Topic: What languages do we speak on OC.net?

[Fr. George]

What languages do we all speak?  Vote for what you speak/write in passably (not necessarily fluently).  May vote for as many languages/categories as you speak.

[GiC]

You could have included spanish in the Romance language category and you left out a big one, Latin...which though is the basis for Romance languages, is not actually counted amongst them.

[Fr. George]

Of course I could have.... But I wanted the SPanish breakout because of the sheer volume of people that would speak it.....

[Anastasios]

नमस्ते, मेरा नाम आनास्तासियोस है। मैं हिंदी कुछ कुछ बोल सकता हुँ।

[GiC]

नमस्ते, मेरा नाम आनास्तासियोस है। मैं हिंदी कुछ कुछ बोल सकता हुँ।

Hindi? I dont see this conversation going too far on here...but good luck with it.

[Fr. George]

Hindi? I dont see this conversation going too far on here...but good luck with it.

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[Cephas]

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[Ebor]

Now then, Sindarin and Quenya are hardly "artificial" languages.... unless it is meant that there is the work of an "artisan of words" in the making.

 

Ebor (though I'm certainly not fluent, alas.)

And what about Japanese? is that for the last choice "boo"?

[Ebor]

And what about Old English/Anglo Saxon?  Or Middle English? 

Not the same as Modern English by a long chalk.

Ebor 

[GiC]

And what about Old English/Anglo Saxon?  Or Middle English? 

Not the same as Modern English by a long chalk.

Ebor 

Old English, at least, would go under 'Germanic'

[dantxny]

And Anglo-Norman?  Where do we put that?

[dantxny]

Cleveland,
Do you think we should take out English, as most of us are fluent in English and it does skew the results.

[FrChris]

Cleveland,
Do you think we should take out English, as most of us are fluent in English and it does skew the results.

Well, if you take out English, then that means I don't get to vote or participate in this poll!

[Ebor]

Old English, at least, would go under 'Germanic'

Related, it is, but "not the same".   

Ebor (Anglo-Saxon separatism!!)

 

[Cowboy]

Someone should change the calculation equation on this poll. Right now the number of responses for each category are divided by the total number of responses. They should be divided by the total number of respondents. Otherwise it looks like less than 30% are fluent in English.

[Fr. George]

Cleveland,
Do you think we should take out English, as most of us are fluent in English and it does skew the results.

It may skew the percentages (which I really wasn't interested in), but it does serve as a "baseline," and also gives a good idea as to the makeup of our non-local population.

[jmbejdl]

It may skew the percentages (which I really wasn't interested in), but it does serve as a "baseline," and also gives a good idea as to the makeup of our non-local population.

I was under the impression we were talking about non-native languages and so I didn't vote English although I am, clearly, relatively proficient in it.

James

[czzham]

guess I'm not a "World City-Zen"! no unity for me, just the American English I was born & raised with, although I also speak, read & understand several others... por les Euros des mois, eta pravda, faccia bella. 7 x 7 don't equal Arabic eleven... do we have that many wheels? (I know, bad pun, no Paddy 'O' Fence in-tended...).

[Fr. George]

I was under the impression we were talking about non-native languages and so I didn't vote English although I am, clearly, relatively proficient in it.

James

Oh, I guess I should have been more clear or specific.  No worries- if you're the statistical outlier, that's okay!

[Veniamin]

So really, how many people here can speak Klingon?  Inquiring minds want to know.

[Fr. George]

So really, how many people here can speak Klingon?  Inquiring minds want to know.

In that list of "artificial" languages is probably included Elvish, Vulcan, etc.  I bet there is at least one person who speaks Elvish, but as for Klingon - I know GiC probably wishes he could, and I know FrChris and I have theories that he already learned a few words (ka-PLAH!).

[GabrieltheCelt]

 I am gifted with the ability to hear all languages fluently.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

^
LOL!

Also, though I can speak only English and Spanish, I can understand related languages. I once worked with a guy who spoke French but not Spanish. I spoke Spanish to him and he French to me, and we never once had a misunderstanding. Also, when I was in Germany last summer, I had little trouble understanding the Berliners (Nein, ich nein bin ein Berliner...bad joke), even when they did not understand English (most of them did). Just some observations.

[Despina]

I speak English & Canadian very well . I can read Greek very well, write it okay, and speak it...poorly. But I can understand it well. I know quite a bit of Serbian as well, if I hear people speak it, I know it's Serbian and not Croatian or Bulgarian.

[The young fogey]

Also, though I can speak only English and Spanish, I can understand related languages... (Nein, ich nein bin ein Berliner...bad joke)

So can I, at least in writing, which is why my English and some Russian, Spanish and Latin go pretty far.

Is the Berliner joke about ein Berliner, 'jelly doughnut'? Some say the story about JFK - that his quotation in German really translates as 'I am a jelly doughnut' - is false and 'Ich bin ein Berliner' means 'I am a Berliner' like he meant. (According to the story, in German 'I am a Berliner' is 'Ich bin Berliner'.)

[Despina]

Einai ola Ellinika gia mena.

[Friar Tuck]

English, French, Italian, Greek, and Latin.

Friar Tuck

[Heorhij]

The two languages that I call my "equally first" are Ukrainian and Russian. Ukrainian was the only language of my retired grandfather who spent as much time and effort to raise me as my parents did (if not more), and Russian was the language of my parents. The first children's books that I read were, again, in Ukrainian and in Russian. Growing up in Kyiv, the capital of the Soviet Ukraine, a city that was terribly Russified, I heard and used mostly Russian; but then I married a girl from Volyn', a part of Ukraine that retained its "Ukrainianness" better, and I switched entirely to Ukrainian at home.

