e.g. Chinese, Korean, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog
These
languages are well supported on the web and also in print
software, despite a variety of scripts. Typesetting can be
complicated with unusual scripts and fonts. There are
specific rules for things such as line breaks and the way
that sentences are constructed and these do vary from
language to language.
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e.g. Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, Kurmanji, Sorani, Dari
Arabic,
Farsi, Hebrew and Sorani are all languages that are written
from right to left. They pose a special problem in print and
on the web because of this. Special software and fonts are
required to be able to produce documents ready for printing
and we have to create special templates in order to produce
materials such as brochures.
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e.g. Russian, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian
The
Languages of Eastern Europe are written in one of two
scripts. Some, such as Russian and Bulgarian, are written in
the Cyrillic script. Some of the other languages are written
in the Latin script. The Latin based languages use a large
array of diacritics (different accents on characters), which
are often unique to a single language, and can be difficult
to reproduce accurately when typesetting a document.
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e.g. Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil
Font issues and the lack of international encoding standards
make the Indian languages difficult to represent in print
and on the web. Urdu, for example, is a language that, like
Arabic, reads from right to left, and therefore requires
special software to handle it. The six languages listed
above are the main languages from the Indian sub-continent,
that are spoken in the UK.
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e.g. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish.
These languages pose no special problems when it comes to producing
web or printed materials. English, French, German and Spanish
are widely used outside of Europe, in Africa, America, Asia,
but there are regional differences.
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There are differing views on the number of people speaking each language. The list below is for the top spoken languages, as a first or second language. The geographic area of usage of each language does vary significantly, and is changing as people emigrate.
| Language |
Main Regions of Usage |
| Chinese |
China, Cambodia, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Taiwan
|
| English |
Many countries around the
world
|
| Spanish |
Many countries, including
countries in South America, USA, Spain and North Africa
|
| Arabic |
Throughout the Middle East
and North Africa
|
| Bengali |
Bangladesh, India and
Singapore
|
| Hindi |
India, Nepal and Singapore
|
| Russian |
Many countries in Eastern
Europe
|
| Portuguese |
Brazil, Guinea-Bissau,
Mozambique and Portugal
|
| Japanese |
Japan, Singapore and Taiwan
|
| German |
Austria, Germany and
Switzerland are the main ones
|
| Korean |
Countries in East Asia such
as China, Japan, N. Korea, S. Korea, Singapore and
Thailand
|
| French |
Countries such as Belgium,
Canada, France, Switzerland and some countries in Africa
|
| Turkish |
Bulgaria, Cyprus,
Macedonia, Romania and Turkey
|
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