February 21 is International Mother Language Day. The United Nations (name) it in 1999. The purpose is to protect all languages around world. In China, most people speak Chinese their mother language. More people speak Chinese than any other language in the world. About one (five) of the world's population speak a form of Chinese, BBC reported.
(early) known written record of Chinese is the oracle bone script(甲骨文) of the Shang Dynasty. Most Chinese characters are ideograms(表意文字) which put two or more (word) together to make a new one. For example,jiameans "a pig under the roof". This shows that people in ancient times thought of home as a place(hold) treasures.
As time went on, (thousand) of words developed. However, people only use a few thousand of them in everyday life. Today, new words are still being added to the Chinese dictionary, such asdishifor taxis andxiufor TV shows.
With the fast development of (China) economy(经济), more people from other countries are taking interest in Chinese. In a survey of last December, 2，007 people were asked "Which new foreign language would you learn？" Chinese placed (two), after Spanish, with 15 percent of the vote(选票).
