “This young American finds basic Chinese values still intact in old & new Taiwan”, in Free China Weekly, volume XXII, number 42, Taipei, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2:

He roused Max from his Taipei hotel suite to tell him the change in plans and to meet the Oregon at the Bali District piers the following day.

2013, Clive Cussler, Mirage (The Oregon Files) (Fiction), New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 350:

New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里, across the river from Tamsui) isn’t a place that immediately springs to mind for tourist attractions.

2017 December 15, Richard Saunders, “Off the Beaten Track: Best of Bali”, in Taipei Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-12-18, Features, page 13:


Bali

Borrowed from Uneapa bali (“to not be”).

The Uneapa language spoken on that island.


Bali

An Arab tribe of Saudi Arabia and Jordan.


Latvian

Latvian (countable and uncountable, plural Latvians)

(uncountable) The official language of Latvia; Lettish.


Wade-Giles

1943. Named after British diplomats Thomas Francis Wade and Herbert Giles, who developed the system in the 19th century.

named-after

The pronunciation aids to Chinese names are of doubtful value. They are not phonetic, being only a slight modification of the Wade-Giles system, and become really confusing when Mandarin pronunciations are given for Cantonese or historical spellings.

1947 May, Earl Swisher, “MacNair, China”, in Pacific Historical Review, volume XVI, number 2, University of California Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 214:

The problem of romanizing Chinese place names is a difficult one. Solutions differ from language to language, and there are several so-called "systems" used even in the English-speaking world.
The system most widely accepted by professionals is the Wade-Giles system. One of its key advantages is that it permits the reader to check back to the original Chinese characters, since most dictionaries are arranged according to this romanization system.

1969, “A note on transliteration”, in Joseph Kitagawa, editor, Understanding Modern China, Quadrangle Books, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 7:

In accordance with the LC manual of bibliographic style, the heading for each entry contains the essential bibliographic data taken from the corresponding LC catalog card. The Chinese titles are given in Wade-Giles romanization. If the English title and/or the title in Pinyin romanization appear in the original work, they are also provided.

1977, “Explanatory Notes”, in Robert Dunn, editor, Chinese-English and English-Chinese Dictionaries in the Library of Congress, Library of Congress, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page vii:

The old spelling system, named the Wade-Giles system after the two 19th century Britons who developed it, made correct pronunciation unnecessarily difficult. It used apostrophes to distinguish aspirated consonants, such as p'ai pronounced with a "p" sound, from unaspirated, such as pai pronounced with a "b" sound. The new Pinyin system eliminates this distinction, which most newspapers ignored anyway. "Beijing" is much closer to the Chinese pronunciation that "Peking", and Vice Premier "Deng" is better rendering than "Teng." But the new system uses some letters in ways that still confuse English speakers. Thers difficult letters are: "c" which should be prounced in this system like the "ts" in "its"; "q" which should be pronounced like the "ch" in "cheek"; "x" which should be pronounced like the "sh" in "she"; and "zh" which should be pronounced like the "j" in "jump".
The system invented by Sir Thomas Wade, diplomat and Cambridge University professor, about 1860 and developed by Herbert Giles, also a Cambridge professor, is only the best known of several in use over the past 100 years. Some of the most familiar Chinese place names, such as Peking and Canton, are derived only partially, or not at all, from Wade-Giles.

1979 March 5, Jay Mathews, “China Is China, But Hangchow Is Hangzhou”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-12-29:

Most influential in further establishing the Romanization scheme first set down by Wade was Giles' 1,415-page A Chinese–English Dictionary, which became a standard reference work soon after its release in 1912. The orthography it employed came to be known as the Wade–Giles system of Romanization, and it was soon adopted by English-language academia, and then by the media and general public.
In fact Giles' Romanization was only very slightly modified from Wade's – the differences are miniscule. Tones continued to be marked in the Wade–Giles system with numeral superscripts, with the neutral tone either being unmarked, or occasionally given the number '0' or '5'.

2016, Karen Steffen Chung, “Wade–Giles Romanization System”, in The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, →OCLC:

No longer does the ROC claim to be China and the writing systems that Taiwan uses for Chinese have changed to reflect this. Taiwan has held on to traditional characters and bopomofo, resolutely resisted simplified characters, mostly retained Wade-Giles and Yale for personal, political and geographical names in Taiwan, but grudgingly accepted the linguistic arguments for Hanyu pinyin signage in public spaces.

2017 January 22, Martin Boyle, “Pinyin and a Taiwanese identity”, in Taipei Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-01-21, Editorials, page 6:

The two most prominent systems of transliterations of Mandarin are Wade-Giles and Pinyin. Wade-Giles, established in the 19th century (Kaske,2008) is named after Herbert Allen Giles[...]

