United Kingdom

Flag of the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.

Royal Coat
of Arms
of the UK

The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved national administrations, each with varying powers, situated in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh; the capitals of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland respectively. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.

The UK is a developed country and has the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and seventh-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It was the world's first industrialised country and the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The UK remains a great power with leading economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence. It is a recognised nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks third or fourth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946; it is also a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the G7, the G8, the G20, NATO, the OECD and the World Trade Organization.

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British/English Proverbs

Action

¶ The shortest answer is doing.

Advice

¶ A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

¶ Do as you would be done by.

¶ It never rains but it pours.

¶ One man sows and another man reaps.

¶ One rotten apple spoils the barrel.

¶ Spare the rod and spoil the child.

¶ Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Beauty

¶ A rose is sweeter in the bud than full blown.

Care

¶ Care killed the cat.

Cat

¶ A cat has nine lives.

Change

¶ A new broom sweeps clean.
- Someone new takes control of an organization and makes many changes.

Children·Youth

¶ Children are a poor man's riches.

Endeavor

¶ Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Failure

¶ A small leak will sink a great ship.

Friends

¶ A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Health

¶ An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

July

¶ If the first of July be rainy weather, It will rain, more of less, for four weeks together.

Happiness

¶ If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden; if you want to be happy for life, plant a tree.

Knowledge·Wisdom

¶ We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.

Money

¶ Drop by drop fills the tub.

Time

¶ Time flies like an arrow.

Wisdom

¶ All is not gold that glitters.

Writing·Reading

¶ Do not judge a book by its cover.

Youth

¶ An idle youth，a needy age.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk
United Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
England and English

Russia

Russia

Russia i/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə]), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə]), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects.

From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the U.S. state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the ninth most populous nation with 143 million people as of 2012. Extending across the whole of northern Asia and most of eastern Europe, Russia spans nine time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.

The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs, who emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde, and came to dominate the cultural and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America.

Following the Russian Revolution, Russia became the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world's first constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower, which played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world's first human spaceflight. The Russian Federation was founded following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Soviet state.

The Russian economy is the world's ninth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity, with the 3rd largest nominal military budget. Russia is one of the world's fastest growing major economies. It is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Russia is a great power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

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Russian Proverb

Beauty

¶ A fair is a skin's deep.

Friend

¶ An enemy will agree, but a friend will argue.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia

Norway

Norway

Norway i/ˈnɔrweɪ/ (Norwegian: Norge (Bokmål) or Noreg (Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of about 4.99 million. It is the second least densely populated country in Europe. The majority of the country shares a border to the east with Sweden; its northernmost region is bordered by Finland to the south and Russia to the east; in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait across from Denmark. The capital city of Norway is Oslo. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is home to its famous fjords.

Two centuries of Viking raids tapered off following the adoption of Christianity by King Olav Tryggvason in 994. A period of civil war ended in the 13th century when Norway expanded its control overseas to parts of the British Isles, Iceland, and Greenland. Norwegian territorial power peaked in 1265, but competition from the Hanseatic League and the spread of the Black Death weakened the country. In 1380, Norway was absorbed into a union with Denmark that lasted more than four centuries. In 1814, Norwegians resisted the cession of their country to Sweden and adopted a new constitution. Sweden then invaded Norway but agreed to let Norway keep its constitution in return for accepting the union under a Swedish king. Rising nationalism throughout the 19th century led to a 1905 referendum granting Norway independence. Although Norway remained neutral in World War I, it suffered heavy losses to its shipping. Norway proclaimed its neutrality at the outset of World War II, but was nonetheless occupied for five years by the Third Reich. In 1949, neutrality was abandoned and Norway became a founding member of NATO. Discovery of oil and gas in adjacent waters in the late 1960s boosted Norway's economic fortunes. In referenda held in 1972 and 1994, Norway rejected joining the EU. Key domestic issues include immigration and integration of ethnic minorities, maintaining the country's extensive social safety net with an aging population, and preserving economic competitiveness.

Norway is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, with King Harald V as its head of state and Jens Stoltenberg as its prime minister. It is a unitary state with administrative subdivisions on two levels known as counties (fylke) and municipalities (kommuner). The Sámi people have a certain amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Act. Although having rejected European Union membership in two referenda, Norway maintains close ties with the union and its member countries, as well as with the United States. Norway remains one of the biggest financial contributors to the United Nations, and participates with UN forces in international missions, notably in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Sudan and Libya. Norway is a founding member of the United Nations, NATO, the Council of Europe, and the Nordic Council; a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO, and the OECD; and is also a part of Schengen Area.

Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, fresh water, and hydropower. On a per-capita basis, it is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside the Middle East, and the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product. The country maintains a Nordic welfare model with universal health care, subsidized higher education, and a comprehensive social security system. From 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 through 2011, Norway has had the highest human development index ranking in the world.

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Norwegian Proverbs

Food·Dieting

¶ Cookies are made of butter and love.

Hero

¶ Heroism consists in hanging on one minute longer.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan (i/ˌkɑːzəkˈstɑːn/ or /ˌkæzəkˈstæn/) (Kazakh: Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, قازاقستان, pronounced [qɑzɑqstɑ́n]; Russian: Казахстан [kəzɐxˈstan]), officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country in Central Asia and Europe. The ninth largest country in the world by land area, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq mi) is larger than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. Although Kazakhstan does not share a border with Mongolia, its most easterly point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Mongolia's western tip. The terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.6 million people (2011 estimate) Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 per sq. mi.). The capital was moved in 1998 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana.

Kazakhstan is one of the Turkic states.

For most of its history, the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan has been inhabited by nomadic tribes. By the 16th century, the Kazakhs emerged as a distinct group, divided into three Jüz. The Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century all of Kazakhstan was part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganized several times before becoming the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936, a part of the USSR.

Kazakhstan declared itself an independent country on December 16, 1991, the last Soviet republic to do so. Its communist-era leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, became the country's first president, a position he retains today. President Nazarbayev maintains strict control over the country's politics. Since independence, Kazakhstan has pursued a balanced foreign policy and worked to develop its economy, especially its hydrocarbon industry. The post-Soviet era has also been characterized by increased involvement with many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Kazakhstan is also one of six post-Soviet states who have implemented an Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO.

Kazakhstan is ethnically and culturally diverse, in part due to mass deportations of many ethnic groups to the country during Joseph Stalin's rule. Kazakhstan has a population of 16.6 million, with 131 ethnicities, including Kazakh, Russian, Ukrainian, German, Uzbek, Tatar, and Uyghur. Around 63% percent of the population are Kazakhs. Kazakhstan allows freedom of religion, and many different beliefs are represented in the country. Islam is the religion of about 70.2% while Christianity is practiced by 26.2% of the population. The Kazakh language is the state language, while Russian is also officially used as an equal language to Kazakh in Kazakhstan's public institutions. Under the leadership of Nursultan Nazarbayev, which can be termed enlightened authoritarianism, the Republic of Kazakhstan has enacted some degrees of multiculturalism in order to retain and attract talents from diverse ethnic groups among its citizenry, and even from nations that are developing ties of cooperation with the country, in order to coordinate human resources onto the state-guided path of global market economic participation. This notable principle of the Kazakh leadership has earned it the name "Singapore of the Steppes", referring to the authoritarian capitalist guiding principle initiated by Lee Kuan Yew.

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Republic of Kazakhstan
Қазақстан Республикасы
Qazaqstan Respublïkası
Республика Казахстан
Respublika Kazakhstan

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazahkstan

Japan (日本) and Japanese

Japan (日本)

Japan i/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together comprising about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. Honshū's Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected legislature called the Diet.

A major economic power, Japan has the world's third-largest economy by nominal GDP and fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the world's fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military force used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. After Singapore, Japan has the lowest homicide rate (including attempted homicide) in the world. According to both UN and WHO estimates, Japan has the second highest life expectancy of any country in the world. According to the United Nations, Japan also has the third lowest infant mortality rate.

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Japanese Proverb

Advice

¶ Don't stay long when the husband is not at home.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

Italy and Italians

Flag
of Italy

Italy

Italy i/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, whilst Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.

Emblem
of Italy

Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.

Through much of its post-Roman history, Italy was fragmented into numerous city and regional states (such as the Republic of Venice and the Church State), but was unified in 1861, following a tumultuous period in history known as "Il Risorgimento" ("The Resurgence"). In the late 19th century, through World War I, and to World War II, Italy possessed a colonial empire, which extended its rule to Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Albania, the Dodecanese and a concession in Tianjin, China.