English is the language I learned at school; it is the language I currently use in my everyday work and communication with Americans. The other two foreign languages I have "some idea about" (can read and understand with the help of a dictionary, albeit cannot speak fluently myself) are French and Spanish.

Certainly, being a Slav, I can recognize many words written or spoken in Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Bulgarian, etc.

[PeterTheAleut]

I'm somewhat fluent in a number of languages:  C#, C++, C, Java, Binary, Perl, PHP, etc.

There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who know binary and those who don't.

[SamB]

And what about Old English/Anglo Saxon?  Or Middle English? 

Not the same as Modern English by a long chalk.

Ebor 

Ditto Modern Standard Arabic and vernacular dialects, the former functioning as once did katharevousa in Greece (shame that it's gone).

[ma2000]

There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who know binary and those who don't.

 

I can add Romanian, French , English and most of PeterTheAleut's favorite languages

[PeterTheAleut]

I can add Romanian, French , English and most of PeterTheAleut's favorite languages

Another computer geek like me, eh?

[ma2000]

89 101 115 33

[jmbejdl]

I can add Romanian, French , English and most of PeterTheAleut's favorite languages

With me it's swap German for French and add some very poor Czech, but other than that as for you (i.e. I'm also a computer geek to use PeterTheAleut's phrase). I'd have to leave a few off his list but add PL-SQL, T-SQL, WQL and probably a few others that don't immediately spring to mind.

James

[Sophie]

Greek, English, Spanish, French,  and some Italian. I would love to learn Farsi or Arabic, and I am in the process of learning the alphabet but I guess it is going to take a loooong time!

[Fr. George]

Greek, English, Spanish, French,  and some Italian. I would love to learn Farsi or Arabic, and I am in the process of learning the alphabet but I guess it is going to take a loooong time!

Doesn't knowing Spanish help one learn Italian and vice-versa?  (I don't know either, but was considering learning the latter one).

[Entscheidungsproblem]

Doesn't knowing Spanish help one learn Italian and vice-versa?  (I don't know either, but was considering learning the latter one).

Written, not so much, but orally, yes.  Of the two, Italian is the best to learn (yes, I do have a bias  ), since lexical similarities are higher between Italian and other Romance Languages (French, Romanian), compared to Spanish.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Written, not so much, but orally, yes.  Of the two, Italian is the best to learn (yes, I do have a bias  ), since lexical similarities are higher between Italian and other Romance Languages (French, Romanian), compared to Spanish.

Oh, I'd say it's the opposite. Speaking Spanish, I find it very easy to read Portuguese, Italian, or Romanian, even if I can't pronounce the words. Italian I can understand spoken better than any other Romance language; I think Spanish and Italian are the closest in that group.

[Αριστοκλής]

For me, any Romance language other than French is useful in understanding/learning others.

[jmbejdl]

For me, any Romance language other than French is useful in understanding/learning others.

I agree. I did two years of Spanish at school and certainly can't speak it yet at university I found that my Romanian allowed me to read Spanish psychology papers without much difficulty (only needed a dictionary accasionally), I have no problem understanding Italian, Portuguese is reasonably ok to read but impossible to understand spoken. French is most definitely the odd one out. I can't get on with the language at all (and I did two years of that at school, too). I must say though, that whilst Romanians have no difficulty at all understanding Italian, I'm told that the reverse doesn't apply so much. Apparently certain phonetic changes plus loan words from languages like Slavonic make it difficult for the Italians whereas usually even if a loan word is the norm Romanian has an archaic equivalent derived from Latin as well. The grammar of Romanian is also way more complicated than Italian.

James

[Entscheidungsproblem]

I must say though, that whilst Romanians have no difficulty at all understanding Italian, I'm told that the reverse doesn't apply so much. Apparently certain phonetic changes plus loan words from languages like Slavonic make it difficult for the Italians whereas usually even if a loan word is the norm Romanian has an archaic equivalent derived from Latin as well. The grammar of Romanian is also way more complicated than Italian.

Like you said, for an Italian, the main issues are certain phonetic sound changes (lack of a 'qu' sound and others) and Slavic loan words.  I learned Friulian though, so it has helped.  It has influences from all over in it, so Slavic loan words are less scary.   

[Sophie]

Before I began to speak Spanish fluently I spoke better Italian than I do now. I do understand it but the similarities with Spanish make it difficult to distinguish between the two when I try to speak it and not say the words in Spanish, or use Spanish words with italian endings! Same goes for French. Spanish has ruined my life! lol 

[Reader KevinAndrew]

Greek, English, Spanish, French,  and some Italian. I would love to learn Farsi or Arabic, and I am in the process of learning the alphabet but I guess it is going to take a loooong time!

Between Farsi/Persian and Arabic, Persian is a heck of alot easier to learn. The grammar's simple.

For me, English (mother tongue), French, Persian / Farsi, and two years of modern Standard Arabic (I'm at intermediate level with that).

[Ian Lazarus]

Glaswiegen!

[Athanasios]

Hello,

My primary language is English. I can speak semi-fluent Italian (I am intending on becoming completely proficient in this language). I can also understand ecclesiastical Latin.

I am also proficient in binary, hex, ASCII, and UNICODE, C/C++, shell scripting languages, etc.. (yup, computer geek here)

I have a dappling of many other languages, but none enough to say I can know them even passably - usually just a couple of phrases or an understanding of the alphabet/pronunciation. In this list is included Croatian (my best language in this class), French, Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, etc.