2018 March 12, Sophie Zhou, “The T/Daos shall meet: The failure and success of English transliterations of Mandarin Chinese”, in English Today, volume 35, number 1, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC:

Lee starts her memoir with a recollection of hiking with her mother shortly after Gong, the author’s grandfather, has passed away, and the narrative veers into a discussion of translation. Lee explains that she uses traditional Chinese characters, and both the Wade-Giles romanization system and Hanyu Pinyin to transliterate certain details from Mandarin. By extent, this exemplifies the language variations not only in Taiwan but also in her own family. Wade-Giles, she notes, is employed by her elders, though she has been taught Hanyu Pinyin. “The gaps that bind us span more than the distances between words,” she writes.

2020 April 24, Kristen Schott, “The Language of Self-Discovery: On Jessica J. Lee’s “Two Trees Make a Forest””, in Los Angeles Review of Books, archived from the original on 2020-07-07:

Aside from some stylistic unevenness (Mr. Brookes uses both modern pinyin and older Wade-Giles transliterations, when lay readers probably would find it easier to read only the latter, given its continued familiarity for historic places and names) and a few lapses into therapeutic editorializing, “Fragile Cargo” is a fascinating and inspiring story of triumph and the tragedy of war.

2023 February 10, Michael Auslin, “‘Fragile Cargo’ Review: The Long Rescue of China’s Past”, in Wall Street Journal, archived from the original on 2023-03-05:

A system for transcribing the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese into the Latin alphabet; formally uses hyphens and the spiritus asper apostrophe.

Herbert Giles
Thomas Francis Wade
Wade–Giles


San Francisco

From Spanish San Francisco (“Saint Francis”). Doublet of São Francisco.

San Francisco
San Francisco (disambiguation)

A major coastal city and county in California, United States, formerly Yerba Buena (pre-1847).


Aragonese

/ˌærəɡɒˈniːz/

Of, from, or pertaining to Aragon, the Aragonese people or the Aragonese language.


Aragonese

/ˌærəɡɒˈniːz/

The language of Aragon, nowadays only spoken as a mother tongue by a few thousand people in some valleys of the Pyrenees.

The Spanish language spoken in Aragon when influenced by Aragonese traits.


Azerbaijani

/ˌæzəbaɪˈdʒɑːni/

/ˌæzəɹbaɪˈd͡ʒɑːni/

آزربائیجانی

āzerbā’ījānī


Georgian

en-noun

Georgian (countable and uncountable, plural Georgians)

/ˈd͡ʒɔːd͡ʒən/

/ˈd͡ʒɔɹd͡ʒən/

/ˈd͡ʒɔʊ.d͡ʒən/

/ˈd͡ʒoːd͡ʒən/

United States of America
United States of America

(countable) A native or resident of the state of Georgia in the United States of America.

Iberian

native or resident of the Eurasian country of Georgia

goober

native or resident of the US state of Georgia


Kyrgyz

/ˈkɜː(ɹ)ɡɪz/

/ˈkɪə(ɹ)ɡɪz/

From Kyrgyz кыргыз (kırgız), possibly derived from Kyrgyz кырк ууз (kırk uuz, “forty tribes”); or possibly from кыргый (kırgıy, “hawk”); or likely from кырк (kırk, “extinguish, mince, cut”). More at Kyrgyz.

uder

The Turkic language of the Kyrgyz people


Swiss

Adopted from Middle French Suisse in circa 1515, alongside the form Switzer directly loaned from German.

(nonstandard) Swiss German; the variety of German spoken in Switzerland.


Sudanese

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Sudanese.wav

But few Sudanese can forget the group’s participation in a massacre of over 120 democracy protesters in 2019.

2023 May 5, Declan Walsh, “‘Only Word for Them Is Heroes’: How 2 Students Rescued Dozens in Sudan”, in The New York Times:

A person from Sudan or of Sudanese descent.


Kazakh

en-noun

Kazakh (countable and uncountable, plural Kazakhs)

From Russian каза́х (kazáx). Cognate with Cossack, ultimately from Turkic languages.

(uncountable) The national language of Kazakhstan.


Egyptian

/ɪˈd͡ʒɪp.ʃən/

From Middle English Egipcien, egyptiane. Displaced Old English Egyptisċ. By surface analysis, Egypt + -ian.

The Afroasiatic language spoken (and written) in ancient Egypt


Uzbek

From Russian узбек (uzbek), from Uzbek oʻzbek. Further etymology is uncertain; possibly from Turkic öz (“genuine”) + Sogdian [script needed] (βγ /beġ/, “master”); the latter from Proto-Indo-Aryan *bʰagás, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *bʰagás. The first element is often thought to be equivalent to English Oghuz.


Lebanese

The Hariri-Aoun agreement has shown that Hezbollah can bring the national political system to a halt. This happened in the past several years, and it worsened conditions in sectors such as foreign debt, electricity output, rubbish collection, water delivery, and other essential services, to the discomfort of the majority of Lebanese who have spoken out intermittently against the oligarchy of sectarian leaders who rule the country.

