I've always wondered, how many people here know 2 or more languages, and what are they? I was reading the post all in german by Psycho-potato and it seems quite a few know german..oh, and could ya tell us why you learned a 2nd or 3rd language (if there's a specific reason) and how long you've known it :cool:

English - fluent
Spanish - Conversational
Russian - 2 yr old :rolleyes:
Chinese - ~6 words, 2 phrases. :rolleyes:

English-fluent
Spanish-probably considered conversational, and I can understand quite a bit of it (although I don't want to get ahead of myself). I do have some way to go, however.

Te cepillas mi pelo con un castor.

You brush my hair with a beaver. Conversational, eh?

Next, I want to learn german. After that, Arabic. Maybe I'll be content with what I know, but I'll probably go for more. Learning a language takes awhile, and I've been fortunate to have a great teacher with spanish.

I can never find time for independent language study..here and there. Damned compulsory secondary education. On my to learn list: german, arabic, dutch, taggalog, chinese, japanese, malay.

I ran my sentence through babel fish. It didn't recognize cepillas. But I'm pretty sure I got it right, if anyone knows spanish please correct me.

Cepillarse is a reflexive verb, it changes Tu to Te. I then conjugated it into tu form....adding an as in place of arse. Hmmmm....

Originally posted by Pollux V
Te cepillas mi pelo con un castor.


If i may, Pollux. What you're trying to say should use "Me cepillas" i.e. "To me you brush." :cool:

Damn. *yoda voice* Much to learn, I have:cool:

My spanish is better than that of schwartz.

¡Yo quiero tener sexo con tu madre!

well eehmm. Let's see,

dutch is my mothertongue
englisch by watchin telly since I was born
german coz I have some german relatives
Japanese: a few words/sentences by interest and Martial art
spanish I can understand most of it
hell: sometimes I even think these jiddisch people are german
and finally : FRENCH and this by force; in order to receive some food, I have to press the right button upon questioning, wrong answer? >no foood

greetz Fukushi

<edit>
Graah! And Body language ofcourse! That one I forgot, also I'(m a little bit telepathic, hehehe.

English: I learned it because I wanted to be able to talk to my mother and tell her that I was hungry so I didn't have to sob for hours while she guessed what I wanted.

Japanese: i dont know why. But I can do maybe 2nd year college Japanese, and I can write it too. Sort of :p

english: fluent
malay: fluent
cantonese: fluent
mandarin: conversational

Originally posted by 1119
english: fluent
malay: fluent
cantonese: fluent
mandarin: conversational

I assume this means you're a Chinese in Kuala Lumpur? Or some other M'sian local, or S'pore.

Close. Penang actually.

american: hehehe of course.
French/ most canadian french: 5 years in highschool, and friend it quebec.

English: Fluent.
French: Fluent.
Spanish: Can understand and read most of it, but I have a very
limited vocabulary. Talking is a no-no.

I intend on learning Greek and Latin this year...

Yes. Two dead tongues. YES... OKAY, STOP LAUGHING ALREADY!!!

:mad:

Icelandic is my first language, English my second. I'm fluent in both.

I can read but not write Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Faeroese(Is that how you spell it?). I can also understand the spoken language (provided people speak slowly) but not actually speak it myself.

German I can read with a little aid from a dictionary for the complicated words.

English - Conversational
Ebonics - okay

Hebrew - Fluent.
English&Russian - Almost fluent.

Edit : I can also read Arabic, but that doesnt really count.

English- fluent on a conversational level
Finnish- same there
French-a little
Spanish- a little
Then I know some words or phrases from other languages, as most people do, like ich liebe dich in german and , hai in japanese and other standard words like that.
And as you all probably know by now, swedish is my native language.

I can do accents. :) One of my skills is mimicking noises...many a time I have confused my friends by making weak catling noises from various pipes in the ground, or scared the shit out of them by coming up behind and growling like a big dog. I even freak squirrels and birds out, by copying their squeaks and calls.

