Languages

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Best of luck with the Finnish, that language can drive people crazy. You need something the Finns call "sisu" to learn it I think. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are a piece of cake compared to Finnish because they are similar. I speak all three and I can't really call it three languages, more like 2,3 languages.

Yes! I was actively learning Swedish for a couple years, and realized just how Anglo-Saxon the English language really is. We practically speak Swedish, with a whole bunch of French and Latin mixed in.

I have a theory that English might be even closer to Danish. But not sure.

 

[Forest Cat]

Yes! I was actively learning Swedish for a couple years, and realized just how Anglo-Saxon the English language really is. We practically speak Swedish, with a whole bunch of French and Latin mixed in.

I have a theory that English might be even closer to Danish. But not sure.

I think Swedish is a wonderful language, you can make anything sound like a song in Swedish. I sometimes speak Swedish just because it's fun, a fun language.

 

[Outdated]

Yes! I was actively learning Swedish for a couple years, and realized just how Anglo-Saxon the English language really is.

A quick entomology of English.

There are very few of the original English words in the language, Pig is one of those words, so are all the words with the “ough” spelling.

In pre-Roman times many Celts started visiting England and they introduced all sorts of new and wonderful things to the very primitive Brits. The Brits needed new words for all of these things and adopted the Celtic words for them, the language was mostly related to Flemmish, a germanic language. Nearly all words related to household and farming items are from the Celts. House, Knife, Oven, etc.

Then came the Romans and once again new things were introduced and new words were needed, that’s where all the Latin came in. Then they were mostly left to their own devices for several hundred years and the language evolved and matured.

Then from around 1100 ad came the French. The Brits considered the French to be much more advanced and much more sophisticated than themselves, especially so in the upper classes, so they adopted French words for anything that was considered to be the province of the upper classes.

So anything to do with the sciences and the arts as well as many foods. Education, Sanitation and Parliament are all French words, even though the language used within those sectors is mostly Latin.

This is also why we breed Cows (kau) but we eat Beef (beouf) and we breed Pigs but we eat Pork (porc).

 

[Judge]

I'm still scundered just trying to learn Norn Iron.

 

[Princess Viola]

I've been studying Spanish for literal years because I'm Puerto Rican and it's part of my heritage. I'd say I'm conversational at it at this point, at least in text form. I can converse with my mom in Spanish on Facebook (she's bilingual in English and Spanish).

Also been studying French just out of personal interest in learning the language (and tbf I live in South Florida and we get a lot of Québécois going down here on vacation during the winter. Seriously lots of hotels down here will have say things like 'Parlons français' or just 'Français' on the signs to show that they have French-speakers on staff and during the winter months, you'll see quite a few Québec license plates around, so while you wouldn't think it - learning French could actually be useful down here.) Nowhere near conversational in French but I can generally get the gist of things if I see them written down.

I've also on-and-off been studying Japanese.

 

[MROSS]

I once had an interest in 'Latin' and 'Esperanto' - as primers for understanding Western languages.

Most notably, I'm open to words/terms in other langages that better define those concepts than the English language- as the subtleties of the English language can sometimes be challenging to understand.

It's refreshing to find words in other languages which seem to do a better job than the English language in defining those elusive concepts.

One of many examples may be familliar with the Autism Spectrum, the Japanese term, 'hikikomori' describes being withdrawn from society. Further details: Hikikomori - Wikipedia

The book 'Other Wordly' contanins many examples.