2016 October 22, Rami G Khouri, “Lebanese oligarchy preserves its interests once again”, in Aljazeera:

(chiefly in the plural) A person from Lebanon or of Lebanese descent.


Jamaican

Of, from, or pertaining to Jamaica, the Jamaican people or the Jamaican language.

ямайски

of, from, or pertaining to Jamaica, the Jamaican people or the Jamaican language


Mongolian

en-noun

Mongolian (countable and uncountable, plural Mongolians)

Originally from Mongol + -ian, a translation (1706) of the German mongolisch, mongalisch. Subsequently, from the name of the country of Mongolia + -an.

Khalka […] Mongolian possesses seven vowels and twenty consonants.

1926, Neville J. Whymant, A Mongolian Grammar:

The Altaic family […] comprises about 40 languages, classified into three groups: Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus.

1987, David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language:

These inscriptions are in Mongolian and thus widen the appliqué's international connections.

(uncountable) A group of languages from Mongolia, specifically Khalkha, the official language of Mongolia.

Mongalian

of or relating to Mongolia; native of Mongolia

mongolian

designating or affected with Down syndrome


Tuvaluan

The Polynesian language mostly spoken in Tuvalu.


Maldivian

Maldivian (countable and uncountable, plural Maldivians)

(uncountable) The official language of the Maldives, also called Dhivehi or Divehi.


Samoan

Samoan (countable and uncountable, plural Samoans)


Turkmen

The current majority view for the etymology of the ethnonym Türkmen or Turcoman is that it comes from Türk and the Turkic emphasizing suffix -men, meaning "'most Turkish of the Turks' or 'pure-blooded Turks.'" A folk etymology, dating back to the Middle Ages and found in al-Biruni and Mahmud al-Kashgari, instead derives the suffix -men from the Persian suffix -mānind, with the resulting word meaning "like a Turk". While formerly the dominant etymology in modern scholarship, this mixed Turkic-Persian derivation is now viewed as incorrect.

Turkoman

via Medieval Latin Turcomannus, itself derived from Turkic via Persian ترکمان (torkamân)

Türkman

via Ottoman Turkish تركمان (Türkmân); itself derived from Turkic via Persian ترکمان (torkamân)

A Turkic language of the Turkmen spoken mostly in Turkmenistan.


Tajik

From Classical Persian تاجیک (tājīk, “non-Turk (of Central Asia)”) (akin to تازی (tāzī), تازیک (tāzīk)), (ultimately) from Middle Persian tʾcyk' (tāzīg, “Arab”), (ultimately) from Arabic طَيِّئ (ṭayyiʔ, “name of an Arab clan”). See Tayy.
Popular folk etymology traces the word to Tajik тоҷ (toj, “crown”) (see Arabic تَاج (tāj), from Persian تاج (tâj, “crown”)), but this is false.

der

The Persian dialect spoken in Tajikistan.


Comorian

The language of the islands of the Comoros.


Greenlandic

The official language of Greenland, an Eskimo-Aleut language written with the Latin alphabet.


Tongan

en-noun

Tongan (countable and uncountable, plural Tongans)

(uncountable) An Austronesian language of the Polynesian branch spoken in Tonga.


Medieval Latin

The Latin language as used during the Middle Ages, before it was developed by the Italian humanists into Renaissance Latin.

միջնադարյան լատիներեն

the Latin language as spoken and written during the Middle Ages, before it was developed by the Italian humanists into Renaissance Latin


New Latin

The reformed Latin language as written or spoken as a lingua franca from 14th century Renaissance Latin to Contemporary Latin beginning in the late 19th century.


Lao

Lao (countable and uncountable, plural Lao or Laos)

(uncountable) The official language of Laos that is closely related to Thai.


Lao

Of, from, or pertaining to Laos, the Lao people or their Kra-Dai Lao language.

Laosiaans

of, from, or pertaining to Laos, the people or their language


Telugu

The train rumbled between narrow buildings with flat roofs and multicoloured walls, Telugu script crawling like creepers over them.

2019, Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift, Hogarth, page 497:


Malagasy

Malagasy (countable and uncountable, plural Malagasy or Malagasies)

/ˌmæləˈɡæsi/

/ˌmɑləˈɡɑsi/

From Malagasy malagasy, connected to Mālāī-Jezīra, “island of Mālāī”. Compare English Madagascar, which by folk etymology comes from Marco Polo's misreading of Mogadishu whereas it should be Arabic جَزِيرَة المَالَائِيّ (jazīrat al-mālāʔiyy, “the Island of Mālāī”).

der

جَزِيرَة المَالَائِيّ

(uncountable) The languages of Madagascar or of the Malagasy people, when considered to be one language.

Malgassies

the language of the Malagasy, when considered one language

(in particular) The chief lect of this language or language group.