I need to get out more. :rolleyes:

-Blue% :m:

Bare bra, sarskilt kvinna. ;)

Did I get that right? Or am I mixing in some Norwegian?

I'm guessing, but I think that english, norwegian, swedish, and maybe some germanic dialects were all one language a thousand years ago.

Just some food for thought.

They called it "old english." It's so frickin cool. It's nothing like modern english.

I think you might be talking about Old Norse, Pollux. English is a pretty close relative to German, Dutch, and Frisian. Well, not very close, but closest to those three languages than any others.

Beowulf

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,

5
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra

I don't know the language, but I might be able to translate from memory.

The first word is a hard one to translate, in the version of the epic that I enjoy, the one by Seamus Heaney (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393320979/qid=1039810718/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-4615754-2576826?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) writes it as being "So." After that I believe it says something about how in the old days heroes like Shield Sheafing went around doing good things, making babies etc, ones that would eventually lead into the lord of Heorot (was his name Hygelac? I'm not sure). Anyhoo, the story is awesome, very poetic. I'm wondering if Bebelina can read any of the last paragraph, I understand none of it.

"Men climbed eagerly up the gangplank,
sand churned in the surf, warriors loaded
a cargo of weapons, shining war-gear
in the vessel's hold, then heaved out,
away with a will in their wood-wreathed ship.
Over the waves, with the wind behind her
and foam at her neck, she flew like a bird..."

My original intention was to prove that I meant old english, but I think I was talking about Anglo-Saxon now. Doesn't matter I guess.

dutch - fluent
english - fluent
french - no trouble reading & understanding, some trouble speaking
german - same as french
spanish - can read some
latin & greek - i still remember some words, but need a dictionary

English - fluent
Russian - fluent but have forgotten how to write
German - like a 5 year old
French - same as german, but with a terrible Northen accent

I really want to learn Spanish

english = fluent
spanish = conversational
ebonics = fluent

I can speak:

English, Vietnamese, and French. My next goal is Japanese and then German.

Oh and I have a little ebonics in me as well.

English - fluent
Swedish - fluent
Finnish - fluent
German - conversational
Italian - real crappy

I will even say that I 'think' often in the three languages that I am totaly fluent in.
But I am trying to train myself not to think so much in dialogue or language but more as pure 'thought' which would be closer to 'feeling' or emotion. Hard to explain in language and especialy since I am far from mastering it yet.

Originally posted by *stRgrL*
ebonics = fluent

How do you do that? I have worked on it for years. Gosh. I am so jealous. :mad:

Originally posted by Pollux V
I'm guessing, but I think that english, norwegian, swedish, and maybe some germanic dialects were all one language a thousand years ago.

Just some food for thought.

They called it "old english." It's so frickin cool. It's nothing like modern english.

Actually, "old english" is a derivative the language that was shared by all the scandinavian nations. Icelandic is the language that is most similar to the "original" on account of us being isolated for so long out here in the atlantic.

English: mother tongue
Thai: fluent, including reading/writing
Kam Muang (Yuan): conversational
French: conversational

English: somewhat fluent
Portuguese: mother language
French: somewhat fluent
Italian: Read and listen
Spanish: mostly read and listen
Chinese: about 100 words... that I've already forgot...:(:eek:
Latin: hopefully I still reme,ber some words...
Greek: starting now

I wish I knew more... :(

Eli Z,

Hebrew - Fluent.

Fluent Hebrew...! Oh my...
With vowels or without them?

Originally posted by MacZ
English: mother tongue
Thai: fluent, including reading/writing
Kam Muang (Yuan): conversational
French: conversational

You mean Muong? As in the south-east Asian language? 00;

Wow.

Muong?!
Yes, kam muang, oddly enough, because I lived up in the Golden Triangle region.

Dutch - mothertongue
English - quite a bit
French - not too much, but I can do my shopping in France
German - I can understand most of it, but find it hard to produce.

and like Bebelina, know how to greet and say sorry etc in several other languages

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
Eli Z,

Fluent Hebrew...! Oh my...
With vowels or without them?