Modern Italy is a democratic republic. It has been ranked as the world's 24th most-developed country and its Quality-of-life index has been ranked in the world's top ten. Italy enjoys a very high standard of living, and has a high nominal GDP per capita. It is a founding member of what is now the European Union and part of the Eurozone. Italy is also a member of the G8, G20 and NATO. It has the world's third-largest gold reserves, eighth-largest nominal GDP, tenth highest GDP (PPP) and the sixth highest government budget in the world. It is also a member state of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Council of Europe, the Western European Union and the United Nations. Italy has the world's ninth-largest defence budget and shares NATO's nuclear weapons.

Italy plays a prominent role in European and global military, cultural and diplomatic affairs. The country's European political, social and economic influence make it a major regional power. The country has a high public education level and is a highly globalised nation.

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Italians

Italians (Italian: italiani) are the citizens or native-born people of Italy; or people of descent to the ethnic and ethnolinguistic group associated with the Italian language.

In 2010, in addition to about 56 million Italians in Italy, Italian-speaking autonomous groups are found in neighboring countries: about 500,000 in Switzerland, a large population in France,[6] and smaller groups in Slovenia and Croatia, primarily in Istria and Dalmatia. Because of wide-ranging diaspora, about 5 million Italian citizens and nearly 80 million people of full or part Italian ancestry live outside of Italy, most notably in South America, North America, Australia and parts of Europe.

Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to science, arts, technology, cuisine, sports and banking[7] abroad and worldwide.[8] Italian people are generally known for their localism, both regionalist and municipalist,[9] attention to clothing and family values.[10]

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Italian language

Italian ( italiano (help·info) or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia,[3] and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardised Italian and other regional languages.[4]

According to the Bologna statistics of the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 59 million people in the EU (13% of the EU population), mainly in Italy, and as a second language by 14 million (3%).[2] Including the Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland and Albania) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is more than 85 million.

In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages; it is studied and learned in all the confederation schools and spoken, as mother language, in the Swiss cantons of Ticino and Grigioni and by the Italian immigrants that are present in large numbers in German- and French-speaking cantons. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City.[5] It is co-official in Slovenian Istria and in Istria County in Croatia. The Italian language adopted by the state after the unification of Italy is based on Tuscan, which beforehand was a language spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society.[6] Its development was also influenced by other Italian languages and by the Germanic languages of the post-Roman invaders.

Italian is descended from Latin. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latin's contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. In particular, among the Romance languages, Italian is the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary.[7]

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Italian Proverb·Sayings

Advice

¶ After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box.

¶ After the ship has sunk, everyone knows how it might have been saved.

¶ The best armor is to keep out of range.

Language

¶ Translators, traitors.

Money

¶ Money is money's brother.

Poison

¶ Poison quells poison.

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Notes

Italians

[6]^ Cohen, Robin (1995). The Cambridge survey of world migration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 142–144. ISBN 0-521-44405-5.
[7]^ Macesich, George (2000). Issues in Money and Banking. United States: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 42. ISBN 0-275-96777-8.
[8]^ Michael Barone (2 September 2010). "The essence of Italian culture and the challenge of the global age". Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Retrieved 22 September 2012.
[9]^ Keating, Michael (2004). Regions and regionalism in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 378. ISBN 1-84376-127-0.
[10]^ "Italian family and culture". Syracuse University in Florence. Retrieved 22 September 2012.

Italian language

[2]^ a b c d Eurobarometer – Europeans and their languages PDF (485 KB), February 2006
[3]^ a b c d Ethnologue report for language code:ita (Italy) – Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the [4]World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version
[5]^ Languages of Italy - Ethnologue - Languages of the World - Copyright © 2010 SIL International.
[6]^ Legge sulle fonti del diritto of 7 June 1929, laws and regulations are published in the Italian-language Supplemento per le leggi e disposizioni dello Stato della Città del Vaticano attached to the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.
[7]^ Modern Italian The Italian Language Retrieved 2010-05-16
[8]^ a b Grimes, Barbara F. (October 1996). Barbara F. Grimes. ed. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Consulting Editors: Richard S. Pittman & Joseph E. Grimes (thirteenth ed.). Dallas, Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Academic Pub. ISBN 1-55671-026-7.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language

France and French people

Flag

France and French people

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France

France (English i/ˈfræns/ franss or /ˈfrɑːns/ frahnss; French: [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française French pronunciation: ​[ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic located mostly in Western Europe,[note 12] with several overseas regions and territories. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. From its shape, it is often referred to in French as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon").

