{"id":655,"date":"2010-03-08T10:05:52","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T10:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=655"},"modified":"2010-03-10T22:16:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T22:16:51","slug":"commonwealth-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/08\/commonwealth-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Commonwealth-Flag.png\" alt=\"Commonwealth Flag\" title=\"Commonwealth Flag\" width=\"125\" height=\"63\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-656\" \/>Today is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sci-tech-soc.org\/commonwealth-day.html\">Commonwealth Day<\/a>, so a good time to take a look at the languages of the Commonwealth I think!<\/p>\n<p>Once known as Empire Day, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commonwealth_Day\">Commonwealth Day<\/a> celebrates the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecommonwealth.org\/Internal\/142227\/members\/\">54 countries<\/a> that make up the Commonwealth of Nations. Most member countries are former British colonies, and so speak English as either a first or second language. About 30% of the world\u2019s population live in the Commonwealth \u2013 that\u2019s over 2 BILLION people. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Canadian_English\">Canada<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/22\/creoles-singlish\/\">Singapore<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/25\/ya-flamin-galah\/\">Australia<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/South_African_English\">South Africa<\/a> are some examples of Commonwealth countries which have developed their own version of English, whilst still preferring British spellings. <\/p>\n<p>Brunei \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/malay.htm\">Behasa Melayu<\/a>; India \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hindi\">Hindi<\/a> (official); Tonga \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/tongan.htm\">Tongan<\/a>; Seychelles \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ethnologue.com\/show_language.asp?code=crs\">Seselwa Creole<\/a> and Malta \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/maltese.htm\">Maltese<\/a> are examples of some other Commonwealth countries and their languages. India alone has hundreds of languages, although Hindi and English are the two official ones. <\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cwgdelhi2010.org\/\">Commonwealth Games<\/a> are due to be held later this year in New Delhi, India, so I\u2019m sure revisit the languages of the Commonwealth then!<\/p>\n<p>Read the Commonwealth message from Her Majesty The Queen <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecommonwealth.org\/news\/34580\/220922\/070309hmqueen.htm \">here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is Commonwealth Day, so a good time to take a look at the languages of the Commonwealth I think! Once known as Empire Day, Commonwealth Day celebrates the 54 countries that make up the Commonwealth of Nations. Most member countries are former British colonies, and so speak English as either a first or second [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,3,35,247],"tags":[647,19,643,644,645,646,3,247,25,650,649,648,651],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-english","category-events","category-hindi","tag-behasa-melayu","tag-commonwealth","tag-commonwealth-day","tag-commonwealth-games","tag-commonwealth-languages","tag-commonwealth-of-nations","tag-english","tag-hindi","tag-languages","tag-maltese","tag-seselwa-creole","tag-tongan","tag-world-languages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}