Umm... I dont really understand what you're asking. :bugeye:

I'm in Israel since the age of 5, so naturally my Hebrew is fluent.

This business of learning multiple languages seems like a huge waste of effort and resources. If we could just agree on everybody learning THE SAME 2nd language (say Esperanto) then everybody on earth could speak to everybody else.

It's not the same - languages are a vital part of culture. I for one am for both globalization and the preservation of culture..i'd have to reverse what you say and say that everyone should learn a 2nd, 3rd, umpteenth language.

Well, I expected you multi-linguists (and language teachers) to disagree since such an action would negate a lot of effort on your part and reduce your value in relation to the rest of us, but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea. :)

As for the culture issue, I'm afraid as civilization continues its march onward toward one world government, there must be a concomittent movement to one world culture. (Multi-culturalism is a misnomer -- it's really a "decontenting" of all cultures -- thus allowing them to eventually merge.)

Originally posted by postoak
Well, I expected you multi-linguists (and language teachers) to disagree since such an action would negate a lot of effort on your part and reduce your value in relation to the rest of us, but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea. :)

As for the culture issue, I'm afraid civilization continues its march onward toward one world government, there must be a concomittent movement to one world culture. (Multi-culturalism is a misnomer -- it's really a "decontenting" of all cultures -- thus allowing them to eventually merge.)

I already exist

Let nature do her's and we'll be all the some color in 50.000years from now,....:D

Language does for intelligence...



...what wheels do for the feet.


_blue% :m:

Eli Z,

Old Hebrew had no vowels in it... There were only consonants, while writting. They knew what the vowels were, it was an spoken language. Nowdays, they use vowels...

A tiny bit of Tagalog, Swedish, Norwegian, German, French, Latin, mostly for reading, not much spoken (although in primary school we had to learn and sing all the christmas songs in Latin).

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
"Fluent Hebrew...! Oh my... With vowels or without them?"

He is referring to the fact that Hebrew is normally written without vowels. Only the Bible and textbooks for studying the language include the vowels (which are little marks beneath the letters) so that people who don't know the language well can pronounce the words correctly.

An amazing characteristic of the Semitic language family (Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, etc.) is that vowels are not phonemic. The consonant combinations are unique. You can learn to understand the written language without being able to recite it out loud.

Not nessecarily true, languages such as Amharic and Tigrinya, although consonant-based (ie, roots used to form words or bases on which inflections are performed are totally consonantal, so that ktb [the arabic root for 'read', or really anything having to do with that] can be 'kitab', book, or if vowels are changed, it can be the verb 'to read', etc.), do not use abjads as their writing systems (these two particular languages use syllabaries, actually they use the same one)

But yes, that does seem to be a trait fairly unique to Afro-Asiatic languages (not just Semitic, I think a few other Afro-Asiatic languages do that as well)

First, Esperanto really does deliver on its promises.

To speakers of English. It isn't the easiest language, or the most simplified, or the most beautiful, nor is there a one-to-one correspondence between phonemes and graphemes. Nor do 8 million people speak it. Face it, it sucks.

You can learn it in a few weeks and become an expert in a few months.

If you are an educated person from Western Europe, or are extremely familiar with a language originating from there...

While Esperanto may be easier than English for a Chinese person, it's still hell compared to Tibetan, or, say, Vietnamese.

Ideally, an international language would be isolating. If you'll think about it a bit, Zamenhof wasn't a linguist, but rather an eye doctor. He didn't read books about linguistics. His only qualification was that he was polylingual. But in which languages? No isolating, no polysynthetic. He probably didn't even know of these types of languages, or thought of them as "primitive" (or at least the former)

It was fairly cleverly designed, so it's easy to invent new words for concepts and objects that didn't exist in the 1870s.

I believe you inserted a comma that shouldn't be there, and put "that" after "so".

The biggest problem is that it hasn't caught on.

