Languages

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Anji
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Anji
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April 25th, 2007 at 06:55am
This thread is a discussion about languages. Talk about interesting facts, debate their need, discuse similarities, differences, sounds, connotations, denotations, sybilances, assonances, dissonances, accents. Whatever.

Talk about the future of languages, where they will go to, what will happe to them. Talk about their past, where they originated from, how sounds were formed.

I don't think this will be very popular, but I'm interested.
lyrical_mess
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lyrical_mess
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 06:57am
Oooh! ME! ME! I'M INTERESTED! Obsessed, even. Lemme take a quick guess here and say that this thread was inspired by my latest post in the religion thread.
Anji
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Anji
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April 25th, 2007 at 07:11am
To begin, recently in Bangkok there has been an issue over the respelling of the previous airport, now spelled Don Mueang. This wasn't really what annoyed me so much, even though I, as a Thai and English speaker, disagree with how the Thai is translated into English, and how an English speaking person would prnounce it. Who cares, it's just the old airport, not even used that much. What bothered me was reading in the newspaper the other day, a letter from some guy who said that the vowel combination 'uea' is non-existant in English and therefore this translation shouldn't be used. Some some reason, he found it necessary to write a whole column about this.

I thought this was a silly thing to say because, it is a translation, and a translation of any other language is bound to cause a little bit of altering of the vowel sounds because not all languages are alike in sounds. Also, there are pleanty of English words derived from other languages so why so fussy about this translation? Thirdly, English isn't a very good language to translate into anyway. The vowles 'ou' have only about seven different sounds. I just didn't understand how you can try and justify using the proper rules of vowle clusters in a dictation of another language.
Anji
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Anji
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April 25th, 2007 at 07:12am
lyrical_mess:
Oooh! ME! ME! I'M INTERESTED! Obsessed, even. Lemme take a quick guess here and say that this thread was inspired by my latest post in the religion thread.
Well, I was thinking about it for some time before, but yeah, I've finally posted it. Very Happy
lyrical_mess
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lyrical_mess
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 07:28am
Anji:
To begin, recently in Bangkok there has been an issue over the respelling of the previous airport, now spelled Don Mueang. This wasn't really what annoyed me so much, even though I, as a Thai and English speaker, disagree with how the Thai is translated into English, and how an English speaking person would prnounce it. Who cares, it's just the old airport, not even used that much. What bothered me was reading in the newspaper the other day, a letter from some guy who said that the vowel combination 'uea' is non-existant in English and therefore this translation shouldn't be used. Some some reason, he found it necessary to write a whole column about this.

I thought this was a silly thing to say because, it is a translation, and a translation of any other language is bound to cause a little bit of altering of the vowel sounds because not all languages are alike in sounds. Also, there are pleanty of English words derived from other languages so why so fussy about this translation? Thirdly, English isn't a very good language to translate into anyway. The vowles 'ou' have only about seven different sounds. I just didn't understand how you can try and justify using the proper rules of vowle clusters in a dictation of another language.


How is it pronounced, just out of curiosity?

And it is something I find weird. Like a lot of times on advertisements, Hindi words are spelled in English. And there's a soft t and a hard t. Both are written as "th". Hindi also has a hard and soft "th" and these are written as t and tt respectively. Its weird, but in a way, it makes enough sense that I can't really say anything about it.
Anji
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Anji
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April 25th, 2007 at 07:55am
lyrical_mess:
Anji:
To begin, recently in Bangkok there has been an issue over the respelling of the previous airport, now spelled Don Meuang. This wasn't really what annoyed me so much, even though I, as a Thai and English speaker, disagree with how the Thai is translated into English, and how an English speaking person would prnounce it. Who cares, it's just the old airport, not even used that much. What bothered me was reading in the newspaper the other day, a letter from some guy who said that the vowel combination 'eua' is non-existant in English and therefore this translation shouldn't be used. Some some reason, he found it necessary to write a whole column about this.

I thought this was a silly thing to say because, it is a translation, and a translation of any other language is bound to cause a little bit of altering of the vowel sounds because not all languages are alike in sounds. Also, there are pleanty of English words derived from other languages so why so fussy about this translation? Thirdly, English isn't a very good language to translate into anyway. The vowles 'ou' have only about seven different sounds. I just didn't understand how you can try and justify using the proper rules of vowle clusters in a dictation of another language.


How is it pronounced, just out of curiosity?

And it is something I find weird. Like a lot of times on advertisements, Hindi words are spelled in English. And there's a soft t and a hard t. Both are written as "th". Hindi also has a hard and soft "th" and these are written as t and tt respectively. Its weird, but in a way, it makes enough sense that I can't really say anything about it.
I know. It's frusterating to explain this in arabic lettering, cause it's just not possible.

