Homework 5

This Homework is on a major religion or language.

Choose one of the major religions or languages presented in Chapter 8 of the textbook.

• Provide a summary of the origins and diffusion of that religion or language.
• Describe the geographic locations where that religion or language is prevalent today.

TABLE 8-1 The World’s Largest Languages Rank Language Number of First-Language Speakers in Millions Primary Country Countries Where Spoken  1 Chinese (all versions) 1,197 China 33  2 Spanish   406 Spain 31  3 English   335 United Kingdom 101  4 Hindi   260 India 4  5 Arabic (all versions)   223 Saudi Arabia 59  6 Portuguese   202 Portugal 11  7 Bengali   193 Bangladesh 4  8 Russian   162 Russian Federation 16  9 Japanese   122 Japan 3 10 Javanese    84.3 Indonesia 3 11 German, Standard    83.8 Germany 18 12 Lahnda (all versions)    82.7 Pakistan 7 13 Telugu    74 India 2 14 Marathi    71.8 India 1 15 Tamil    68.8 India 6 16 French    68.5 France 51 17 Vietnamese    67.8 Vietnam 3 18 Korean    66.4 South Korea 6 19 Urdu    63.4 Pakistan 6 20 Italian    61.1 Italy 10 21 Malay (all versions)    59.4 Malaysia 13 22 Persian (all versions)    56.6 Iran 29 23 Turkish    50.7 Turkey 8 24 Oriya (all versions)    50.1 India 3