No, it's that it sucks. Read: agglutinating languages aren't easy for people to learn! And what about all those verb tenses? Take a look at the official UN languages, you will find that Chinese does not have verb tenses. It uses time words instead, and it gets along fine. No inflections for this language, baby, it's isolating.

As for picking one natural language to be the world's official international language, who gets to choose? Even the U.N. has seven. You'll never get past the political problems. And the practical ones.

Wait a while, it'll choose itself. Languages are dying, soon it'll be an epic battle for survival among the major ones.

Chinese is fairly easy for English speakers (just don't try to read it) but harder than quantum mechanics for a Russian.

For a Russian? Oh, please. It would be very easy for a Russian to learn Chinese.

And the academic ones. You want a language that is flexible and easy to grow, not stuck with a grammar left over from the Stone Age with gender, number, tense, case, and a fixed set of prepositions to express all possible relationships. That narrows it down to Chinese and English.

Stupid. Chinese doesn't have gender, number, tense, or case.
And English does. So what the hell do you mean?

See: "Ranto": JBR's 'Anti-Zamenhofism'
and
"Why Esperanto is not my favourite conlang" (or something like that, don't remember the name of that one)

well...it's nice to know other languages...but i am actually on my second language, instead of knowing 2 languages.

I'm a native dutch speaker...know german and english well of course, had 2 years of french in school, but forgot most of it.

and then I moved to Finland...I don't really speak finnish, just know the basics, but what I did do here is switch from Dutch to English as my primary language. I even think in english nowadays and it always is difficult for a while to switch back to dutch when I am visiting Holland.

Therefore I am on my second language...

interesting fact is that some people say you get less intelligent each time you switch to a different language...I'm not disagreeing

English- fluentely
French- survival level
Spanish- Fluent ...Coño
German - Fluent
Italian- Fluent

GB - it was Fraggle Rocker, not I, that made those points about Esperanto. But I'll go on to say that you misread his point about Chinese vs English. Reread that part of his post and you'll see that he is saying that Chinese DOES NOT have those things (verb tenses, etc), just as you say.

I've heard it said before that langauge molds thought. Perhaps a little, but I doubt in any major way. Certainly no reason to go on having to learn multiple languages.

I'm no supporter of Esperanto -- or any other language -- in particular, but I suspect it IS easier to learn than any other language, just because it was a "designed" language.

Microzoft,
I know coño is some sort of interjection in spanish (carribean, anyway). I forget though, is it something like "FUCK!" in english, or "SHIT!" ? I know " ño " is short for coño but i forget what coño means! :confused:

:bugeye:


hmmmmmmmm.....so, what?? i can speak EVERY language....top that!!:p :D

All estimated 7,000 of them ? :rolleyes: I read somewhere that the human brain (avg IQ) has the capacity for 35 different languages.

A guy here in Melbourne university can read, write, and speak 52 languages, about 30 of them fluently.

http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/bounce/pinkietoo.gif

that's right...all 7, 762 of 'em....

Adam,
That is quite impressive. Are many of them similar? I wish i had the time to dedicate to language study...damned compulsory secondary.. :(

"coño" is an interjection, means "s--t"
ño? doesn´t mean anything, at least, not in spanish

I don't know which languages the guy knows. But that is his degree, linguistics or something.

Originally posted by storni
"coño" is an interjection, means "s--t"
ño? doesn´t mean anything, at least, not in spanish

" ño " is a euphemism for " coño " like "shoot" is a euphemism for "shit" in english. Thanks for clearing it up though, i wasn't sure if coño was for F or S :)

Originally posted by NenarTronian
" ño " is a euphemism for " coño " like "shoot" is a euphemism for "shit" in english. Thanks for clearing it up though, i wasn't sure if coño was for F or S :) Well "Coño" is probably one of the most frequently used word in Spanish. Literaly you could translated to pussy or vagina but a more closer translation would be "cunt" in English.

Although not necessary the meaning, in the usage is similar to the "ciao" in Italian.