I believe the airport's name should be spelled Don Meuang. I made a mistake up there, it's spelled Don Mueang. But it's like a British 'ur' as in 'burn' but drop the 'r' and then an 'ang'.
lyrical_mess
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 10:20am
so...

Muh-ang?
Matt Smith
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April 25th, 2007 at 10:21am
I'm fiercly proud of the English language. Coolio
The majority of my pride in being English is in the language. I honestly find it beautiful. For my A-Levels, I'm taking both Language and Literature 'cause I think its the best possible use of my time. I'm also taking Spanish, because I believe learning a second language is something I have a duty to do.

Actually; I think this is kind of relevant to this topic, but its been said often enough that all British people should learn a second language. Most people here disagree, because English is obviously so widely understood, most here don't 'need' to learn another language. But people such as myself feel that I kind of have to do it, because it has many advantages. For example, no university shits on a Spanish A-Level like they would with a Media Studies one, and employers tend to favour those who have some kind of qualification in another language.

Nowadays, Britain is getting better at including other languages, I guess. Especially in Hospitals now, things are published in English, Somalian, Gujarati, Hindi, Chinese, Punjabi and allsorts.

I think if people are born with brains suited to maths and logic and some with brains for language and creativity, then my brain is a linguistic one. I guessed I grasped my first concept of Language at a young age, because I said my first three words at six months. How cool is that? xD

I just rambled a lot. Con
Anji
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April 25th, 2007 at 10:47am
I took High English A1 for my IB. I too find English a beautiful language. However I do not want it to dominate the world. It is the most global language of all and that is the only reason I do not like it. I take pride in my many other languages I can speak. Thai, and French being the main two. I know Welsh and am studying it a bit more, and I used to study German, Spanish, and Latin.

Growing up in many countries I became infant fluent in them. You know how young kids pick up languages in a snap, I did that with Indonesian and Arabic, although I've lost it all. (Apparently that's supposed to happen.) I have very sharp hearing with used to astound my doctors. My love of music and intrest in it fuels my ability to listen to languages with a more musical ear.

I love learning languages.

Anyway, I think it's majorly important for everyone to learn a second language. There's a quote from Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, 'More than 300 million people in the world speak Enlish and the rest it seems, try to.' It is very true and I don't like the thought of the world loosing some of the gorgeous, colourful languages ever.
lyrical_mess
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 11:20am
There's already many languages that died out. The only reason Hebrew/Yiddish is still well and alive as a spoken language is because of Isreal, even though technically they just kinda snatched up some land.
The Doctor
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 01:13pm
The English language is such a whore, if you pardon the expression. Nearly all of it is borrowed from other languages like Latin, Greek, French...

Interesting Facts about English Language:

"Television" is made of 'tele'- Latin for 'long' and 'vision'- Greek for 'view'. A famous dude said that nothing could be good coming from two different languages.

Nice was actually an insult in the Middle Ages.

English is the fastest growing language in the world.


But it's all gonna be replaced by Newspeak by 2050...so...be goodthinkful.
lyrical_mess
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 01:16pm
Care to explain what Newspeak is?
The Doctor
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April 25th, 2007 at 01:20pm
lyrical_mess:
Care to explain what Newspeak is?
The language that was developed in the Ministry of Truth in London, Airstrip One in the period between 1960 and 1986, when the definitive 11th Newspeak dictionary was published.

Example Sentence: Normal English

Those whose ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.

Newspeak:

Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.

tehe *resolves to stop reading 1984.*
Matt Smith
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April 25th, 2007 at 01:22pm
lyrical_mess:
Care to explain what Newspeak is?

George Orwell's fictional novel 1984 introduced the term 'newspeak', Orwell himself invented it.

Newspeak is basically a language used by the totalitarian government in said novel. They (the government) are attempting to wipe out all the phrases they don't like, and 'purify' the language itself, removing all synonyms and such. For example, synonyms for 'good' such as excellent, great, fantastic, brilliant and awesome are removed from the language in favour of good, doublegood and doubleplusgood.

Basically, Newspeak was about gaining control over the people in every aspect; the government already controlled everything they did, including the way they spoke, and changing the language in fact changes the way people think. It would mould them. Its fascinating, really. Because if you don't have the words to express yourself, you think differently.
Meski
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Meski
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April 25th, 2007 at 01:25pm
I love the spanish language, it's much easier than any other language I think. Maybe for some people it's hard to learn and hard to write as it is written in the Fenician Manuscript (written like I'm writing right now).

Spanish is a language that only needs to be said as it's written, but not in a strong way like English but in a soft way.

