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The GIMT Challenge | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4535 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 9 16 February 2015 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Years ago I picked up a 1937 copy of the Gospel in Many Tongues for 10 cents in a junk store. If you have never seen it it is a fantastic resource. It shows example texts from all the languages the Bible had been translated into as of the date of publication - 710 languages in the 1937 edition.
I have been meaning to scan the book in so share here once I get a printer, but it turns out that a fully-interactive, searchable version of the 1921 edition, with examples of 543 languages, is already online here: Gospel in Many Tongues (1921). So the challenge is to see how many of texts you can actually read. For me it's pretty boring: I can only manage #123 English and #161 German (interestingly despite all these languages there are still lots missing - my 1937 version has Low German, which is absent from the 1921 edition). Which of you polyglots can read the most? I propose the following scores in line with the Brazilian jiu-jitsu: 1 language: White Belt 2-3 languages: Blue Belt 4-7 languages: Brown Belt 8-15 languages: Black Belt 16+ languages: Red Belt Any votes for the most beautiful script? You can download pdfs etc of the book here. 
Edited by patrickwilken on 16 February 2015 at 5:01pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 9 16 February 2015 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm certainly not a polyglot, nor can I read the most, but I can read the passage in English, French, Spanish, and Esperanto.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4535 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 9 16 February 2015 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||
That's cool. I wasn't expecting Esperanto to be there for some reason. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 9 16 February 2015 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know this language and understand it without problems
79 Chinese Mandarin Colloquial: Nanking Dial. 80 Chinese Mandarin Colloquial: Peking Dial. (though there's one unknown character) 80 Chinese Union Mandarin 82: Chinese Canton Colloquial (contains one character I didn't know since it's not used in modern HK Cantonese) 123 English 145 French 161 German 405 Portuguese 462 Spanish 471 Swedish I don't really know this language, but I can understand what it says because I know related languages 69 Catalan 77 Chinese High Wenli 78 Chinese Easy Wenli 78 Chinese Union Wenli (contains a character I don't know) 83 Chinese: Foochow Colloquial (I can largely understand, but a word here and there are unknown) 85 Chinese: Hakka Colloquial (same as above) 109 Danish 117 Dutch (not sure here) 118 Afrikaans (easier than the Dutch) 201 Indo-Portuguese 204 Italian 368 Norwegian I don't know this language, but recognize enough to be able to guess what text is written, since I know the text in question 90 Chinese Shanghai Colloquial 133 Esperanto 144 Flemish 193 Icelandic 246 Korean (only the mixed script version, and even then it's doubtful) 269 Latin 400 Piedmontese 406 Provençal (Langue D'Oc) 414 Romansch Upper Engadine Dial. 415 Romansch Lower Engadine Dial. 416 Romansch Oberland Dial. 425 Rumanian Not sure what belt that gives me. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4690 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 9 16 February 2015 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I love a massively parallel text. Given so much context, I can pretty much puzzle out any Germanic, Romance, or
Slavic language, more or less, as well as Hebrew. Notably, Romanian and Sardinian were still pretty mysterious, to the point that I left them off my list. The number of languages I could comfortably read without massive context is far, far smaller, naturally. 53: Czech 61: Bulgarian 69: Catalan 109: Danish 117: Dutch 118: Afrikaans 123: English 133: Esperanto 144: Flemish 145: French 146: Frisian 161: German 182: Hebrew 193: Icelandic 204: Italian 269: Latin 368: Norwegian 400: Piedmontese 402: Polish 405: Portuguese 406: Provençal (Not the same text as most) 414: Romansch (Upper) 415: Romansch (Lower) 416: Romansch (Oberland) 427: "Russian" (uses letters only in Ukrainian now) 428: Ruthenian/Ukrainian 441: Serbian/Croatian 455: Slavonic 456: Slovak 457: Slovenian 458: Slovenian 462: Spanish 463: Judeo-Spanish 471: Swedish 520: Vaudois (Never heard of it before) 531: Sorbian (Lower) 532: Sorbian (Upper) 538: Yiddish 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5061 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 9 17 February 2015 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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That was fun! A little hard to judge, since by the middle I knew the main text by heart.
I know this language, and read it without problems Danish Dutch English Esperanto French German Italian Latin Norwegian Portuguese Russian Spanish Swedish I was able to completely understand the passage because I know related languages Afrikaans Romansch-Lower Engadine Ruthenian I study this language, and understood most of the passage, but not all Polish Because I know related languages, I was able to understand most of the passage, but not all Bohemian(Czech) Catalan Flemish Frisian Romansch-Upper Engadine Romansch-Oberland Serbian Slavonic Slovak Slovenian Slovenian-Hungaro-Slovenian dialect I study this language, but I'm sorry to say I could not understand the text Chinese Mandarin Cantonese Hebrew Greek Japanese Korean Like geoffw, I couldn't figure out Sardinian or Romanian despite having several Romance languages. Unlike him, I also couldn't figure out Yiddish or Icelandic despite having many Germanic languages. Looks like my non-European languages need some work, although I am much, much better with everyday conversation topics than this stuff about God's firstborn son. Edited by robarb on 17 February 2015 at 12:30am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4690 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 9 17 February 2015 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||
The script must have gotten in your way for Yiddish--it's 100% Germanic vocabulary. Try this: "Worin Gott hot di velt azoy gelibt, az er hot gegeben zayn eyn-geboyrenen zuhn, az itlikher [ethliche seems more normal here] vos gloybt on ihm zol nit ferloyren vern, nayert [I didn't actually know this word--don't know if it's Germanic or not] er zol hoben das ebige leben." I'm surprised you'd have trouble with the Icelandic when your Nordic languages are more a strong point than for me. I didn't think it was all that different. I only got maybe 85%, though--some small words were unclear. <shrug> 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5061 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 9 17 February 2015 at 4:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, I do know how to read the Hebrew letters, so I probably could've deciphered that given enough time.
Transliterated Yiddish is at least as comprehensible to me as something like Frisian. With Icelandic I was also close. I didn't count languages that I understood only half or two thirds, as I hardly consider that "reading." From the perspective of the Scandinavian languages, Icelandic's grammar is totally different, and, while many of the words are recognizable, a lot of them are not. It's definitely way harder for me to figure out than Faroese. So this: Thvi adh svo elskadhi Gudh heiminn, adh hann gaf son sinn eingetinn, til thess adh hver, sem á hann trúir, glatist ekki, heldur hafi eilíft líf. is about 2/3 interpretable in my Internal Mental Generic Nordic: Ty ??? ??? älskade Gud ???, ??? gav son sin ??? till dess att var en som troede honom, ??? ikke, heller ha evigt liv. Which is a little closer than I was to Sardinian: Aici, nau a bosu, inci hat essiri gosu ananti de is angelus de Deus po unu peccadori chi s'est convertiu. ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? di ?? angelo di Dio per un' peccatore chi si è convertito Edited by robarb on 17 February 2015 at 4:26am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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