# Languages?



## Giaguara (Feb 17, 2003)

How many languages do we speak in here? 

I think I can't put the languages in the list because that'd be too long a list .. so *what* or *how many* languages do you speak*?

And how many languages did you learn in school that you never use (and can't speak them) - e.g. the ancient Greek or Latin?


* I think if you can read a book, follow a lesson or a movie in that language, write something and make the people understand you in the same language, then you speak it.


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## fryke (Feb 17, 2003)

Hmm... I clicked 3, but I guess it's more. 

German
English
French
Italian (1/2)
Latin (1/2)

Is that 4?


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## hazmat (Feb 17, 2003)

I speak English and Portuguese.  Learned Spanish in school, but don't use it.


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## Ugg (Feb 17, 2003)

Native English speaker

Deutsch war meine Hauptfach an der Universität.

Je parle un petit peu de francais.

And, because I have spent most of my life on the west coast of the US I wll always be able to make myself understood in a spanish restaurant!

I marked 3 but it should really only be 2.5


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## chevy (Feb 17, 2003)

Ugg, English + German + French + Spanish, you are 4 too.


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## JetwingX (Feb 17, 2003)

English 
a little German (at least enough to count and cuss )
and i know how to write and understand one symbol in Japanese
and i know a little Spanish


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## Captain Code (Feb 17, 2003)

&#54620;&#44537; &#51096;&#54616;&#45796;(I speak Korean) but not well enough understand more than a few words in the average sentence.

But, I also speak French but haven't really used it for about 6 years.

Along with English.

And a few words in Spanish.  Buenos dias siniorita  (spelling doesn't count)


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## toast (Feb 18, 2003)

French and English

Low-level Arabic
Low-level German

Some Latin

I also speak HTML, TI-Basic, a bit of Java and ANSI, as well as some PHP and other C derivatives.
Do programming languages count ?


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## Cat (Feb 18, 2003)

In chronological order:

German
Italian
Dutch
English
Latin & Greek
LoFOL (Fitch) 
Prolog
Java
Haskell

I think I can make myself be understiid in French and Spanish as well... I knew some songs in Spanish: e.g. _El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!_


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## Giaguara (Feb 18, 2003)

Heh. _Cat_, you are hard to beat  Italian, Spanish, English, ..  HTML, Objective-C, Cocoa, Spanglish, Portuñol, Sicilian, Palermitan, Brazilian, Argentinian, some Neapolitan ... really bad Finnish and at least (mh, mainly just) some bad words in French, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese, Swedish, php ...


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## mdnky (Feb 18, 2003)

English, French (been awhile), working on Swedish (helps when searching for parts for my car on the net).


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## lurk (Feb 18, 2003)

What is the story behind Finnish?  Anyone who speeks Finnish and is not a Finn has a story 

-Eric


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## ksv (Feb 18, 2003)

Do dialects count? 
I speak 6 Norwegian dialects, write both of the two Norwegian written languages (nynorsk, bokmål). Talk a couple of English dialects and German


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## Giaguara (Feb 18, 2003)

lurk, I tried to survive there for some time. Not an ideal place for tropical animals...


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## AdmiralAK (Feb 18, 2003)

hehehe... I love this thread 
Actually latin can be spoken...in the vatican  -- but I dont know latin anyway(yet )

This is my list:
Greek
English (duh! )
French
Italian
German
Russian
Vietnamese
Spanish (ULTRA rusty)


Of course my russian, vietnamese and spanish need practicing, more learning and polishing up but hey


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## Ugg (Feb 18, 2003)

Oh, and speaking of Finnish, due to my Finnish Grandparents I can count to seven, understand what paja poika means! read very basic Finnish and not do too badly in a Finnish restaurant.  Hmmm, I've never seen any outside of Finland?


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## chemistry_geek (Feb 18, 2003)

English & German


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## voice- (Feb 18, 2003)

ksv, do you really count Bokmål and Nynorsk as 2 languages? Then I speak more than the 3 I clicked, I guess...

I speak English, Bokmål, Nynorsk, Swedish (OK, but not too well) and a few dialects...can also read Danish, but can't understand the spoken language they have...


