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Languages!&n
Languages!
This is a thread for talking about languages!
submitted by Sinusoidal Polyglot
(November 19, 2023 - 2:20 pm)
(November 19, 2023 - 2:20 pm)
Languages!
This is a thread for talking about languages!
Yay! I'm always down for some language-based discussion! *does a little dance*
(November 20, 2023 - 8:53 am)
Joe cool said bwtie. Bowtie?
(November 20, 2023 - 8:00 pm)
What is everyone's favorite language?
(November 20, 2023 - 10:49 pm)
Mandarin, hands down! It's really such a joy to learn, even if homework and tests are just so UARGHH. It's beautiful and also the way you write things all fit together, and everything always just makes so much SENSE (unlike *cough* *cough* english *cough* *cough*), and there's like little hidden meanings inside words that are awesome and stuff! Did you know that the phrase for "crowded" or "lots of people" is "ren san ren hai"? "Ren" in both appearances meaning "person/people", "san" meaning "mountain(s), "hai" meaning "ocean"? Basically, people stretching from the mountains to the ocean! Such a beautiful and poetic way of saying "crowded" I think! :D
my favorite poem is probably Thoughts on a Quiet Night (or whatever it's called in English) by Li Bai (or Po(??) depending), it's so achingly beautiful and I literally could NOT recommend it more! Read both the English and Mandarin versions, it rhymes both ways!
I also love Sitting Alone on Jing Ting San, also by Li Bai. Recommend English and Mandarin for this one too! Please tell me what you think of these poems!
oc, Mandarin was my first language, and the only other language besides English that I know, so I'm a bit biased.
however, Mandarin may be my favorite language, but I sure LOVE English's words! I mean, phantasmagoria?! Sesquipedalian?! Boondoggle?! Piffle?! Foppish?! Kaleidoscope?! Rosewood?! Fathoms?! Esoteric?! Murmurations?! Defenestration?! Transfenestrate?! Thimble?! Ossification?! *goes on for a million more years*
Also, while I think that Mandarin is more practical in of itself, I think English is more practical to use (welp, that totally didn't just make zero sense). So many of Mandarin's words have the EXACT SAME pin yin and tone, it's so hard to type it out (mainly on Google translate :) )! And each character is it's own separate word, and there are THOUSANDS of them, versus English, where 26 set letters make up all the words. So thank you bopomofo and pin yin.
...wow, never knew I loved language so much, XD
(November 21, 2023 - 2:00 am)
:) oh yes the poem by li bai! I memorized it when I was young. Another cool thing about mandarin is that within each different character, there are sub-characters (if you get what I mean) though it's more for traditional than simplified. For example, the word shuo (say) has a side sub character yan (word) so its easier to remember what word's what because word is related to say.
I have no idea if what I just said makes sense or not
(November 22, 2023 - 2:11 am)
Yess! Like he (drink) and kou (mouth)! And oc the san dian shui (three strokes of water)! And how on ta (they) or all those there's a ren (person)! Made total sense if that made total sense. And, yess, I memorized it when I was little too! :)
(November 22, 2023 - 3:03 pm)
Hebrew or Latin. Allow me to present my arguements.
For hebrew:
1) It is one of two languages to go from "that's dead" to "oh, hey, people speak it now" (and the only one to become the official language of a country). So that's cool!
2) It's got a nice fantasy feel to it. With C standing for Consonant and V for Vowel, it generally has the pattern of VC, CVC, CCV, or VCV. Strings of many consonants in a row are fairly rare, making it nicer than English. Take "catchphrase". Four consonant sounds in a row!
(Disclaimer: Hebrew is not easy. It's got genders, it's written an entirely different direction and with a different script than English, and it has a sound English doesn't have. Oh, and generally it's not written with vowels.)
Plus I need to know enough to recite it anyway.
Latin:
It's also got a fantasy feel, and it's also like you're looking at some word, I dunno, "urbe" and you can see "oh, English borrowed urbe and turned it into urban" (urbe means city).
These are mostly for fantasy-word-making purposes, but hey, they also sound cool.
(November 28, 2023 - 11:47 am)
Oh, cool that you mentioned Hebrew! Im actually a native Hebrew speaker (Inlearned it alongside english and both my first word and first sentence were Hebrew) Im conversational, but Im no longer fluent amd forgot most of my Hebrew :(
(November 29, 2023 - 12:50 pm)
Hi!
I'm taking Japanese at school, and my teacher is the absolute best. I've also been trying to teach myself Irish and German, but I've barely had time for that since the school year started :') does anyone have tips on setting aside time to study languages with a busy schedule?
(November 21, 2023 - 6:46 am)
I am thinking of making a language called Shalam, which is a hybrid of Hebrew and Arabic with Toki Pona philosophy sprinkled in, written in the Latin alphabet. It has all the same words and the vocab itself is based off Arabic mixed in with my knowledge of Hebrew. The grammar is extremely simple, but I add some new words so that it can be used for daily life. It is meant to be a peace maker if you know what I mean.
(November 21, 2023 - 4:36 pm)
I would totally learn that if you made it!
(November 21, 2023 - 5:44 pm)
When I'm done, I'll try to publish it and then I can tell you it's name so you can look it up. Admins, would that be fine? If you want, I can go under something that's not my real name (Like Shalam) so that it isn't personal information.
(November 21, 2023 - 7:50 pm)
That would be really cool! Please share if you feel comfortable with doing so!
I was just recently making my own Conlang lightly inspired by Toki Pona, as well as several Middle-Eastern and African languages! I haven't gotten very far yet since I only worked on it over the span of a study hall and lunch break, but if if turns out well I'll consider sharing some of it here.
(November 21, 2023 - 6:42 pm)
@CelineBurningBright, wow, Mandarin does sound way more poetic than I would ever have expected! :)
I'm learning French, and it's so tricky to decipher what people are actually saying when you listen to them! I'm working on it, but there are sometimes phrases where I get completely confused :/ I'm also brushing up on Spanish, so that I can be more fluent in it. I mean, I've spoken it from birth, but never as easily as English... Oddly enough, I'm not a big fan of speaking to people in Spanish, but I love using it to write poetry. It's just so poetic and has a lusher, richer sound to it than English does, which is wonderful. I also love love love to read poetry in Spanish... And I really like colloquial Mexican Spanish, which has so many quirky and expressive phrases and ways of saying things. Honestly, I think Spanish has some of the richest colloquial vocabulary of any language. Idk why, but whenever I hear it it brings a smile to my face :D
And I'm working on a desert conlang which I talked about a little bit on the Worldbuilding thread in Inkwell, and I wish I could just go around speaking it all day because I love it so much :)
(November 21, 2023 - 8:26 pm)
I'm taking Latin right now, and I really love it! My teacher is amazing and even though grammar is kind of annoying it's so fun learning stuff. I love drawing connections between Latin words and English words (there's a lot). I also took five years of Chinese and three years of Italian which were fun even though the teachers were kind of bad. Mandarin is so hard to learn, why is every word a different symbol??
I would LOVE to learn ASL, and I've been meaning to for a while. Maybe I'll try and do some research later...
(November 21, 2023 - 8:57 pm)