Interesting video, do you know that Afrikaans is in the Germanic language family which includes - Afrikaans, Dutch, German and English. Not a big family, though. Basque and Catalonia are provinces in Spain.
The Languages Thread
- Thread starter lowland anoa
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Interesting video, do you know that Afrikaans is in the Germanic language family which includes - Afrikaans, Dutch, German and English. Not a big family, though. Basque and Catalonia are provinces in Spain.
Just the same, I can't memorise the Balkans' languages. Too difficult for me to learn.
The Germanic language family also includes - Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese, Flemish and Frisian. Finnish is in its own language family. Now the Germanic language family is a big one!
THE SLAVIC LANGUAGE FAMILY:
Russian - 100 million speakers
Belarusian - 9 million speakers
Ukrainian - 34 million speakers
Rusyn - 25,000 speakers
Polish - 50 million speakers
Czech - 10 million speakers
Slovak - 5 million speakers
Sorbian - 60,000 speakers
Kashubian - 50,000 speakers
Serbian - 11 million speakers
Slovene - 2.5 million speakers
Croatian - 7 million speakers
Macedonian - 2 million speakers
Bosnian - 2.5 million speakers
Bulgarian - 10 million speakers
Russian - 100 million speakers
Belarusian - 9 million speakers
Ukrainian - 34 million speakers
Rusyn - 25,000 speakers
Polish - 50 million speakers
Czech - 10 million speakers
Slovak - 5 million speakers
Sorbian - 60,000 speakers
Kashubian - 50,000 speakers
Serbian - 11 million speakers
Slovene - 2.5 million speakers
Croatian - 7 million speakers
Macedonian - 2 million speakers
Bosnian - 2.5 million speakers
Bulgarian - 10 million speakers
Nikola Chavkosk
Well-Known Member
Interesting text Chlidonias, about Basques; I think that if they have unique strange genes, they have resulted from mutation and spread primarly in their population. Although various ways of gene transfers (eg. transformation or ''ingestion'' of genes, or via conjugation or via transduction - like from infection with viruses) are not unknown in the biology. Like for example the story about genes from potentialy lethal for humans, viruses (Filoviruses like Ebola virus) that lurks in marsupials. Even one research showed that genetic make up of humans is 10% (I think) from non-human genes (like from viruses for example).
and,
@lowland anoa, why some in the comments on the you tube video mention that English is not in the Germanic family, but it is a mix between Latin and Frankish. To be honest, English sounds most distinct from the rest Germanic languages.
and,
@lowland anoa, why some in the comments on the you tube video mention that English is not in the Germanic family, but it is a mix between Latin and Frankish. To be honest, English sounds most distinct from the rest Germanic languages.
Basque is spoken in the Pyrenees Mountains, have never heard of the rumours about them having alien genes.
And that includes people who believe the rumours that the Basques have alien genes.
Just looked at images of the Basque people, they seem like normal people, nothing wrong with them.
Nikola Chavkosk
Well-Known Member
It doesn't mean that if they have one of few unique genes that they will look unusuall or something will be wrong with them, what you have expected, they to look like aliens 
although I was also google images about Basque people to see how they look like in general.
Nope, I didn't expect them to be aliens. If their blood is different than us, doesn't means that they have aliens gene.
Nikola Chavkosk
Well-Known Member
Slovenian is a better term for language mostly spoken in Slovenia (a small country at Northwestern Balkans bordering Italy and Austria).
And for the blood type of Basque people, for your information they don't have different blood type from the rest people, it just they have highest frequency (I think it was 60% of the Basque people) of blood type(s) that lack Rh antigen (on the surface of red blood cells) among nationalities. Many people in every part of the world have blood that lack Rh antigen (Rhesus factor, first discovered in Rhesus macaques). For example I am A1 Rh+ blood type, so I have the Rh antigen. There is also A1 Rh- that don't have the Rh antigen. The rarest blood type in the world is AB Rh- (only aproximately 0.5% of the population).
I know what Slovenia is, it also borders Croatia and Hungary. Slovene seems better in my opinion. Slovenia is rather a breathtaking country with a unbelievable culture. Slovenian makes no sense to me.