National
Emblem
(unofficial)

France is the largest country in Western Europe and the third-largest in Europe as a whole. It possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military, and political influence in Europe and around the world.[6] France has its main ideals expressed in the 18th-century Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second-largest colonial empire of the time, ruling large portions of first North America and India and then Northwest and Central Africa; Madagascar; Indochina and southeast China; and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.

France is a developed country,[7] possessing the world's fifth-largest and Europe's second-largest economy by nominal GDP. It is also the world's ninth-largest by GDP at purchasing power parity.[8] France is the wealthiest nation in Europe – and the fourth-wealthiest in the world – in aggregate household wealth.[9] French citizens enjoy a high standard of living, high public education level, and one of the world's longest life expectancies.[10] France has been listed as the world's "best overall health care" provider by the World Health Organization.[11] It is the most-visited country in the world, receiving 79.5 million foreign tourists annually.[12]

France has the world's fifth-largest nominal military budget,[13] as well as (in terms of personnel) the largest military in the EU,[citation needed] the third-largest deployable force in NATO, and the 26th-largest military in the world. France also possesses the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world[14] – with around 300 active warheads as of 25 May 2010 – and the world's second-largest diplomatic corps (behind the United States).[15] France is a founding member of the United Nations, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and a member of the Francophonie, the G8, G20, NATO, OECD, WTO, and the Latin Union. It is also a founding and leading member state of the European Union and the largest EU state by area.[16] In 2013, France was listed 20th on the Human Development Index and, in 2010, 24th on the Corruption Perceptions Index.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France

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French people

The French (French: Français) are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups. Within France, the French are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence.[27]
However, the word can also refer to people of French descent who are found in other countries, with significant French-speaking population groups or not, such as Canada (French Canadians), United States (French Americans), Argentina (French Argentines), United Kingdom (French British), Brazil (French Brazilians) and French West Indies (French Caribbean), and some of them have a French cultural identity.[28][29]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_people

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French language

French (le français [lə fʁɑ̃sɛ] ( listen) or la langue française [la lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛz]) is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick (Acadia region) in Canada, the U.S. state of Maine, the Acadiana region of the U.S. state of Louisiana, and by various communities elsewhere. Other speakers of French, who often speak it as a second language,[3] are distributed throughout many parts of the world, the largest numbers of whom reside in Francophone Africa.[4] In Africa, French is most commonly spoken in Gabon (where 80% report fluency),[4] Mauritius (78%), Algeria (75%), Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire (70%). French is estimated as having 110 million[3] native speakers and 190 million more second language speakers.[5]

French is a descendant of the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Lombard, Catalan, Sicilian and Sardinian. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in Belgium, which French has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian.

French is an official language in 29 countries, most of which form la francophonie (in French), the community of French-speaking countries. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations. According to France's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, 77 million in Europe speak French natively. Outside of France, the highest numbers of French speakers are found in Belgium (45% of the population), Switzerland (20% of the population) and Luxembourg. In 2013, the Ministry identified French as the second most spoken language in Europe, after German and before English.[6] Twenty percent of non-Francophone Europeans know how to speak French,[clarification needed] totaling roughly 145.6 million people in Europe alone.[7] As a result of extensive colonial ambitions of France and Belgium (at that time governed by a French-speaking elite), between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to colonies in the Americas, Africa, Polynesia, the Levant, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean.

According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la francophonie, French speakers will number approximately 500 million people in 2025 and 650 million people, or approximately 7% of the world's population by 2050.[8][9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language

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French Proverbs

Advice

¶ Rome was not built in a day.

Fire

¶ Fire is put out by fire.

Hero

¶ No man is a hero to his valet.

Knowledge

¶ Knowledge finds its price.

Life

¶ Man proposes and God disposes.

Love

¶ He has a very hard heart that does not love in May.

¶ Love makes time pass; time makes love pass.

¶ To love is to choose.

Self-discipline

¶ He who can lick can bite.

