kinbard

This post is starting in response to another thread in which we got off on a tangent. There appears to be a few language buffs in this forums. To those of you who are I would like to know what are some of your favorite languages, and why? For instance, I like Russian because of the crispness, and the fact it was the first language I studied that uses a different writing system. I like cherokee because of the flow of the words (the pronunciation is what makes the accent, which I love). I've begun to study gaelic because of my family history.

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Kalim

To put it briefly: I personally admire Fussa Arabic (extinct), for it's purity, simplicity, non sophistry and temerity, aswell as exuberant eloquence. Many "sages" speak gibberish and pass off pathetic statements by constructing grammatically erroneous and ridiculous sentences. Something I'm never fond of, and something hardly given the scope to exist in this language.
I've not seen many languages come near it when making simple points and speaking truth. To say "that's untrue" to someone is a common accepted and loved fact in this particular tongue, and taken as applying to the originating idea rather than personally as a whole.

I'm interested in Africa (where shall I start!), Ichkeria (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia), North West China and Mongolia languages, as well as Russian, but I speak very little of them, if any. My best comprehension lies in Chechen or bits of Georgian. Only spoken though.

I once learned some Greek; we study Roman-Greeko way of life since our childhood in the West, and made two friends from their named Evangelos (a close relative of Peter Andre before his time) and Panakiotis - quite enjoyed it for its worth, it's distinctness originating from Koine, alittle like Turkish. We then studied Latin together too, but I lost interest very soon, since I didn't plan on moving over liaising with many individuals from there, and whomever I acquainted with from there usually spoke English most of the time. Classical English is something other that I've studied, but once again, lost the need to continue or recall. I'm interested in many succinct and beautiful languages and cultures, everything that I need for charity work, whether it be operational, educational, or medical. Some of the "less exploited" cultures have developed very sophisticated and beneficially shrewd languages, and having such differences between the worlds inhabitants is always encomium worth, and what makes everything uniquely special and sophisticated.

My fondness is of all good things, so say, I enjoy British English just as much as Lallans. I do however take fancy of Irish. The lady always curls eyebrows at my enjoyment when I hear one of our Irish lady friends chattering away.

I'm quite fond of all and any linguistic communication, slanguage, linguage francae and diachronic linguistics, each is very distinct, harbor a flavor and embody cultural values within them. All archaic languages of the Middle East especially, the "Cradle of Civilization" are an enthusiastic pursuit of mine. Many of which, the records of, were destroyed when the US and Allied forces bombed and annihilated the prime museums and cultural heritage sites since 2001. Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx and mainly, any Celtic and Nordic language interests me. All native languages, anywhere, drag my attention and curiosity, even in New Zealand, Australia, and within the America's, such as Iroquoian divisions of Tuscarora and Mohawk, as my mother took me around to many of their settlements whilst growing up and I have fond memories and experience with those people. Pity me, the time is non-existent to dabber in learning them, unless immediate need be.

I used to be a system programmer back in the early 90s though, so inline with my old habits, I guess.

kinbard

Ever looked into Basque?

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Kalim

Heard of it mentioned in historical references, but never seen or tried to decipher a script of it, or learn the language, if there is one around in some remote French corner. Nope, not yet. Something you want to learn?

The languages of this place are another I'm a little aware of, but unaware of on the whole and seeking: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...07/ai_30027275

Drew1369

I have a big thing for the Orient so one of my favorites is Hongul (The written Korean Language)

And the spoken language as well (several dialects) Maybe its just the efficency of how they write... I dunno...

Other then that I really really really really really want to learn Italian.

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kinbard

My dad is the one who got me started with languages, and he was fluent in Japanese.

I plan to tackle it in the future. It is suppose to be extremely difficult. There are pockets being spoken in Spain, I believe.

That's sad. Is he where you got your screen name from?

Here's a good link.
http://www.rosettaproject.org/

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Kalim

The screenname is derived from ancient Arabic, where Kalim means word and is used adjacently and affixed normally in the form of "Word of God".