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## chevy (Feb 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Giaguara _
> *Heh. Cat, you are hard to beat  Italian, Spanish, English, ..  HTML, Objective-C, Cocoa, Spanglish, Portuñol, Sicilian, Palermitan, Brazilian, Argentinian, some Neapolitan ... really bad Finnish and at least (mh, mainly just) some bad words in French, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese, Swedish, php ... *



Tell us some bad words in PHP....


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## Giaguara (Feb 18, 2003)

<?php
  $req = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
  // Remove rubbish and stf.
  $newReq = ereg_replace ('index.php[^?]*', 'index.php', $req);
  if (strlen($newReq) < strlen($req)) {
    header ('Location: '.$newReq);
    header ('HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently');
    die;  // Don't send any more output.
  }
  unset($req); unset($newReq);
...  ...
?>


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## chevy (Feb 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Giaguara _
> *<?php
> $req = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
> // Remove rubbish and stf.
> ...



, I love that one


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## ksv (Feb 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by voice- _
> *ksv, do you really count Bokmål and Nynorsk as 2 languages?*



No, but I think they're officially counted as two different written languages. They differ more than Bokmål and Danish. They're both Norwegian, though 

An example for you non-Norwegian-speakers :

English: I have a dog.
Bokmål: Jeg har en hund.
Nynorsk: Eg har ein hund.

As you can see, both the personal pronoun and the indefinite article differ.
The grammar is generally the same in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, but Nynorsk has a few more conjugations of personal pronouns as direct or indirect object, and seperates more between genders. In bokmål, you can use male articles for female nouns. E.g:

English: *a* chimney
Bokmål: *ei* pipe/*en* pipe

English: _the_ chimney
Bokmål: pip*a*/pip*en* 

As you can see, 'ei' is the female indefinite article in Bokmål, 'en' the male, '-a' the female definite article and '-en' the male.

Fascinating, huh?


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## Giaguara (Feb 18, 2003)

Jag har tva° katter, inga hund ..


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## ksv (Feb 18, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Giaguara _
> *Jag har två katter, inga hund ..  *



Weey 
That's Swedish actually, in Norwegian (bokmål) that would be "Jeg har to katter, ingen hund". 

Questions?


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## chevy (Feb 19, 2003)

Can we count different Swiss German dialects that use different words for the same concept as different languages ?

At least Swiss Germans tend to considere German as a foreign language.

Example:
(English): (German): (Swiss German-Bern)
Tuesday: Dienstag: Ziestig
Butter: Butter: Anke


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## AdmiralAK (Feb 19, 2003)

BTW anyone in here speak romanche ? (sp?) I heard that it is one of the official languages in switzerland but almost no one seems to speak it   --- (pollwise I dominate this group hehehehe)


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## mr. k (Feb 19, 2003)

yi snakker lit dansk, un peu français, and some real good english...

but im too young to have learned a language real good in the US...  wish I lived in europe i would probably speak like 3 languages now.


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## Juxel (Feb 19, 2003)

English (Native)
Japanese (Travel)
Italian (Family)
German (Family)
Arabic (Travel)
Russian (School)
Spanish (School)
French (School)
Gaelic (Family)
Latin (School)
Greek (School)

I can understand them all, read them all, write them all, can't really speak Latin or Greek, and I can be understood in the rest.

Not too bad considering I'm 17.  My parents travel a lot and have pushed me to learn a lot.


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## Cat (Feb 20, 2003)

I don't think we can count dialects, only officailly rated languages. E.g. in the Nehterlands there are two official languages: Dutch and Frysk (Frisian), while regional dialects like Limburgs (the southern part the Netherlands) aren't considered languages, even if they use a lot of different words.

If we do count dialects I'lladd to my list:

Limburgs (Kirchroa)
Sicilian (Siracusa)
Trentino (Levico)

I don't think there is a semi-official written form of these... so these are speak/understand only


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## Giaguara (Feb 20, 2003)

Cat, I do have somewhere the Sicilian - Italian dictionary so that counts also as dialect. Besides .. Milanese (downloadable),  Limburg,  Trentino ... a lot of others would qualify as well .. heh. Cockney,  Palermitano  (downloadable) etc etc ...


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## hazmat (Feb 20, 2003)

I know one word in Sicilian. ;-)


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## Cat (Feb 20, 2003)

Giaguara: I know that they are dialects, even officially recognized dialects, but not languages, which has to do a lot more with 'official' status than with richness, history and # people who speak it... Written forms differ a lot from town to town, so even if it is possible to make a dictionary of it, it would apply only to a small area (or city) or would have to report all kinds of tiny little variations.