Malagasy

/ˌmæləˈɡæsi/

/ˌmɑləˈɡɑsi/

جَزِيرَة المَالَائِيّ

Of, pertaining to or in the Malagasy language.


Macedonian

en-noun

Macedonian (countable and uncountable, plural Macedonians)

From Middle English Macedonyen, partly from Macedonia and partly from Latin Macedonius, + -an; equivalent to Macedonia + -an.

/mæsəˈdəʊnɪən/

Republic of North Macedonia
Republic of North Macedonia

(uncountable) A South Slavic language, the standard language of the Republic of North Macedonia.


Laotian

From Laos + -ian, or after French laotien.

Lao People's Democratic Republic
Lao People's Democratic Republic

A person from the Lao People's Democratic Republic or of Lao descent.


Laotian

Synonym of Lao (“the official language of Laos”)


Laotian

Of, from, or pertaining to the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Laotian people or the Laotian language.


Burmese

The Sino-Tibetan official language of the country Burma. Also known as Myanmar (which is the name preferred by the country's current government).


Nauruan

[nɑːˈuː.ɹuːn̩]

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Nauruan.wav


Tokelauan

The Polynesian language of the Tokelauan people.


Wallachian

The language of the Wallachians; Romanian.


Toki Pona

From Toki Pona toki pona (literally “good language”), formed from toki (“language”) (from Tok Pisin tok, from English talk) + pona (“good”) (from Esperanto bona (“good”), ultimately from Latin bonus).

bor

In contrast to the hundreds or thousands of study hours required to attain fluency in other languages, a general consensus among Toki Pona speakers is that it takes about 30 hours to master.

2015 July 15, Roc Morin, “How to Say Everything in a Hundred-Word Language”, in The Atlantic:

A minimalist constructed language with creole-like elements designed by Sonja Lang.


Rwandan

en-adj

Rwandan (comparative more Rwandan, superlative most Rwandan)

more Rwandan (comparative)
most Rwandan (superlative)

Of, from, or pertaining to Rwanda, the Rwandan people or language.

Rwandees

of, from, or pertaining to Rwanda, the Rwandan people or language


Niuean

A Malayo-Polynesian language spoken mainly in Niue.


Luxembourgish

/ˈlʌksəmˌbɜːɡɪʃ/

/ˈlʌksəmˌbɝɡɪʃ/

Of or in the language of Luxembourg (derived from the Moselle Franconian group of High German dialects).


Luxembourgish

/ˈlʌksəmˌbɜːɡɪʃ/

/ˈlʌksəmˌbɝɡɪʃ/

A Germanic language spoken in Luxembourg and, traditionally, around the city of Arlon (Belgium); originally included in the Moselle Franconian group of High German dialects, but now usually regarded as a separate language due to its standardisation and official use in the state of Luxembourg.


Somali

en-noun

Somali (countable and uncountable, plural Somalis)

(uncountable) A Cushitic language spoken mainly in Somalia and eastern Ethiopia.

(countable) A person from Somalia or of Somali descent.

Somaliër

a person from Somalia or of Somali descent


Somali

Of, from, or pertaining to Somalia, the Somali people or language.


Somalian

en-adj

Somalian (comparative more Somalian, superlative most Somalian)

more Somalian (comparative)
most Somalian (superlative)

2007 April 22, “Somalian government tells Mogadishu residents to flee”, in The New York Times:


Somalian

(nonstandard, sometimes offensive) Synonym of Somali


Swahili

From Swahili swahili, from Arabic سَوَاحِلِيّ (sawāḥiliyy, “(people) of the coasts”), from سَوَاحِل (sawāḥil, “coasts”), broken plural of سَاحِل (sāḥil, “coast”).

der

An agglutinative language of the Bantu branch widely spoken in East Africa. Born in its modern form from the hybridization of the Arabic and Bantu cultures, it was the language of the traders in East Africa, and spread along the routes of trade.


Ilocano

Borrowed from Spanish ilocano, from iloco + -ano, where the root is from Ilocano i- (place of origin prefix) + either lukong (“hollow; concave”) or luek/luok (“cove; bay”) + Spanish -o.

The ethnolinguistic group of the Ilocos Region on the coasts of northwestern Luzon in the Philippines.


kwukyel

Borrowed from kwūkyel, the Yale romanization of Korean 구결(口訣) (gugyeol), from Middle Chinese 口訣 (MC khuwX kwet, “mnemonic rhyme”), from 口 (kǒu, “mouth”) + 訣 /诀 (jué, “rhymed saying”).

compound

Abbreviated Chinese characters used to represent Korean grammatical items, inserted into a Chinese-character (Classical Chinese or itwu) text.


Lojban

From Lojban lojban., from rafsi loj (logji (“logic”)) + ban (bangu (“language”)).

An artificial language created by Logical Language Group designed to be logical, based on the earlier Loglan.