I've been online for a very long time but always kept different nick names on every forum, but do a Google for Kalim and you may find something...

Good luck with Basque. It'll be extremely arcane. You've got me interested in it though, something I'll research possibly after a month with more time.

Sorry I can't check out the link for a while yet. I have come across it previously though, a language Prof. directed me to it. IIRC it was a project to collect all rare language speakers? No off-site link allowed for me from work, only the forums I visit are permitted, hence why I'm not posting replies to most support threads yet. Malware risk being one of the reasons they give for this course of action.

kinbard

Yep, and I am glad someone is making the effort. The rest of the world doesn't seem to care...

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Go The Power

I can only speak English

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Kalim

Just having a look at the link, and I'm impressed! Very nice endeavor. Aramaic isn't extinct, but I comprehend and speak many bits and bats of it since my mother spoke it, as her roots were in the North West of modern Syria back in the 13th Century.

scathe30

Although I'm Russian I'm not fond of my native language very much. Maybe it is not very patriotic, I don't know. Russian is a very expressive language, it has a lot of different means to express different emotions and feelings, it is rich with synonyms. Russians themselves... i mean WE usually call it 'the great and the mighty Russian'That's what I don't like about it. I hear the term 'the great and the mighty' from my early schooldays - it all looks like some kind of language chauvinism! The fact is that previous generations of Russians know little languages. This tradition to study linguistics became popular in our country only in the middle of the 'Perestroyka' years. That's why I don't like that people don't know any foreign language and try to persuade others that their own language is the mightiest.
No, I don't mean that it is poor and weak - we have a well-developed complicated language that has a lot of syntactic, semantic and phonetic (I mean syntagmatics, for example - emphasizing by phonetic means) levels to be rather flexible to depict any type of human endeavor. But I don't like slavonic languages phonetically at all. Russian is the best exception, because we speak it from our birth and get used to the awkwardness of the sounds and words they form.

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kinbard

I think they are dealing with ancient Aramaic, which is different from modern Aramaic. I haven't looked into it yet, though. Did the site seem to move slow to you, or is it just me?

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kinbard

I can understand you point of view on that. That is why I don't like Spanish, which has led me to be biased towards it (something I am working on overcoming) I am not hispanic, but here it Texas Spanish is pushed to the point that it is shoved down your throat, with the other cultures here overlooked.

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kinbard

Scathe30, Russian is one of the languages I intend to learn fluently someday (along with cherokee, hebrew, hungarian) I might have some questions for you on grammar one day. It is hard for americans to understand the concept of grammatical aspect.

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Kalim

You know, I've always had an interest to "understand" your native language but never really got round to it. I would like to just at least have an idea of what they talk about though.

I simply don't pick up any bits of it, yet.

Yes, I'm aware. The modern form of Aramaic (mainly Biblical remains) that remains sparsely in Northern Syrian villages is not much adulterated from the classical form of 300BC derived from Phoenician, since it's not widely spread for quite a while now, at least since the Arabs ruled it in 630AD. There are increasingly shorter numbers of speakers and it's only taught by living with the culture as most cannot write it. One or two of their local leaders that I've come across understand the biblical form very clearly actually. I would love to learn all Semitic languages, those of Canaanites, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Moabite and classical Hebrew at the time of Moshe. I find those languages very straight forward as much as my experience and learning goes, much like modern Hebrew of Leshon Ha-Qodesh, the common alphabets such as pe, waw, quoph, he, tua, nun, mim etc are all very similar across the board, and so are the sounds and nasalizations in speech. All Afro-Asian languages share many foundational similarities.

kinbard

There's not much on Aramaic on the web. The only noteworthy sites I found were
http://www.assyrianlanguage.com/
and
http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/
Both of which are pretty limited.

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Kalim

Excellent links there, the effort to simplify and present the languages is noteworthy.

You'll see a little of the alphabet I was talking of in the assyrianlanguage link, lesson 1-53. Having a quick look over, yes, I can still speak and write bits of that. Certainly pronounce and write it in the Eastern diale