Spanish has some different letters from English, e.g.

Ñ: Enye, like, España -> Espanya
LL: Eye, like, Pollo -> Poyo

And if you change the language like Catalan, Gallego and some other Spanish related lingos you can have letters like this one:

Ç: Cerilla, like, Barça (Meg) ->Barsa

Think this is enough.
Matt Smith
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 01:29pm
Meski:
I love the spanish language, it's much easier than any other language I think. Maybe for some people it's hard to learn and hard to write as it is written in the Fenician Manuscript (written like I'm writing right now).

Spanish is a language that only needs to be said as it's written, but not in a strong way like English but in a soft way.

Spanish has some different letters from English, e.g.

Ñ: Enye, like, España -> Espanya
LL: Eye, like, Pollo -> Poyo

And if you change the language like Catalan, Gallego and some other Spanish related lingos you can have letters like this one:

Ç: Cerilla, like, Barça (Meg) ->Barsa

Think this is enough.

I like Spanish, I've been learning it for 5 years now, but I find it terribly hard. XD
Then again, I find nothing easy, and compared to some people in my class I find it 'easy', I guess. I think Spanish sounds really nice, but I'll never be able to talk with such speed Coolio
lyrical_mess
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April 25th, 2007 at 01:49pm
This should have been my fifth year of Spanish. But I was really good for the first three years. In my third year of Spanish, I could practically translate the minibooks we were reading. In fact, I did because I got stuck with a lazy group and they made me read it out to them in English. Rolling Eyes
rehabreject
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April 25th, 2007 at 02:01pm
Bloodraine:
Meski:
I love the spanish language, it's much easier than any other language I think. Maybe for some people it's hard to learn and hard to write as it is written in the Fenician Manuscript (written like I'm writing right now).

Spanish is a language that only needs to be said as it's written, but not in a strong way like English but in a soft way.

Spanish has some different letters from English, e.g.

Ñ: Enye, like, España -> Espanya
LL: Eye, like, Pollo -> Poyo

And if you change the language like Catalan, Gallego and some other Spanish related lingos you can have letters like this one:

Ç: Cerilla, like, Barça (Meg) ->Barsa

Think this is enough.

I like Spanish, I've been learning it for 5 years now, but I find it terribly hard. XD
Then again, I find nothing easy, and compared to some people in my class I find it 'easy', I guess. I think Spanish sounds really nice, but I'll never be able to talk with such speed Coolio
I'm learning Spanish at the moment and I think it's a beautiful language. It's kinda humbling to think that so many millions of people speak it across the whole world.
When someone speaks proper Spanish, with the right speed and pronounciation (like the 'c' in 'Valencia'), it gives me goosebumps... Shifty

btw, When I say Spanish, I mean Catalan.
Does anyone here learn (or speak) anything different?
Matt Smith
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Mibba Blog
April 25th, 2007 at 02:12pm
rehabreject:
I'm learning Spanish at the moment and I think it's a beautiful language. It's kinda humbling to think that so many millions of people speak it across the whole world.
When someone speaks proper Spanish, with the right speed and pronounciation (like the 'c' in 'Valencia'), it gives me goosebumps... Shifty

btw, When I say Spanish, I mean Catalan.
Does anyone here learn (or speak) anything different?

Oh yes. I've been to Catalonia on Holiday and the signs in the parks and such were in Catalan and Spanish, so I assume what I learn and Catalan are very different.

Plus, my Spanish teacher once mentioned that referring to Catalan as Spanish can be offensive sometimes, so I think she was making the point that there is quite a difference.

I guess I learn just plain Spanish xD
rehabreject
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rehabreject
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April 25th, 2007 at 02:24pm
Bloodraine:
rehabreject:
I'm learning Spanish at the moment and I think it's a beautiful language. It's kinda humbling to think that so many millions of people speak it across the whole world.
When someone speaks proper Spanish, with the right speed and pronounciation (like the 'c' in 'Valencia'), it gives me goosebumps... Shifty

btw, When I say Spanish, I mean Catalan.
Does anyone here learn (or speak) anything different?

Oh yes. I've been to Catalonia on Holiday and the signs in the parks and such were in Catalan and Spanish, so I assume what I learn and Catalan are very different.

Plus, my Spanish teacher once mentioned that referring to Catalan as Spanish can be offensive sometimes, so I think she was making the point that there is quite a difference.

I guess I learn just plain Spanish xD
Laughing Yeah, apparently Spanish people can get quite offended if you refer to their language as 'Español'
...just like my teacher frowns when I call her 'Señora' instead of 'Señorita'

I'm going to be attacked when I go to Spain Shocked
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