Thanks for all the links though


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## Cat (Feb 20, 2003)

> I know one word in Sicilian. ;-)



Which is ...?

(Let me guess: Padrino  )


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## hazmat (Feb 20, 2003)

minc---*BEEEEEEEP*---ia 

[Haz, you do know what that means!]


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## Giaguara (Feb 20, 2003)

haz' .. I moderated you ...


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## hazmat (Feb 20, 2003)

What, like comPUTAdor? ;-)


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## Giaguara (Feb 20, 2003)

Nah. It's computadora, in Spanish the combitchputers are female. Even Macs. In Italian only Suns are female...


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## Decado (Feb 20, 2003)

Swedish
Norwegian
Danish
English
French

Understands written german 
Can follow a conversation in dutch and speak about simple stuff.
Understands some latin.
Can be polite in greek


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## chevy (Feb 20, 2003)

> _Originally posted by AdmiralAK _
> *BTW anyone in here speak romanche ? (sp?) I heard that it is one of the official languages in switzerland but almost no one seems to speak it   --- (pollwise I dominate this group hehehehe) *



My grandmother was romanch, i've been one month in that region, but i don't speak it and it's very difficult to read, with the exceptions of new words taken from Italian or German.


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## chevy (Feb 22, 2003)

You will find here some information about the 4th Swiss language: Retoromanch or Romantsch

http://giannieanna.chez.tiscali.fr/lero/tableus-en.html


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## AdmiralAK (Feb 22, 2003)

thanks 

sooo...when tackling the issue of dialects who wants to tackle the hot potato of yugoslavian ?  -- first we said yugoslavian, then serbo-croatian then we split them up in to two different languages but in reality they are the same language ?


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## Dusky (Feb 22, 2003)

Spanish:
I was born in Mexico (3 hours away from Acapulco).  I lived there until the age of ten.  Reader's Digest _En Español_ took over where my Mexican schooling left off.

English:
I've lived in the US more than half of my life.  I speak English with a heavy accent, but I'm understood, I think. 

American Sign Language:
I took two (or was it four?) semesters of ASL in High School.  I know fingerspelling and basic signs.  A teacher that I work with, who used to be a Sign Language interpreter, tells me that I know more sign language than I give myself credit for.  She's a big liar.  Hehe. 

I will mark 2 in the poll.  I think we should only claim the languages we feel comfortable speaking, and through which we're able to express ideas that go farrrrrr beyond "yes, the car is red."


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## Giaguara (Feb 22, 2003)

Dusky, I guess you could add Spanglish as well. 

Mhh.. i _understand_ cat and most other felines but I speak only jaguar


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## Dusky (Feb 22, 2003)

> I guess you could add Spanglish as well



No, fortunately, I do not speak Spanglish.  (Not often, anyway.)  I've heard a non-English-speaking lady refer to her son's bike as his "baika", when the correct Spanish term was "bicicleta", or "bici" (slang).  I understand when a hispanic kid will refer to the parking lot as "el parking lot", but to hear a lady who was raised in Latin America use those words, when she doesn't yet speak English, is kinda sad.

That's not to say I've never been in the position to use Spanglish.

I was the translator during a parent conference a few weeks ago.  The teacher was asking the parent, "what about cupcakes, does your son enjoy them?"  I honestly couldn't think of the Spanish word for cupcake.  I was pretty sure the parent knew what a cupcake was, but I went ahead and described it for her, and used the word "muffin".  Later on I realized I could have translated as "pastelito"...  meaning, "little cake".  Hehe.

For the Spanish-speaking folks here, what's a cupcake called in Spanish?


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## oldmac (Feb 22, 2003)

Vell, I vas born in Chermany, und I kame ofer to  ze United Schtates ven I vas chust a yung boy!

German is my native language, as I was born there. We emigrated to the U.S. when I was six. Unfortunately, I speak very little German today; my parents went through the war on the losing side, and my father was a German POW in Russia, so when we came here my parents spent all their energies learning the English language and becoming "Americanized". This year is our 50th Anniversay in Amerca, and my mother is throwing a big party this summer. 

I can still understand German, in a conversation, but I struggle with speaking it.


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