In summary it is used generally to decorate a phrase, it can be placed at the begining or at the end. It can help you in making a point or it can also help you in getting that "blackeye" you been wanting for long.

...a magical word!

oh :cool:

"Although not necessary the meaning, in the usage is similar to the "ciao" in Italian.

In summary it is used generally to decorate a phrase, it can be placed at the begining or at the end. It can help you in making a point or it can also help you in getting that "blackeye" you been wanting for long. "


where have u heard it????

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
"Well, Coño is probably one of the most frequently used words in Spanish. In summary it is used generally to decorate a phrase, it can be placed at the begining or at the end....a magical word!"

I've lived in "Aztlan" for nearly fifty years and spoken Spanish almost as long. Went through the naughty teenager phase of begging the kids from Mexico to teach me every dirty word they knew. Know folks from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Colombia as well, spent some time in Spain.

And I've never encountered that word.

Where, exactly, have you found it to be in such common use? Oh...My apologies,
The coño I am referring to is in relation to the Spanish Language and you can take my word for it, if not. Well that’s also OK.
…Of course, in Latin-America as I’m sure you are already well aware, we have an extensive dialect and therefore depending in locations they will use words like “puñeta”, “mingia”, etc.

But this is already getting away from the thread’s topic, so let it be, OK.

I have seen adult, monolingual Americans (yes, I know those two words are redundant) become sufficiently fluent in Esperanto to carry on a conversation about politics or religion with a non-English speaker, after fifty hours of study. I've never seen anyone come close to that with a natural language.

...that's because of how similar English and Esperanto words are.

OK, I'll bite. What language is more simplified than Esperanto?

Any isolating language.

Well geeze, why don't we set forth some totally subjective criteria? My mother, fluent in Czech and English and familiar with Spanish and Russian, thought Esperanto sounded beatiful.

Yes, but out of 2 Slavic languages, English, and one potentially poetic language, Esperanto seems quite good.

But there are many that are more pleasant to listen to... Personally, I think Portuguese is one of the most beautiful, but I would like to say something more like Cantonese (when it is not grunted by crusty old men in the street, it's ugly then) or Minnan, because since they're tonal, they seem almost musical. I would say Mandarin, especially with its not ending syllables in consonants except for nasals, but it sounds less musical with less tones (and less of a variety among those)

It's a little hard to judge since virtually every speaker has an accent from his or her native language.

Yes, but nevertheless, it still sounds undeniably Slavic and caccophonous.

Personally, I vote for Romanian, but I doubt that I could convince many people to try to learn it. Especially since I haven't.

Yes, it is a neat language.

Please enlighten me. I can't think of a single language for which this is true. Perhaps Hawaiian, a phonetically impoverished tongue with a written language created by foreign linguists?

Phonetically impoverished? That sounds almost like an insult. Just because a language doesn't have as much phonemes as others doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it.

Now take a listen to this:

arĉata ("bowed") = artŝata ("appreciative of art")
placpaco ("place of peace") = platspaco ("flat space")
sorĉtrumpeto ("magic trumpet") = sortŝtrumpeto ("sock of destiny")

I've met monolingual Japanese (there are a few) who learned it almost as quickly as Americans.

Duh. Japanese should be able to learn it faster than Americans, as Japanese is an agglutinative language, like Esperanto.

Tibetan is the only living language related to Chinese, so that's not surprising.

What the fuck? How stupid are you? There's Burmese, Thai, Lao, and Dzongkha (all national languages), as well as Yi, Lisu, Naxi, Lahu, Karen, Kachin, Chin, Bodo, Garo, Meithei, Lushei, Newari, Murmi, Lepcha, Zhuang, Puyi, Yung, Akha, Nung, Shan, Hmong, Yao, and plenty more.

Just the night before last, I was looking for translations of a phrase into Lisu, Lahu, and Akha, and I was shocked to see how similar the translations were to each other and to Cantonese!