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References

France

[6]^ "Great Powers – Encarta. MSN. 2008". Webcitation.org. Retrieved 22 June 2012.
[7]^ Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development. Human Development Report 2009. the United Nations Development Programme. New York. ISBN 978-0-230-23904-3
[8]^ Field listing – GDP (official exchange rate), CIA World Factbook
[9]^ Credit Suisse 2010's Global Wealth Report "In euro and USD terms, the total wealth of French households is very sizeable. Although it has just 1.1% of the world's adults, France ranks fourth among nations in aggregate household wealth – behind China and just ahead of Germany. Europe as a whole accounts for 35% of the individuals in the global top 1%, but France itself contributes a quarter of the European contingent."
[10]^ "World Population Prospects – The 2006 Revision" (PDF). UN. Retrieved 27 April 2010.
[11]^ "World Health Organization Assesses the World's Health Systems". Who.int. 8 December 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
[12]^ a b "UNWTO Highlights" (PDF). United Nations World Tourism Organization. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
[13]^ a b "SIPRI Yearbook 2012 - 15 countries with the highest military expenditure in 2011". Sipri.org. Retrieved 2013-04-25.
[14]^ "Federation of American Scientists : Status of World Nuclear Forces". Fas.org. 26 May 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
[15]^ "France-Diplomatie". Diplomatie.gouv.fr. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
[16]^ a b France on Europa Official Site

French people

[27]^ a b c "France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion", Constitution of 4 October 1958
[28]^ Alexandra Hughes, Alex Hughes, Keith A Reader, Keith Reader -Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture - p 232. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
[29]^ Countries and Their Cultures French Canadians - everyculture.com Retrieved 12 April 2013.

French language

[3]^ a b c d "L’aménagement linguistique dans le monde". CEFAN (Chaire pour le développement de la recherché sur la culture d’expression française en Amérique du Nord, Université Laval (in French). Jacques Leclerc. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
[4]^ a b c d (French) La Francophonie dans le monde 2006–2007 published by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Nathan, Paris, 2007.
[5]^ a b The World's 10 Most Influential Languages Top Languages. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
[6]^ "The status of French in the world". France Diplomatie. Ministère des Affaires étrangères. 2013. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
[7]^ "Why learn French". Canadian Parents For French (Ontario). Retrieved 21 April 2010.
[8]^ "Agora: La francophonie de demain". Retrieved 13 June 2011.
[9]^ "Bulletin de liaison du réseau démographie". Retrieved 14 June 2011.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language

England and English

England and English

England

England (i/ˈɪŋɡlənd/) is the most populous country in the United Kingdom.[5][6][7] It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world.[8] The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations.[9] The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation.[10]

England's terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north (for example, the mountainous Lake District, Pennines, and Yorkshire Dales) and in the south west (for example, Dartmoor and the Cotswolds). The former capital of England was Winchester until replaced by London in 1066. Today London is the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures.[nb 3] England's population is about 53 million, around 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, and is largely concentrated in London, the South East and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century. Meadowlands and pastures are found beyond the major cities.

The Kingdom of England—which after 1284 included Wales—was a sovereign state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain.[11][12] In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, the Irish Free State was established as a separate dominion, but the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 reincorporated into the kingdom six Irish counties to officially create the current United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England

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English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is a country of the United Kingdom, and English people in England are British Citizens. Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, Germanic peoples who migrated to Great Britain after the fifth century AD.[7]

Historically, the English population is descended from several genetically similar peoples—the earlier Britons (or Brythons), the Germanic tribes that settled in the region, including Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, who founded what was to become England (from the Old English Englaland), and the later Danes, Normans and other groups. Following the Act of Union in 1707, in which the Kingdom of England became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain,[8] English customs and identity became closely aligned with British customs and identity.

Today, some English people have recent forbears from other parts of the United Kingdom, while some are also descended from more recent immigrants from other European countries and from the Commonwealth.

The English people are the source of the English language, the parliamentary system, the common law system and numerous major sports. These and other English cultural characteristics have spread worldwide, in part as a result of the former British Empire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people

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English language

English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the most widely used language in the world.[4] It is spoken as a first language by the majority populations of several sovereign states, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and a number of Caribbean nations. It is the third-most-common native language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[5] It is widely learned as a second language and is an official language of the European Union, many Commonwealth countries and the United Nations, as well as in many world organisations.

English arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and what is now southeast Scotland. Following the extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 17th century to the mid-20th century, through the British Empire, and also of the United States since the mid-20th century,[6][7][8][9] it has been widely propagated around the world, becoming the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions.[10][11]

Historically, English originated from the fusion of closely related dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic settlers (Anglo-Saxons) by the 5th century – with the word English being derived from the name of the Angles,[12] and ultimately from their ancestral region of Angeln (in what is now Schleswig-Holstein). A significant number of English words are constructed on the basis of roots from Latin, because Latin in some form was the lingua franca of the Christian Church and of European intellectual life.[13] The language was further influenced by the Old Norse language because of Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries.