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
I always thought Finnish was the most extreme example of language isolation in Europe (as part of the small and disparate Finno-Ugric group), the Basque stuff is really interesting.
I'm always intrigued by how other language groups can understand each other better. English speakers can't really just listen in to German or Dutch in the way you can with Slavic languages Nicola.
Wikipedia accepts both Slovenian and Slovene. I'm inclined to think that Nicola as a Slavic native speaker might know more about it than us.
Duolingo is a great app. I lost momentum with it but I'm inspired to start again. Obviously the % fluent is really just a 'progress within the site' measurement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_isolate
Interesting link
I'm always intrigued by how other language groups can understand each other better. English speakers can't really just listen in to German or Dutch in the way you can with Slavic languages Nicola.
Wikipedia accepts both Slovenian and Slovene. I'm inclined to think that Nicola as a Slavic native speaker might know more about it than us.
Duolingo is a great app. I lost momentum with it but I'm inspired to start again. Obviously the % fluent is really just a 'progress within the site' measurement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_isolate
Interesting link
I'm fluent in Chinese,Cantonese and English.And yes, Chinese is different from Cantonese in both writing system and talking system.For example:
I love going to zoo.
Cantonese:我鐘意去動物園.
Chinese:我喜欢到动物园去.
And Chinese translate panda as "cat bear" but cantonese translate as"bear cat"
I love going to zoo.
Cantonese:我鐘意去動物園.
Chinese:我喜欢到动物园去.
And Chinese translate panda as "cat bear" but cantonese translate as"bear cat"
I suspect the easiest Romance language to learn is probably Esperanto rather than French. I have no experience with Esperanto, however I do with both French and Spanish, and I would suggest that Spanish is much simpler than French. Too many irregularities and exceptions with French to call it the easiest language to learn (which is of course subjective and largely depends on what language(s) you speak already).
A particularly difficult language to learn that I had to learn when at school in Saudi Arabia is Arabic. The school taught Arabic in a very odd way, so rather than starting with vocabulary and being able to hold a conversation, they started by teaching the script and the complexities of verbs and grammar. I would say the main reasons that Arabic is so difficult to learn include the fact that vowels are not written. Only consonants are written and the vowels sounds are imagined in between. It is also particularly complicated because each letter can have two, three, or four different forms depending on where in the word it is. The difference between how some letters are written are also sometimes just due to dots, for example a 'b' sounds is written like a U with a dot below, an 'n' is the same with a dot above instead, a 't' is the same with two dots, a 'th' is with three dots.
The pronunciation in Arabic is also very different for an English speaker, and letters are quite different as well. For example there's no 'p' or 'v' but there are different letters for 'khaa' and 'haa' and 'ca' and 'caa' and even different letters for 'taa' and 'taa' (I can't express the difference using Latin script).
I was about to say "Esperanto? Pfft, it's not even a real language". But according to Wikipedia "Up to 2,000,000 people worldwide, to varying degrees, speak Esperanto, including about 1,000 to 2,000 native speakers who learned Esperanto from birth." That's pretty impressive.
Klingon, in contrast, only has a "small number" (a suggestion by an expert is that only 20 or 30 people worldwide are fluent in it - that's actually fluent, not lowland anoa fluent...). Indeed the page cautions that the "vocabulary, heavily centered on Star Trek-Klingon concepts such as spacecraft or warfare, can sometimes make it cumbersome for everyday use"
Esperanto is not in the Romance language family, instead it gets some of its vocabulary from the Romance family and the Germanic family. It also has Slavic words. Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are also included.
Seconded, French is pretty horrible to learn, though it is a beautiful language.
For difficult languages, I would also add Amharic, which is mainly difficult because of the letters they use, which looks more like somebody dropped a plate of spaghetti...
I speak 4 languages, but more importantly I know the words for beer and coffee in many more
Seconded, French is pretty horrible to learn, though it is a beautiful language.
For difficult languages, I would also add Amharic, which is mainly difficult because of the letters they use, which looks more like somebody dropped a plate of spaghetti...
I speak 4 languages, but more importantly I know the words for beer and coffee in many more
I agree with you on the Amharic, for example እው ሰላም ነው means hello, but it is important to keep languages preserved.