لُجْبَن

artificial logical language based on Loglan


Loglan

The Loglan formal grammar is made up of 91 CFG-type rules.

Loglan is an isolating language, much like English. That means that once you’ve learned a word, you don’t have to worry about changing its form. Even in English, you have to remember to add ‘-ed’ to a verb to make it refer to the past, and ‘-s’ to nouns to make them plural. In Loglan, you won’t have to do that. Also, some English verbs and nouns have irregular forms. There are no irregular Loglan forms.

1994 May, Stephen L. Rice, “Loglan 3 : Understanding Loglan”, in www.loglan.org, retrieved 2012-08-04:

The original language developed by James Cooke Brown, as maintained by The Loglan Institute.


Pashto

Tariq clenched his teeth and muttered something to himself in Pashto that Laila didn’t catch.

2007, Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING (2018), page 131:

The native Indo-Iranian language of the Pashtun people; an official language of Afghanistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.


Croatian

/ˌkɹəʊˈeɪ.ʃən/

/ˌkɹoʊˈeɪ.ʃən/

A standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Croats.


Kiswahili

The national language of the Republic is Kiswahili.

2010, Parliament of Kenya, “Chapter 2, Article 7(1)”, in Constitution of Kenya, 2010, page 14:

Swahili, an agglutinative Bantu language widely spoken in East Africa.


Gothic

From Late Latin gothicus (“Gothic, barbaric”), from Ancient Greek Γοτθικός (Gotthikós), from Ancient Greek Γότθοι (Gótthoi, “Goths”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”), proposed to derive from unattested Gothic *𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌰 (*guta). Equivalent to Goth + -ic. The various usages of the adjective are introduced nearly simultaneously in the first half of the 17th century. The literal meaning “of the Goths” is found in the 1611 preface of the King James Bible, in reference to the Gothicke tongue. The generalized meaning of “Germanic, Teutonic” appears in the 1640s. Reference to the medieval period in Western Europe, and specifically the architecture of that period (“barbaric style”, initially a term of abuse), also appears in the 1640s, as does reference to “Gothic characters” or “Gothic letters” in typography.

der

An extinct Germanic language, once spoken by the Goths.


Gothic

en-adj

Gothic (comparative more Gothic, superlative most Gothic)

more Gothic (comparative)
most Gothic (superlative)

готически

of the type formerly used for printing German

Of or relating to the Goths or their language.

“[W]hat he holds of all things to be most gothic, is gallantry to the women.”

1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, II.iii.6:

Enormities which gleam like comets through the darkness of gothic and superstitious ages.

1812 letter, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prose Works, volume II, quoted in OED, published 1888, page 384:

(figuratively) Barbarous, rude, unpolished, belonging to the “Dark Ages”, medieval as opposed to classical.


Gothic

One hundred fifty Gothics sold over 1.5 million copies a month last spring.

1996, Nora Sayre, Sixties going on seventies, page 180:


Riksmål

A conservative variety of Bokmål that is closer to Danish, sometimes using unofficial spellings that have been removed from standard Bokmål.


Nahuatl

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From Spanish náhuatl, from Classical Nahuatl nahuatl, nahuatlatolli (“the clear or understandable language”).

The polysynthetic Aztecan language spoken by an indigenous people of Mexico.


Anglophone

/ˈæŋɡləˌfəʊn/

/ˈæŋɡləˌfoʊn/

/ˈeɪŋɡləˌfoʊn/

One who speaks English, generally natively.


Murrinh-Patha

The language spoken by these people; Murinypata.


Marshallese

From Marshall (“Marshall Islands”) + -ese.

The Austronesian language of the Marshall Islands.


Meryam Mir

Torres Strait Islands
Torres Strait Islands

The Trans-Fly Papuan language spoken in the eastern Torres Strait Islands.


Kala Lagaw Ya

The Pama-Nyungan language spoken in the western Torres Strait Islands.


Torres Strait Creole

/ˈtɔːɹɛz stɹeɪt ˈkɹiːəʊl/

From Torres Strait + Creole (“language formed from two parent languages”).

af

A creole spoken in the Torres Strait Islands.


Kriol

A creole language widely spoken by Australian Aborigines in Arnhem Land; Roper River creole; Australian Kriol.


Bube

A Bantu language spoken by the Bubi people.


Assamese

The Indo-Aryan language spoken by the majority people in the state of Assam, NE India.


Bengali

en-noun

Bengali (countable and uncountable, plural Bengalis)

Equivalent to Bengal + -i. Compare Assamese বঙালী (boṅali), Bengali বাঙ্গালী (baṅgali), Hindi बंगाली (baṅgālī), Classical Persian بنگالی (bangālī).

(uncountable) A language spoken in Bangladesh and the states of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal, India.

बंगाली भाषा

baṅgālī bhāṣā

बाङ्गला भाषा

bāṅgalā bhāṣā


Bicol

From Spanish Bicol / Vicol (“former province, river (Bicol River), language”), from Bikol Central, see Bikol Central Bicol for more.