I'll show you:

The parts in brackets are the names of their respective language in that language and should be ignored (although they are part of the phrase)

The first-person singular pronouns[/green] are in green. The [color=red]negative particles are in red. The verb "speak" (southern sinitic languages, here exemplified by Cantonese, have acquired an extra syllable for this word ["gong" in cantonese], I won't color that) is blue. The potential particles are yellow.

Note that I didn't highlight ones that didn't look similar, as I only intended to highlight the similarities.

Cantonese:
Ngo m sik gong [yut yu].

Lahu:
Nga [lahu hkaw] ma shi ya.

Lisu:
Ngua [lisu ngot] tei mat gul.

Akha:
Nga [aka daw] ma si nya.

In case you were wondering, this means "I don't speak [language]"

There were lots of Esperanto enthusiasts in China in the 1950s so it couldn't be all that difficult. If I meet one who also studied Vietnamese I'll accept his or her judgment.

Stupid. It doesn't have to be easy for people to want to learn it. The reason for the large movement in China is that it isn't English!

Beep. Dead wrong on that one. Zamenhof was fluent in Hebrew. Translated the Pentateuch himself.

Erm... how does that make me wrong? Hebrew is not isolating nor is it polysynthetic. Contrary to what I think you probably believe, I never said that he only spoke European languages.

I've read enough of his writings to say he was an accomplished amateur linguist.

So? I am too. Does that mean that any language I invent will be ideal if I intend for it to be? No.

He was clearly not ignorant of the universe outside the Indo-European family.

Tell me, when did he learn Chinese? Or Ojibwe? Ah, he didn't? What about Inuktitut? Or Vietnamese? Oh, what's that? Well then, what about Lao or Thai? Oh, I see. I thought so. Well, what about an isolating language? Oh, yeah, I knew it. Told ya! What about a polysynthetic language? What? You don't know what that is? I don't feel like telling you, do a Google search. Oh, he didn't know any? Well, that's just fine and dandy, I knew it.

He was essentially ignorant of grammatical concepts that were alien to him.

In those days many so-called "professional" linguists were not much more accomplished than he -- the people who wrote declension paradigms for English nouns, invented the Wade-Giles Chinese transcription system, or grouped the languages of the Caucasus into a single family.

Says the Anti-Zamenhof (he was born on the 50th anniversary of Zamenhof's death, and he crusades against Esperanto: and he does have a degree in linguistics): "A lot of his decisions were clearly the result of forgivable ignorance - he was after all working before linguistics as a science really existed."

Oh please, how much time do you spend proofreading your posts? If you're going to blue pencil this forum you'd better have a lot of caffeine handy!

Read what I corrected and then you will notice I am in fact arguing with what you meant and not how you said it.

Six total tense/mode inflections counting the infinitive, one uniform paradigm, no exceptions. And no person or number.

Wrong, at least 12.

Not as elegant as Chinese but hardly outrageous.

Consider this: most of the world's languages do not conjugate verbs at all. So for la lingvo internacio, it is outrageous.

It will be a good thing for several thousand more languages to disappear? I don't think so, but reasonable people can disagree.

I am split on that. International communication without barriers is good, on the one hand, dead languages are bad, on the other.

French; mais oui

Other than that, nothing, unless pig-latin counts.

German. Had to have 2 years for BA. Also later had to pass a language test for the PhD, but it was not too strenuous. Just had to translate a few pages within an hour. It's been so long though since I have used it I can't speak more than a few phrases and have a really bad ear for it. In Germany a couple of years ago and I couldn't understand a word they were saying to me. I can still read it, but I'm very slow at it. My ability is very elementary today.

English - mother tongue,
Dutch - almost fluent
German - conversational
Spanish - conversational
Also learning to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. :p

For Dutch and German, I am much better and speaking and listrening (and undersanding) than reading and writing. For spanish I guess it's either, though generally forgetting my vocab for those three, cos I don't practise themn, and don't hear any any more.

Spanish - mother tongue,
English - almost fluent I guess.
Italian - fluent (when you know Spanish, Italian comes easy)
..Starting French

I have heard it takes a long while to learn German, is it true it is one of the hardest European languages?

Originally posted by NenarTronian
I've always wondered, how many people here know 2 or more languages, and what are they?

oh, and could ya tell us why you learned a 2nd or 3rd language (if there's a specific reason) and how long you've known it :cool:


Spanish= native language
English= since kindergarten, also use it more because of school, work, friends
Hebrew= can sing 2 songs from memory & pray the Kiddush, I remember most of the 'alef bet'. Why? I wanted to convert to Judaism when I was 17, so that I would go to the root of Christianity, (which at the time I thought was way to pagan, growing up Mexican Catholic, you see more open idolatry)
French= lets just say that the "F" I got does not mean I speak "F"rench. I found it too guttural & closer to English (& German) than Spanish, did not like it

I know some phrases & words that I learned from friends in:
Tagalog,
Greek,
Hmong,
Japanese

and I can translate most Latin & some Greek (written in Greek or Latin characters), because I know both English & Spanish.

I feel that all people should be trilingual;
1) their native language
2) a world language, like Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Russian or Spanish
3) anything to do with comps, like a Comp programming language, program, or system (so that people don't get left behind technologically speaking)

Knowing both english & spanish well, gives me the insight to say that some languages are better for relaying info, more poetic, more clear, more concise, easier to learn, and each has it's own 'feel'. I feel that knowing a particular language, lets you think differently, lets you see connections or make connections between things, persons, ideas. You feel at 'home', in familiar surroundings that way.

Though I don't agree with the muslim belief that you can't translate the words of god from arabic into other languages, I do agree with them that you can't always say the 'exact' same thing from one language to another; for those that know at least 2 languages fluently, try translating your favorite poem or short story from one language into the other. And you'll see.

Sayonara y'all

Originally posted by storni
I have heard it takes a long while to learn German, is it true it is one of the hardest European languages?
I don't think so, it's half English anyway. :p

Storni: I have heard it takes a long while to learn German. Is it true it is one of the hardest European languages? As Firefly says, it's probably one of the easier ones for English speakers since it's so closely related. The grammar is a bit more complicated than English, but many of the concepts (e.g., singular/plural, present/past/future) are familiar and many of the verb and noun changes look a lot like Old English (e.g. sing/sang/sung = singen/sang/gesungen, mouse/mice = Maus/Mäuse). It only has two sounds that we don't: the variations of "ch" in "ach" and "ich." Even its R is pretty close to ours, unlike most of Europe. We share a lot of the same vocabulary, although German studiously avoids borrowing foreign words so you won't find many familiar Latin and Greek roots.

If you polled English speakers, I'll wager that most find the Slavic languages the most difficult. Strange sounds in impossible-to-pronounce combinations, bewildering grammar, very few familiar words.

Hey all you bilingual people, The 'Book of Mormon' intro states that the Lamanites "are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."

If that is true, then all Native American languages should be related to the "Reformed Egyptian" that these Jewish people supposedly spoke. So anyone with a basic knowledge of similar languages would be able to prove that easily enough.

So, I am wondering if any one knows Arabic, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic or Assyrian & knows what the following names found in the 'Book of Mormon' may possibly mean:


Abinadi
Ablom
Aiath
Alma
Alpha
Angola
Cohor
Cumenihah
Cumorah
Enos
Ether
Helaman
Irreantum
Isabel
Jacobugath
Jarom
Laman
Lehi
Mormon
Moroni
Mosiah
Mulek
Nephi
Sam

Just curious

Randolfo: The 'Book of Mormon' intro states that the Lamanites "are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."This issue has been beaten to death on another thread. Please do a search on "Mormon".

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
This issue has been beaten to death on another thread. Please do a search on "Mormon". Thanks, but I would like someone more familiar with second languages, specifically Arabic, Aramaic or Hebrew for an opinion.

then do a search on: "the book of Morons" :p okay okay :rolleyes: sorry, couldn't keep myself from posting this, and I mean: I really tried!!!:)

Randolfo is being civil. Let's please return the courtesy and treat him with respect.

Randolfo, please reciprocate by treating the forum with respect. The older thread is full of postings by scientists of all kinds. The scientific evidence is complete and consistent; the case is closed. Please review it and see whether it satisfies your curiosity, before repeating a question that has already been asked and answered.

To summarize the tertiary research of simply reading that thread:

All of the ethnic groups of the pre-Columbian Americas were already well established here, and piling up tons of archeological evidence to prove it, by 4000 BC. (Except for the Eskimo-Aleuts, who arrived in 2000 BC. Funny, nobody ever suggests that they were the Lost Tribe.) As if two continents full of archeological sites weren't sufficient proof, more than fifteen years ago this time discrepancy was proven even more irrefutably by analyzing blood types, languages, and dental patterns. If anyone was left who doubted the facts, the new science of DNA testing has even helped pinpoint the area in east-central Asia that they came from.

Bear in mind that this is long before the Lost Tribe got lost; long before the Jewish people even split up into tribes; long before the return from Egypt or even the exile in Egypt. Centuries before the Year One on the Jewish calendar, the traditional date of the Biblical Creation. If I'm not mistaken, this migration occurred before the Jewish religion was created and the Canaanites became known as Hebrews.

There are only three language families in the Western Hemisphere: Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut. They have been studied extensively; imagine how much work went into discovering the three families. None of them bears the faintest relationship or similarity to the Semitic-Hamitic family.

Languages have thousands or tens of thousands of words. Given the limited number of phonemes that the human vocal apparatus can produce, it's no surprise that some of those words sound similar by sheer coincidence. The word for "lady" is "donna" in Italian and "onna" in Japanese; is that why we talk about the "Japanese Mafia"? Scores of women in Shanghai were raped by drunken G.I.s during WWII -- because the Shanghai Chinese phrase for "I don't want to" is "A la f' you." The soldiers thought they were hearing "I love you," if you believe anything a drunken soldier says.

Finally, the DNA tests show conclusively that the Indians are all of Mongolian stock; moreover, such a long-separated branch that they don't have the epicanthic eye folds of their Asian cousins. The Jews are Caucasian. That means their most recent common ancestor was, what, 25,000 years ago? Longer than that?

If you're still not convinced, please at least do your homework and read the thread before asking for another sixteen tons of proof from the same members.

Yeah, I know some languages, but I don't like to brag, or lie, like most of the people on here who say what languages they somewhat know.

Ian, you are nowhere near being fluent in spanish, so shut your cock sucker.

english-fluent
french-conversational

when i went to france last year with my high school, i learned just how much french i knew, as i was able to discern all of the erotic lingo that ejaculated (hehe) from the mouths of the porno stars on the tv at 9 pm.....9 PM!!!!

it was then that i realized just how lax the rest of the world is compared to america...

and may i give some props to psycho potato....
toot that bari peter....toot that bari

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker

Randolfo, please reciprocate by treating the forum with respect. The older thread is full of postings by scientists of all kinds. The scientific evidence is complete and consistent; the case is closed. Please review it and see whether it satisfies your curiosity, before repeating a question that has already been asked and answered.
...

To summarize the tertiary research of simply reading that thread:
...

All of the ethnic groups of the pre-Columbian Americas were already well established here, and piling up tons of archeological evidence to prove it, by 4000 BC.
If you're still not convinced, please at least do your homework and read the thread before asking for another sixteen tons of proof from the same members.

Thanks, even though I don't believe the BoM, I wanted to see if anyone knew what those names possibly meant, I was hoping that someone saw a connection? (real names meant something in ancient times) or found that those names meant nothing? (in other words, they were made up). I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt, in case someone can come up with absolute proof, sort of like Heinrich Schliemann & Troy.
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-63448/grekhist2.htm

who the hell are you. slush?

i go to school with you...and that's kind of fun...

I changed it. no more gack zross.

just started learning japanese, and them i will start on chinese.