Russian (русский язык, transliteration: russkiy yazyk, Russian) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or, according to some authorities, four) living members of the East Slavic languages, the others being Belarusian and Ukrainian (and possibly Rusyn, often considered a dialect of Ukrainian).

Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards. Today Russian is widely used outside Russia. Over a quarter of the world’s scientific literature is published in Russian. It is also applied as a means of coding and storage of universal knowledge — 60–70% of all world information is published in English and Russian languages. Russian also is a necessary accessory of world communications systems (broadcasts, air- and space communication, etc). Due to the status of the Soviet Union as a superpower, Russian had great political importance in the 20th century. Hence, the language is one of the official languages of the United Nations.

Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels, which is not entirely unlike that of English. Stress in Russian is neither indicated orthographically, nor governed by phonological rules.

Official Language of: Abkhazia (Georgia), Belarus, Crimea (de facto; Ukraine), Gagauzia (Moldova), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, South Ossetia (Georgia), Transnistria (Moldova)

Total number of speakers: 255 million

For additional information about the Japanese Language, please click here.

The German language (Deutsch) is a West Germanic language and one of the world’s major languages. German is closely related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by ~100 million native speakers and also ~80 million non-native speakers, and Standard German is widely taught in schools and universities in Europe.

Official Language of: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and in some border areas, Belgium and Italy as a minority language.

Total Number of Speakers: 170 million</p

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French (français) is today spoken by about 350 million people around the world as either a native or a second language, with significant populations in 54 countries.

French is a descendant of the Latin of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Romanian. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

It is an official language in 31 countries, most of which form what is called in French La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations.

Official Language of: Africa, Europe, Americas, Pacific, isolated regions of Asia

Total number of speakers: 365 – 500 million

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Italian (italiano , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino. It is also widely spoken in Vatican City, although Latin is the official language. Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan and is somewhat intermediate between Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and Northern Italian dialects of the North.

Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Of the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be one of the closest resembling Latin in terms of vocabulary, though Romanian most closely preserves the noun declension system of Classical Latin, and Spanish the verb conjugation system (see Old Latin), while Sardinian is the most conservative in terms of phonology.

It is affectionately called il parlar gentile (the gentle language) by its speakers.

Official Language of: Italy, San Marino, Slovenia, Switzerland, Croatia, Vatican City

Total number of speakers: 110-120 million

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Japanese (日本語 / にほんご , Nihongo (help·info)?) is a language spoken by over 140 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities around the world. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of speaker and listener. The sound inventory of Japanese is relatively small, and has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system.

The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: Chinese characters called kanji (漢字 / かんじ), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮名 / ひらがな) and katakana (片仮名 / カタカナ). The Latin alphabet, rōmaji (ローマ字), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when inputting Japanese into a computer. Western style Arabic numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.

Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly Holland in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.

Official Language of: Japan

Total number of speakers: 130 million

For additional information about the Japanese Language, please click here.

Hello, I just started working on my first Rails project. Well, it’s not really my own project as I am using some kind of a manual. A book called Rails Solutions: Ruby on Rails Made Easy, written by Justin Williams. The book teaches you rails while building a Craigslist clone.The book is supposed to be for beginners of rails but from my experience I think you really need to first have had a basic course in rails and then use that book. There are so many things that the author doesn’t explain in depth, it’s like just skimming through. The first time I read the book I couldn’t understand why I had to write most of these codes, so I gave up at the 8th chapter (I don’t think I understood anything that came before that). I read other books after that then I went back to it, and kazaam, everything was much clearer. Anyway, the reason I am writing this is that I have almost finished the project (railslist, instead of craigslist) and if anyone else has had to go through the same tutorial, do not hesitate to share your experience with me. Maybe we both have seen something that the other hasn’t.  Also, anyone interested in a Craigslist clone, contact me. I will be happy to give you the fully finished script.