The language of the native inhabitants of the region, Bicolano.


Cebuano

/sɛˈbwɑːnəʊ/

From Spanish cebuano, from Cebú (“Cebu”) + -ano (“-an”).

A language spoken in the Philippines in and near the province of Cebu.


Chickasaw

Some place names in the United States:
A city in Mobile County, Alabama.


Gujarati

/ˌɡʊd͡ʒəˈrɑːti/

/ˌɡuːd͡ʒəˈrɑːti/

Borrowed from Gujarati ગુજરાતી (gujrātī).

The Indic language spoken in the state of Gujarat, India


Hopi

From Hopi hopi (“Hopi, good in every respect, be wise/knowing”) (as in Hopituu sinom "Hopi people"). Popularized by J. Walter Fewkes as a replacement for the previously used and offensive name Moqui which sounds like Hopi mooki "dies, be dead".

der

The Uto-Aztecan language spoken by this North American tribe.


Luo

The Nilotic language spoken by this group, also known as Dholuo.


Malayalam

From Malayalam മലയാളം (malayāḷaṁ), from മല (mala, “hill, mountain”) + അളം (aḷaṁ, “place”).

Padmanabhan uttered a command in Malayalam, the regional language.

2012 April 30, Jake Halpern, “The Secret of the Temple”, in The New Yorker:

A Dravidian language spoken in the states of Kerala and Lakshadweep, India.


Marathi

From Marathi मराठी (marāṭhī). Doublet of Maharashtri.

I made a pact with her that she would teach me more Marathi and I could teach her the English alphabet.

2020, Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar, Hamish Hamilton, page 110:

An Indo-Aryan language that is the predominant language spoken in the state of Maharashtra, India.


Mohawk

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From Dutch Mohawk.
An exonym, probably from Narragansett Mohowaúgsuck, Mauquàuog, meaning “they eat (animate things)”, “cannibals”. The phoneme /m/ is not present in the Mohawk language; the Mohawk autonym is Kanien'kehá:ka (Kanienkehaka, Kanyenkehaka).

The Iroquoian language spoken by these North American indigenous people.


Quechua

Spanish, from Quechua qhichwa (literally “temperate valley”).

uder

The Quechuas, a tribe of the Inca people, were Indians of the red race and with an appearance and trait which is distinctly American. “They are”, says Victor W. Von Hagen in his book, Realm of the Incas, “of medium height, and inclined to be thickset, with large hands, small wrists, a disproportionately large chest (developed for breathing at high altitudes), well-developed legs, and wide-spreading feet. They are broad-headed, with high cheekbones, prominent aquiline noses, and small, almond-shaped eyes.” There are still five million of them in the Andes.

1972, Lytle Robinson, chapter 5, in Edgar Cayceʼs Story of the Origin and Destiny of Man, USA: Berkley Publishing Corporation, page 105:

A member of one of several South American ethnic groups that spans Peru, Bolivia, northwestern Argentina, northern Chile, and in Ecuador and southern Colombia.


Quenya

From Noldorin Quenya Quenya, ultimately derived from the Primitive Quendian root *kwene ("person"), being the name for the language invented by J. R. R. Tolkien as the language spoken by the Elves in his books.

A constructed language created by J. R. R. Tolkien modelled on Greek, Latin and Finnish.


Shona

Scottish Anglicized form of Seonag ( =Joan) and an American variant of Shauna.

A female given name from Scottish Gaelic.


Sinhalese

en-noun

Sinhalese (countable and uncountable, plural Sinhalese)

(uncountable) The Indo-Aryan language of the Sinhalese people.

Some of these forms are no longer in current use


Sioux

From French Sioux, shortening of Nadouessioux, from Ojibwe naadawesiwag (“little snakes”), which could refer to the massasauga snake (Sistrurus catenatus), a small rattlesnake.

Various formerly nomadic Native American tribes of the North American Great Plains.


Tamil

Tamil (countable and uncountable, plural Tamils)

Borrowed from Tamil தமிழ் (tamiḻ, “Tamil”); see that entry for theories.

(uncountable) A Dravidian language spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu, India and in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia.


Urdu

Borrowed from Hindustani (see Urdu اُرْدُو (urdū) and Hindi उर्दू (urdū)), from Classical Persian اُرْدُو (urdū), from Proto-Turkic *ordu (“army, camp”) ( > Azerbaijani ordu, Turkish ordu, Turkmen oorda). Doublet of horde and orda.

‘Urdu was born in the barracks a few hundred years ago, and was spoken by soldiers. It gets its grammar from Hindi, and vocabulary from Persian.’

2023, Santanu Bhattacharya, One Small Voice, Fig Tree, page 78:

Modern Standard Urdu, an Indo-Aryan language with native speakers mainly in Pakistan and North India. It is a standardized and Persianized version of Hindustani.


