aldous Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5240 days ago 73 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, French
| Message 217 of 306 05 June 2012 at 5:23am | IP Logged |
aldous wrote:
In fact, I don't think any Indo-European languages do this besides English. |
|
|
Actually I was mistaken. It turns out Sinhala, spoken in Sri Lanka, also does this.
aldous wrote:
Here's a hint: This gender system is a common feature among the members of a particular language family found in Asia. |
|
|
It looks like people are stumped. The languages I was thinking of are Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil.
Here's a new question to get the thread rolling again. Name an Indo-European language that is written with two different writing systems.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4955 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish
| Message 218 of 306 05 June 2012 at 6:06am | IP Logged |
Old Irish. Ogham and Latin.
(Maybe too easy, but I always think this is cool)
Name an Austronesian language spoken in Africa.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4664 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese
| Message 219 of 306 05 June 2012 at 7:20am | IP Logged |
Malagasy.
Name an Indo-European language where women’s last names have a suffix indicating whether they are married or not.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
aldous Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5240 days ago 73 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, French
| Message 220 of 306 08 June 2012 at 4:04am | IP Logged |
Lithuanian
Name a language that is traditionally written upward.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
mashmusic11235 Groupie United States Joined 5497 days ago 85 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese
| Message 221 of 306 08 June 2012 at 6:37am | IP Logged |
Ancient Berber! Texts traditionally started in a bottom corner and ran upwards.
Name the language with the least number of phonemes.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi
| Message 222 of 306 08 June 2012 at 11:23pm | IP Logged |
Rotokas - a Papuan language Hawaiian is on high second position.
Name a language mutually intelligible with Zulu other than Xhosa.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
judodan Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6054 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB1, Russian, FrenchB2 Studies: Swedish, Turkish, Polish
| Message 223 of 306 09 June 2012 at 12:54am | IP Logged |
Ndebele (Northern)
Name a language whose name is a palindrome other than Malayalam.
Edited by judodan on 09 June 2012 at 12:54am
1 person has voted this message useful
|
mashmusic11235 Groupie United States Joined 5497 days ago 85 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese
| Message 224 of 306 09 June 2012 at 6:16am | IP Logged |
Kerek (whew!).
I don't know if one exists, but name a language that is official in a country where it is
not native, but NOT official IN the country where it originated.
If one doesn't exist, I have an alternative, easier one: name a language with more than
three numbers (or numbers other than singular, dual, and plural).
1 person has voted this message useful
|