My Friend Is Trivia Quiz

My friend comes from Guadeloupe.

French is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Not only is it the official language of France and all of its overseas territories, of which Guadeloupe is one, it is also an official language of three other European countries, as well as parts of Africa, South-east Asia, the Americas and several islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans. For many years French was spoken by the European royal families, and regarded as the language of diplomacy.

My friend is from Morocco.

Arabic is another widely spoken language. It has a distinctive script, which is read from right to left. It is the sole official or joint official language of more than twenty countries in North Africa (including Morocco), the middle east and the Arabian peninsula. There are around thirty versions of the language. It is also spoken in parts of Europe, the Americas, Indonesia and some of the surrounding islands, and Australia by people of Arabic descent.

My friend is from New Zealand.

Maori is the language spoken by the indigenous peoples of New Zealand. It was granted recognition as one of New Zealand's official languages in 1987. It is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, and is closely related to the languages of some other Pacific islands including Tahiti and the Cook Islands.

My friend is from India.

Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language, which is widely used as an official language in India, along with English. As a spoken language it is mutually intelligible with Urdu; they share a common core vocabulary. However, the script of the two languages is completely different; Hindi is read from left to right, and Urdu, whose characters bear some resemblance in shape to those of Arabic, is read from right to left. The Hindi language is also used in Fiji, Nepal, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

My friend is from the Vatican City.

Latin was the language of the Romans, so it was used widely in Europe in ancient times. Although no longer used as a spoken language, it is the official language of the Vatican City. However many European languages have their roots in Latin. The Latin language was used by the Roman Catholic church for all services until after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, when the use of local languages for celebrating mass was allowed.

My friend is from Ukraine.

Ukrainian is one of the East-Slavic languages in the Indo-European family. It is written in the Cyrillic script, which is read from left to right. It is mainly spoken in Ukraine, by a majority of the population. However following the escalation of the war with Russia in 2022, many Ukrainians sought refuge in other parts of Europe, leading to the language being spoken by some small communities throughout the continent.

My friend is from Thailand.

Thai is the most widely spoken of many languages in Thailand. It is the only official language, and its use has become more widespread due to media broadcasts using the language. The Thai script is written from left to right, and was created from the Khmer script. The Thai language and script are similar to those of Laos, and can be understood by many of the Lao people.

My friend is from Paraguay.

Guarani is one of the two official languages of Paraguay, the other being Spanish. Approximately half of the population of the country speak only Guarani, and no Spanish. Guarani is the most widely spoken native language in South America, where it is used in parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil as well as Paraguay. The language was only a spoken language until after the Spanish conquests in the sixteenth century, so the written language is based on the Latin script and was standardised in 1950.

My friend is from Japan.

The only country to use Japanese as an official language is Japan, where it is very widely spoken. However, it is also used by emigrants from Japan to parts of the Americas, the Philippines and Australia. In the early twenty-first century, there were still some more elderly residents of Taiwan, Korea, China and the Philippines who remembered Japanese from the occupation during the Second World War. The Japanese script was based on Chinese characters. The language is written in columns which should be read from top to bottom, starting with the furthest right and working across to the left.

My friend is from Tanzania.

Swahili is an official language in both Tanzania and Kenya. It is also widely spoken down the east African coast from Somalia to Mozambique, and west to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Originating from the Bantu language, Swahili has acquired many loan words, mainly Arabic words from their trade in the area, but also words from English, German and Portuguese due to their colonisation of the region. During the eighteenth century, Swahili was written using the Arabic script, but the colonial powers in the nineteenth century introduced the Latin script for the language.

My friend is from Greece.

Modern Greek has developed from the ancient Greek language. The characters are read from left to right, and many were used as the basis for the Cyrillic characters of many of the Slavic languages. Greek is the official language of both Greece and the island of Cyprus, although the most of the northern population of Cyprus remain loyal to Turkey, and speak Turkish. There are a significant number of Greek speakers in the border regions of both Albania and Bulgaria. Greek is also spoken by emigrant families throughout the world.

My friend is from Germany.

German is the sole official language in Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein. It is a co-official language in Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland, where it is the most widely spoken language. In some parts of South America, Denmark, Italy, eastern Europe, Russia and Kazakhstan, German is a recognised minority language. It is also spoken in some small communities in North America, South America and Australia.