Sinhala

Borrowed from Sinhalese සිංහල (siṁhala), itself borrowed from Sanskrit सिंहल (siṃhala, literally “lionlike”), from सिंह (siṃhá, “lion”) + -ल (-la), recorded as the name of the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from about the 10th to 12th century, but presumably older, as it is also the source of the name Ceylon in western geographic tradition.
The name is sometimes glossed as "abode of lions", referring to a supposed former abundance of lions on the island ( The Asiatic Journal 20 (1836), p. 30). Doublet of Ceylon and Elu.


Khmer

From Khmer ខ្មែរ (khmae).
Attributed to the Pali term khemara (“one who is wholesome”). The elision form, ក្មេរ (kmera), is found in ancient stone inscriptions, or a borrowing from Northern Khmer เขมร (/khmɛːr/).

Despite my mother speaking Khmer to us at home, I hadn’t retained it through my formative years.

2024, Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time, Sceptre, page 6:

The national language of Cambodia, part of the Mon-Khmer language family.

An abugida used to write the Khmer language and sometimes Pali.


Khmer

A member of an ethnolinguistic group that constitutes most of the population of Cambodia.


Khmer

en-adj

Khmer (comparative more Khmer, superlative most Khmer)

more Khmer (comparative)
most Khmer (superlative)

Of or pertaining to the Khmer people or their language.

خِمِيرِيّ

of or pertaining to the Khmer people or their language


Magyar

From Hungarian magyar, from Proto-Ugric *mańćɜ (“man, person”).


Magyar

A Hungarian individual, especially in the sense of an ethnic Hungarian.


Novial

From Novial Nov International Auxiliari Lingue (“New International Auxiliary Language”).

uder

international auxiliary language
international auxiliary language

An international auxiliary language, or interlanguage, published by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen in 1928.


Cherokee

/ˌt͡ʃɛ.ɹəˈkiː/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Cherokee.wav

Most likely from the Cherokee autonym ᏣᎳᎩ (tsalagi). Derivation from a Choctaw exonym meaning "those who live in caves" (compare chiluk (“cave”)) has also been suggested — the Iroquois term for the Cherokee was Oyata'ge'ronon (“inhabitants of the cave country”) — as has derivation from a Creek term for "person(s) who speak(s) a non-Creek language" (see celokketv (“to speak a non-creek language”)).
Whatever its origin, the ethnonym entered European languages at an early date, perhaps as early as the 1670s; in Spanish, the people are called the Tchalaquei as early as 1755.

An unincorporated community in San Saba County, Texas.


rhotic

[ˈɹəʊ̯.tʰɪk]

Back-formation from rhotacism, coined in 1968 by John C. Wells.

Rhotic speech is common in Ireland, Scotland, much of the United States, Canada, West Country England, and many parts of the north and west of England.

Rhotic (or r-ful) dialects are linguistic relics in England, as shown in Map 7-5. Nonrhotic or r-less dialects have been displacing them since the seventeenth century. Among the linguistically most conservative population in England, represented by the NORMs of the SED, both rhotic and nonrhotic dialects are found throughout the country. The fact that the rhotic dialects are relics is indicated on Map 7-5 not by the predominance of nonrhotic dialects, but by the discontinuity of the regions where rhotic dialects are found. A century or so earlier, they covered even more of the country, and the three regions probably formed part of a continuous network.

1998, J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, Dialectology, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 94:

Except for the Southland area, New Zealand English today is non-rhotic (Wells, 1982: 606). Australian, Tristanian and Port Stanley Falkland Islands English are also non-rhotic, as is South African English (except for some people who are native Afrikaans speakers – Wells 1982: 617). This has often been erroneously ascribed (for instance, in Trudgill, 1986a) to the fact that most of England was non-rhotic at the time of the main immigration to New Zealand. It is now obvious that this is not correct at all: of the eighty-four Mobile Unit speakers analysed, an astonishing 92% are rhotic to some degree.

2004, Peter Trudgill, New-Dialect Formation: The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes, Oxford University Press, page 68:

2009, Ingrid Rosenfelder, Rhoticity in educated Jamaican English, Thomas Hoffmann, Licia Siebers, World Englishes – Problems, Properties and Prospects: Selected Papers from the 13th IAWE Conference, John Benjamins Publishing Company,
Contrary to “traditional” descriptions in the literature, Jamaican English cannot be characterized as predominantly rhotic, exhibiting an overall degree of rhoticity of approximately 20 per cent.

(linguistics, of an English accent) That allows the phoneme /ɹ/ even when not followed by a vowel, as in bar (/bɑːɹ/) and bard or barred (/bɑːɹd/); (of an English speaker) who speaks with such an accent.


non-rhotic

/nɒnˈɹəʊtɪk/

In a non-rhotic accent, the word 'sort' can be pronounced like the word 'sought'.

Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation

Of an accent, most often one of English: not pronouncing the written letter "r" unless it is followed by a vowel, as in Received Pronunciation, most other accents of England, the Boston accent, traditional NYC English, many accents of southern Louisiana, Australian English, etc.


Afar

A Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.


Aymara

From Spanish aymara, possibly from Aymara or a Quechuan language. Attested in English since the mid 18th century.

In Potosi, Aymara is spoken in the Llica region, located north of the saltpan, and in the provinces comprising the region known as Norte de Potosi

1988, Xavier Albó, “Bilingualism in Bolivia”, in Christina Bratt Paulston, editor, International Handbook of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, page 97:


Blackfoot

en-noun

Blackfoot (plural Blackfoots or Blackfoot or Blackfeet)

Blackfoots (plural)
Blackfoot (plural)
Blackfeet (plural)

Blackfoot (disambiguation)
Blackfoot Confederacy

Bears and other ferocious beasts resented man's intrusion into their domain; so, too, did the Blackfoot Indians and other tribes, whose savage hostility was a constant menace to the lives of the toiling engineers.

1954 February, Trevor Holloway, “Canada's Transcontinental Routes”, in Railway Magazine, page 128:

A member of a North American confederacy of several tribes.


Blackfoot

The Algonquian language of these people.

A city, the county seat of Bingham County, Idaho, United States.


Chamorro

/t͡ʃəˈmɒɹəʊ/

/t͡ʃəˈmɔɹoʊ/

An Austronesian language spoken by the indigenous native islanders of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.


Amoy

Latin: amoyensis

From the Postal Romanization of Hokkien 廈門 /厦门 (Ēe-mûi), specifically the Zhangzhou Hokkien dialect.


Farsi

Apparently first used widely in English in the late 1960s or early 1970s. From Persian فارسی (fârsi), meaning "relating to Fars", the Arabicized form of the name of the province of Pars (Early Classical Persian پارس (pārs)) which was adopted in Iran following the Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century. The sense for the hijra argot is from Hindi फ़ारसी (fārsī) from the same word.

That the Farsi or Persian is not a language derived from the Pehlevi, but a collateral and independent tongue, seems to be sufficiently certain.

1820, William Erskine, “On the sacred books and religion of the Parsis”, in Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, volume II, page 315:

In July 1984, Radio Iran Toilers began broadcasting in Farsi from Afghanistan; by the end of 1988 it was transmitting twenty-one hours a week.

1991, Richard Felix Staar, Foreign Policies of the Soviet Union, page 91:

The method of writing Farsi is logical, although reading can be trickier, as one has to guess at the unwritten consonants of unfamiliar words.

1999, Maria O'Shea, Culture shock! Iran, page 75:

We chatted away in Farsi.

2001, Dan Baumann, Imprisoned in Iran: Love's Victory Over Fear, page 20:

For instance, in Farsi pošt means 'back' (noun) as in pošt=am dard mikonad 'my back hurts' […]

2009, Vit Bubenik, "The rise and development of the possessive construction in Middle Iranian with parallels in Albanian", page 97 in Grammatical Change in Indo-European Languages, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 305


Adi

A diminutive of the female given name Aditi


Inuktitut

Transliteration of Inuktitut ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ (inoktitot, “like the Inuit”).

translit

I can hear a swell of laughter and boisterous merriment in Inuktitut.

2018, Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth, And Other Stories (2023), page 46:


katakana

en-noun

katakana (countable and uncountable, plural katakana or katakanas)

/ˌkætəˈkænə/

/ˌkætəˈkɑːnə/

/ˌkɑtəˈkɑːnə/

(uncountable) A Japanese syllabary used when writing words borrowed from foreign languages other than Chinese, specific names of plants and animals and other jargon, onomatopoeia, or to emphasize a word or phrase. Also used to write the Ainu language.


Kongo

A Bantu language (or family of languages) of Central Africa.


Lombard

en-proper noun

Lombard (countable and uncountable, plural Lombards)

From Middle English Lombard, Lumbard, borrowed from Old French Lombard, Lombart (“a Lombard”), from Late Latin langobardus, longobardus (“a Lombard”), from Germanic, derived from the Proto-Germanic elements *langaz + *bardaz; equivalent to long + beard. Some sources derive the second element instead from Proto-Germanic *bardǭ, *barduz (“axe”), related to German Barte (“axe”). Doublet of Langobard. Compare longbeard. Compare with Old English Langbeardas (“Lombards”).

Broadwater County
Broadwater County#English

A ghost town in Broadwater County, Montana, United States, named after A. G. Lombard.


Luganda

/luːˈɡɑːndə/

Then it dawned on her. He did not know any Luganda. All along he had not understood a word she had said.

2020, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, The First Woman, Oneworld Publications, page 48:

A Bantu language spoken mostly in Uganda.