The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French, and vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the appearance of a close relationship with Romance languages[14][15] to what had then become Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift that began in the south of England in the 15th century is one of the historical events that mark the emergence of Modern English from Middle English.

Owing to the assimilation of words from many other languages throughout history, modern English contains a very large vocabulary, with complex and irregular spelling, particularly of vowels. Modern English has not only assimilated words from other European languages, but from all over the world. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 250,000 distinct words, not including many technical, scientific, and slang terms.[16][17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

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English Proverbs

Endeavor

¶ Many a man has turned and left the dock just before his ship come in.

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Notes

England

[nb 3]^ According to the European Statistical Agency, London is the largest Larger Urban Zone which uses conurbations and areas of high population as its definition. A ranking of population within municipal boundaries places London first. However, the University of Avignon in France claims that Paris is first and London second when including the whole urban area and hinterland, that is the outlying cities as well.

[5]^ Office for National Statistics. "The Countries of the UK". statistics.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
[6]^ "Countries within a country". number-10.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 9 February 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
[7]^ "Changes in the list of subdivision names and code elements (Page 11)" (PDF). International Organization for Standardization. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
[8]^ "England – Culture". britainusa.com. Archived from the original on 16 May 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
[9]^ "Country profile: United Kingdom". BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk). 26 October 2009. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
[10]^ "Industrial Revolution". Ace.mmu.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
[11]^ William E. Burns, A Brief History of Great Britain, p. xxi
[12]^ Acts of Union 1707 parliament.uk. Retrieved 27 January 2011

English people

[7]^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
[8]^ "Act of Union 1707". parliament.uk. Retrieved 26 August 2010.

English language

[4]^ Seth Mydans (14 May 2007) "Across cultures, English is the word" New York Times. Retrieved 21 September 2011
[5]^ a b "Ethnologue, 1999". Archived from the original on 29 April 1999. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
[6]^ Ammon, pp. 2245–2247.
[7]^ Schneider, p. 1.
[8]^ Mazrui, p. 21.
[9]^ Howatt, pp. 127–133.
[10]^ Crystal, pp. 87–89.
[11]^ Wardhaugh, p. 60.
[12]^ "English – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com. 25 April 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
[13]^ a b Daniel Weissbort (2006). "Translation: theory and practice : a historical reader". p.100. Oxford University Press, 2006
[14]^ "Words on the brain: from 1 million years ago?". History of language. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
[15]^ Albert C. Baugh & Thomas Cable (1978). "Latin Influences on Old English". An excerpt from Foreign Influences on Old English. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
[16]^ "How many words are there in the English Language?". Oxforddictionaries.com.
[17]^ "Vista Worldwide Language Statistics". Vistawide.com. Retrieved 31 October 2010.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
England and English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk
United Kingdom

Navajo Nation

Navajo Nation

The Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Bináhásdzo) is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering 27,425 square miles (71,000 km2), occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah and northwestern New Mexico. It is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States.

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Proverb

Family·Parenting

¶ A man can't get rich if he takes proper care of his family.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_people

Belgium

Belgium

Belgium (i/ˈbɛldʒəm/ BEL-jəm), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi), and it has a population of about 11 million people. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish (about 60%), and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons (about 40%), plus a small group of German-speakers. Belgium's two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.

Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, which used to cover a somewhat larger area than the current Benelux group of states. The region was called Belgica in Latin because of the Roman province Gallia Belgica which covered more or less the same area. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, it was a prosperous centre of commerce and culture. From the 16th century until the Belgian Revolution in 1830, when Belgium seceded from the Netherlands, many battles between European powers were fought in the area of Belgium, causing it to be dubbed the battleground of Europe, a reputation strengthened by both World Wars.

Upon its independence, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. The second half of the 20th century was marked by the rise of contrasts between the Flemish and the Francophones fuelled by differences of language and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This ongoing antagonism has caused far-reaching reforms, changing the formerly unitary Belgian state into a federal state, and a long period of political instability.

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Belgian Proverb

Anticipation

¶ It is no use to wait for your ship to come in, unless you have sent one out.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium