Favorite language and favorite Romance and Germanic language

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by science man, Apr 3, 2011.

  1. What is favorite language out of all the languages you know, your favorite Romance language and your favorite Germanic language? You can give it in this format. (giving a reason is optional)
    Favorite language: Latin
    Reason:it birthed the alphabet my native tongue uses.
    Favorite Romance language: Italian
    Reason: sounds the best to me.
    Favorite Germanic language: English
    Reason: I'm not really into Germanic languages so I just went with my native.
     
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  3. superstring01 Moderator

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    Favorite language: English
    Reason: It's the most democratic of all languages. The rules are: What everybody says is English. No snooty Académie Anglais staffed by pompous nobodies who think that their opinion of what people speak should be made into linguistic canon. No controlling powers. It's the least snobby of any language I know or know of. It's a pain in the ass for non-natives (for the most part), but it's highly diverse and fluid; it has a vocabulary second to none. It's the de facto universal language. It's the essential language if you want to move up in the world in any of the following fields (though there are many more) of science, academia, business, aviation, medicine, culture, the internet, entertainment, arts, oceangoing vessels and politics. Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, French and Portuguese are all "handy" and make you look rather cultured, but if yoo no speakie Engrish, you are forever on the outside looking in, in this world.
    Favorite Romance language: Spanish.
    Reason: 'Cause I know it well. Plus, French is pretty nifty sounding and I love Portuguese, but Spanish rocks.
    Favorite Germanic language: English.
    Reason: See my reason above.

    ~String
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    • Favorite language: Mandarin
    • Reason(s): It's the most adaptable (they never have to borrow foreign words), most expressive (movies are "electric shadows"), most streamlined (no inflections, no articles, no prepositions, no present/past/future, singular/plural, masculine/feminine, etc.), slowest spoken (because of the streamlining it only takes seven syllables to express what takes us ten and the Italians about forty), easiest to learn (the streamlining makes the rules simple and the slow speech makes it easy for foreigners to pick out the words)--yeah the writing sucks but in two generations all Chinese will speak Mandarin so they'll switch to the already-perfected phonetic syllabary
    • Favorite Romance language: Catalan
    • Reason: It's fun, almost exactly the melding of Spanish, Portuguese and French that you'd expect
    • Favorite Germanic language: Swedish
    • Reason: It's beautiful to listen to. I might have picked Romanian instead of Catalan for the same reason.
     
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  7. superstring01 Moderator

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    Really, Fraggle. I guessed you'd pick Mandarin, but I woulda never guessed Catalan. All I remember of it (from the array of words I learned from a Catalan friend while living in Spain) is, "Si ust plau."

    Your pick of Swedish is a good one. Though I challenge you on the matter of discerning it from Norwegian, Faroese or Danish. I almost include Icelandic, but their guttural vowels can even give it away to me.

    ~String
     
  8. birch Valued Senior Member

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    ^you have very solid american tastes. english/spanish is what most americans like.

    favorite language: japanese
    i think it has a rich texture to it and like the inflections. it has it's own type of soul that appeals to me.
    favorite romance language: french
    sounds like gurgling butter
    favorite germanic language: maybe swedish or danish.
    sounds a little better than the other ones to me.

    but i usually like and dislike something about every language but i find them all interesting in their own way.
     
  9. superstring01 Moderator

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    My tastes actually come about from real exposure and diverse travels--unlike most Americans. Lived in Spain. Studied for a spell in France. Traveled Europe. Met the people. Actually learned a second language on my own. I may have converged on a point, but for very different reasons. As with algebra and physics: it's the work that counts more than the solution.

    ~String
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Hmm. Since I only have a Spanish-Catalan dictionary (Castellà-Català) and not vice-versa, I can't look that up. I would have guessed that it means "please" since it looks like French s'il vous plait, but the dictionary seems to disagree. When I was staying with my Esperanto pen-pal's family in Valencia (yeah I know that's not in Catalonia and the people insist that they speak Valencià, not Català) after a week it started making sense, precisely because every word seemed to be truncated Spanish, twisted Portuguese, or French without all the silent letters. They were discussing how to get me back from downtown after dropping off my BMW motorcycle to be shipped home and I absentmindedly piped up in Spanish, "It's okay, I have a map and I can take the bus." A bunch of red faces asked, "When we speak Valencià, can you understand us?" I answered very carefully, this time in Valencià, "If you don't talk too fast."
    Picking a language to love is like picking a woman to love. There's no point in dooming yourself to a life of never hearing Prussian or meeting Nancy Lee Grahn. (A soap star, although one advantage of living in Hollywood was that I actually did run into one of her cast-mates shopping for groceries.) I have no idea what Norwegian or Faroese sounds like. I had a friend in college who had been an exchange student and spoke fluent Danish, and it is much different from Swedish. Swedish sounds like music, Danish sounds like gargling. Actually the sweetest sound I've ever heard may have been on my SAS flight to Europe, when the stewardess (we didn't call them "flight attendants" back then and they all wore skirts) ran through her announcements in four languages and I suddenly heard the magnificent phenomenon of German with a Swedish accent.
     
  11. superstring01 Moderator

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    Si ust plau is, indeed, "if you please". Catalan is a great language and it's sadly dying out, despite their passionate attempts at keeping it alive. And it isn't dying at the hands of it's evil neighbor, Castellaño. . . nope. It's English. See, there isn't much time to invest in learning a dead language in college, so everything switches back the core: Spanish as a base point for spring-boarding into English. Catalan will be around for but a century more, much less at its current rate. Shame. It's quite an attractive language.
     
  12. skaught The field its covered in blood Valued Senior Member

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    Favorite language: Russian
    Reason: It sounds so passionate to me, like when someone is speaking Russian, they are speaking from the heart!
    Favorite romance language: To be honest, I can't stand any of them. They hurt my ears. Especially Spanish. I'd rather listen to nails on a chalk board. I guess if I had to pick one, it would be French, but not because I like the way it sounds. It's more of a scholarly interest, seeing as how it influenced English.
    Germanic language: I'd have a hard time choosing just one. I do like English. It has a unique and interesting history. The little bit of Icelandic I have heard was rather pleasing to my ears. I have a strong interest in wanting to learn Norwegian sine I am mostly of Norwegian ancestry, but I really haven't heard much of it before.
    I'm going to expand and say that my favorite afro-asiatic language is probably Hebrew. Though I think it sounds a little strange, I think it's an interesting language.
    I'd also like to learn more about Hindi, Sanskrit, Farsi, and Mandarin.
     
  13. Aldrnari Registered Member

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    Favorite language: Old Norse
    Reason: It birthed and influenced so many of the modern Germanic languages, including a large contribution to Anglo-Saxon, and thereby modern English.
    Favorite romance language: Latin. Besides being the root of so many south-European languages, it seems to me to be the most pure (most likely because it is a dead language and thus has been influenced little by modern languages.) Other than Latin I'd have to say Italian, though.
    Germanic language: This is hard for me, since I love them all so much. I am fluent in Swedish, and understand Norwegian, and love them both so much. Icelandic is simply beautiful. English has its charms as well.

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  14. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Can you also understand Danish?
     
  15. you can go to lyricstranslate.com to look for songs in almost every common foreign language and of course as a bonus you can search for the ones that have been translated to English or whatever your native language is.

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    (the note language that I noticed they don't have is Yiddish)
     
  16. Wow I've never heard of or seen Old Norse before. Although I admire that you admire Latin I should say FYI it's not a Romance language. It's actually an Italic language. (I know, I was shocked too when I read that. I just found that out a few months ago. Before then I thought it was a Romance language too)
     
  17. I've had this in my head ever since I first read it. (for a few weeks) Why is it essential in order move up in world in scientific fields? It is the best thing I've read that gives me pride that it is my native tongue but why is it the case?
     

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