Word: lingua
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...real spice of the islands is talk-and very good talk it can be. The lingua franca of the Lesser Antilles is English, though it is not always understood on St. Barts, where the blacks also speak Creole and villagers of Breton and Norman descent converse in varied patois. While Dutch is their official language, few Statians or Sabans ever use it. Many, however, do speak Papiamento, the merry island melange of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, English and African dialects ("Bon tim ni un quenta ta coppé tras mi mucha muhé; bai hombre sushi, i lagele...
...other major non-Caucasian strain is Filipino (17%), followed by Chinese and Korean. Thus while Hawaiian, a melodious language that the missionaries alphabetized into a mere twelve characters, is still spoken and sung on the island, many natives converse in pidgin English, the world's most colorful lingua franca. A dark-hued hotel waiter, cussed out by an irate Texan who has received the soup in his lap, retorts: "Eh, now, no take out on me, you stupid buggah! Udderwise bimeby I gone broke your head in small tiny pieces...
Elsewhere, Virginia creamed Texas and California to win the Certamen-a classical version of the College Bowl quiz -with state teams battling it out onstage over the lingua mater. "What case is required for the object of vescorl" shot out Questioner James Minter, 25, a candidate at Columbia University for a Ph.D. in classics. Flashing lights signaled the correct answer: "The ablative." Sample sticklers: "What Italian myth figure changed into a woodpecker?" "What Latin emperor was transformed, in a satire, into a pumpkin?" Answers: Picus and Claudius...
...Akan, representing a group of languages, proposed as the national language of Ghana, lingua franca in Ivory Coast, spoken by over three million people...
...Mande-Tan, representing a subgroup, proposed as official language of Mali, important lingua franca of western Africa, having some literature written in Arabic script or indigenous script (e.g. Vai) and spoken by over six million people...