Languages of Asia

There is a wide variety of languages spoken throughout Asia, comprising a number of families and some unrelated isolates. Asian languages usually have a long tradition of writing, but not always.

Language groups

The major families in terms of numbers are Indo-European in South Asia and Sino-Tibetan in East Asia. Several other families are regionally dominant.

Sino-Tibetan

Sino-Tibetan includes Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, and numerous languages of the Tibetan Plateau, southern China, Burma, and North east India.

Indo-European

The Indo-European family is represented by the Indic branch, which includes Sindhi, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and many other languages of India (Assamese, Bengali etc.), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives; the Iranian branch, which includes Persian, Pashto, and other languages of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia; the Slavic branch, which includes Russian in Siberia; Greek around the Black Sea; and Armenian; as well as extinct languages such as Hittite of Anatolia and Tocharian of (Chinese) Turkestan.

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Languages_of_Asia

Latest News for: Asian languages

Spotlight: "Crazy Rich Asians" clocks in with a crazy opening weekend

Xinhua 18 Aug 2018

To put that in context, the lifetime total of another well-known, all-Asian cast film, "Farewell My Concubine," Miramax's Oscar-nominated, Mandarin-language 1993 release, grossed only 5 million dollars across its entire 8-week lifespan in theaters ... Not since Disney's Buena Vista release of "Joy Luck Club" twenty-five years ago has a Hollywood studio produced an English-language film with an all-Asian cast ... crazy rich Asians!"....

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MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ a fun, honest, touching comedy

Times-Tribune 18 Aug 2018

CRAZY RICH ASIANS ... The same studio (Warner Bros.) that brought you “The Meg” is trying something completely different with “Crazy Rich Asians,” a (mostly) English language romantic comedy set (mostly) in Asia with an all-Asian cast ... Studios have made comedies geared towards the Latino and African-American audiences for a while now, so tapping the ultra-ripe domestic Asian market makes all kinds of sense....

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Michelle Yeoh on ‘Crouching Tiger 2,’ Girl Power, and Anti-China Trump

The Daily Beast 18 Aug 2018

China is still a major target market—the film opened there before releasing stateside, and has already made $20.8 million in its first weekend—but the English-language sequel stars an international cast that hails from all over the world, reflecting a diverse pan-Asian representation from Glee’s Harry Shum, Jr ... “Maybe the Asian community should complain as well,” she said....

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Michael Buble has no fear

The Polk County Standard Journal 18 Aug 2018

Michael Bubl� lives with "no fear" after going through his son's cancer battle. The 42-year-old singer and his wife Luisana Lopilato were left devastated when their son Noah, five, was diagnosed with liver cancer in October 2016, but now the tot has entered remission, Michael says everything in their lives has improved ... He said ... I'm sorry for the language but " ... 'Crazy Rich Asians' revives the romantic comedy, from a Chinese perspective....

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Crazy Rich Asians: reviews, news, and analysis of the huge Hollywood milestone

Vox 17 Aug 2018

... more expectations than Crazy Rich Asians . It’s the first contemporary English-language Hollywood movie with an almost all-Asian cast in a quarter-century (the last was 1993’s The Joy Luck Club )....

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“Crazy Rich Asians” is, indeed, Asian enough for us

Fast Company 17 Aug 2018

Crazy Rich Asians is the first Hollywood film to feature an all-Asian cast in 25 years ... Crazy Rich Asians is over-the-top, and mostly showcases the opulent upper crust of Singapore ... But can a movie about outrageously rich Chinese Singaporeans really mean something to every Asian, a group that holds so many ethnic groups and languages and skin tones within it? Isn’t it unfair to expect that? ... That’s so Asian....

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'Crazy Rich Asians' breakout star Awkwafina is here to steal scenes and change the way ...

Stars and Stripes 17 Aug 2018

As a scammer-slash-pickpocket in the aforementioned heist flick, and in “Crazy Rich Asians,” in which she’s the primary scene stealer as Peik Lin, the uber-wealthy, borderline-manic best friend to the romantic heroine, and carries herself as though nobody told her that she’s not the star of the movie ... Being Asian, that, too, is not something we see in an English-language film, to see us represented in that way....

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Dems, Hatfield criticize Visconti tweet as racist

Ctpost 17 Aug 2018

Perennial Republican candidate Joe Visconti tweeted a photo of Democrat William Tong Wednesday afternoon labeling Tong, who is Chinese, “Kim Jong Tong.” The tweet was condemned by state Democrats Thursday, who called on Republicans to reject Visconti’s “thinly veiled racist language.” Tong, a state representative from Stamford, is running for attorney general....

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Crazy long wait for movie

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette 17 Aug 2018

LOS ANGELES – It's been 25 years since a major Hollywood studio released an English-language film with a primarily Asian cast. The last was Wayne Wang's adaptation of the generational... ....

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Crazy Rich Asians screenwriters break down their script for Rachel and Eleanor's first meeting

Entertainment Weekly 17 Aug 2018

Meet the cast and characters of Crazy Rich Asians ... “The two big aspects of Asian culture are food and parenting,” Lim says ... (Eleanor puts family, not independence, first.) “What we wanted to hit again and again is that these women are both Asian and both Chinese, but speak two entirely different languages,” Lim says ... Crazy Rich Asians is in theaters now....

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Opinion: Anti-Asian prejudice rears ugly head in Alameda

East Bay Times 16 Aug 2018

While anti-Asian sentiments have existed since the founding days of this island city, the rhetoric used during the last presidential election campaign has emboldened those holding these views and has escalated into verbal attacks singling out our elected officials of Asian ancestry with greater viciousness ... In its wake, we saw disturbing anti-Semitic, anti-Asian, anti-Muslim, and anti-black graffiti appear on the Island....

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‘Crazy Rich Asians’: For many, it’s more than a movie

Chicago Sun-Times 16 Aug 2018

Heading into the theater to watch “Crazy Rich Asians,” I had butterflies in my stomach ... I grew up in the foothills of rural Appalachia, where there were almost no other Asian families to relate to or to form meaningful bonds with or friendships ... I was the only Asian girl in elementary and middle school ... But it was great to finally see two Asian leads in a non-foreign-language film, a romantic comedy no less....

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H-1B: Indian outsourcing firm discriminates against non-Indian workers, games U.S. visa system: lawsuit

SiliconValley.com 16 Aug 2018

The suit said HCL’s South Asian workforce is “primarily Indian.” ... All, or virtually all, of the H-1B visas HCL obtains are for South Asians, the suit said ... “South Asian colleagues routinely spoke in Hindi and other non-English languages both socially and while discussing client-related work, precluding (Voll) from fully participating in these conversations,” the lawsuit claims....

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