CARIBBEAN WORLD

Wayne Spillett, lived in Belgium (2007-2011) Updated January 28, 2019 French is widely spoken, France is one of the largest countries in Europe, big chunks of Africa speak French, as do Quebec and parts of the Caribbean; so it's not hard to live your entire life as a French speaker and still travel around. If your language is Flemish, you can communicate with people in the Netherlands and parts of South Africa, beyond that you need to learn other languages. In western Europe, you will find many speakers of French, Spanish, Italian and German who speak only their native language, their countries are large enough that they can always find work and have decent social lives, but speakers of lesser-spoken languages native to smaller countries need another language to give them additional opportunity. There is one more factor at play, which is also connected to the number of speakers a language has: film and television. Globally-popular entertainment gets dubbed into majority languag...

Obituaries Chick Corea, Jazz Fusion Pioneer, Has Died Of Cancer At 79 February 11, 20215:02 PM ET The keyboardist, composer and bandleader Chick Corea — one of the most revered figures in contemporary jazz, but an artist whose work spanned fusion to classical — died on Feb. 9 at age 79. Dan Muse from Chick Corea Productions confirmed his death to NPR on Thursday afternoon. Corea's team also reported his death on social media, saying that he died from "a rare form of cancer which was only discovered very recently." No other details about his illness and death were shared. A pianist whose crisp touch and clarion tone were always buoyed by an effervescent way with rhythm, Corea loomed large in a jazz landscape that branched in many directions. His 1968 album Now He Sings, Now He Sobs has long been a touchstone for the modern acoustic piano trio, a format to which he often returned; in 2019 he released another album in that vein, Trilogy 2, with bassist Christian McBrid...