ElBrujo Newbie United States Joined 4709 days ago 29 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 305 of 346 01 July 2012 at 2:57am | IP Logged |
Fair enough, Tarheel. I just felt the need to defend my big-city brethren, being a polite
New Yorker who goes out of his way to help tourists. :)
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tarheel7496 Newbie United States Joined 5730 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Mandarin Studies: Greek
| Message 306 of 346 01 July 2012 at 3:13am | IP Logged |
Oh I agree. I was mainly speaking of Paris.
That's why I said NYers have always been nice to me when I've visited. I think they get a bad rap. Never had a bad experience there when I've had to ask for help. And as a southerner that speaks volumes.
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Coheed Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 4687 days ago 26 posts - 40 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Romanian, Irish
| Message 307 of 346 01 July 2012 at 3:38am | IP Logged |
Any language which conceals a cultural background is worthy of my interest.
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lingua nova Newbie United States Joined 4556 days ago 25 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Indonesian, Tagalog, French
| Message 308 of 346 01 July 2012 at 6:40am | IP Logged |
Off topic, but as has been mentioned, New Yorkers have a strangely poor reputation for
no reason. Granted I live in the New York metro area, so I'm not a tourist, but 9 times
out of 10, people in New York are helpful and courteous to both those that live around
them and those that are from out-of-town. I suppose because Manhattanites walk quickly
and generally don't look at one another directly unless addressed can strike some
people from other places as aloofness, but it's really just respect for personal space
and privacy in a place where there's a premium on those things. But if you go looking
for an interaction the vast majority of people are willing to engage you.
As far as on topic...
That's a hard one. There aren't many languages that I haven't been nigh seduced by in
the past!
Edited by lingua nova on 01 July 2012 at 6:48am
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maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5220 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu
| Message 309 of 346 01 July 2012 at 11:21am | IP Logged |
Any of the conlangs. Sorry, they just don't groove my truffle.
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 310 of 346 01 July 2012 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
maydayayday wrote:
Any of the conlangs. Sorry, they just don't groove my truffle.
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I have nothing against Esperanto or even Tolkien's conlangs. I don't intend to learn
any of them, but they don't bug me, either. But there's one conlang which pushes all of
my buttons in exactly the wrong way.
Lojban:
Quote:
Lojban still shares many of the characteristics of Loglan:
It has a grammar that is based on predicate logic, designed to express complex logical
constructs precisely.
It has no irregularities or ambiguities in spelling and grammar (although word
derivation relies on arbitrary variant forms). This gives rise to high intelligibility
for computer parsing.
It is designed to be as culturally neutral as possible.
It allows highly systematic learning and use, compared to most natural languages.
It possesses an intricate system of indicators which effectively communicate contextual
attitudes or emotions.
It does not have simplicity as a design criterion. |
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I know a fair bit about computer parsing, and I have an amateur interest in
linguistics. And for me the whole joy of human language is that it's complex and
ambiguous and mysterious, and that it's built for the human brain, not for a shift-
reduce parser with L(1) lookahead. I think it's much much interesting to teach
computers to understand humans than it is to reduce human speech to a parseable
utterance in the predicate calculus.
In comparison, even a dead natural language like Gothic, which only exists in a couple
of grammatically-dubious translations from Greek, can still teach me something about
the human mind.
I don't suppose I can avoid linking to xkcd's canonical
cartoon here, either, even though it's a cheap shot.
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languagenerd09 Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom youtube.com/user/Lan Joined 5101 days ago 174 posts - 267 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai
| Message 311 of 346 08 July 2012 at 3:14pm | IP Logged |
I'm the same as above, I've not really got any interest in learning conlangs, or even
languages that I don't think I'd ever use to converse with another person, I'm more
interested in being able to learn a language that interests me; but at the same time
allows me to use it to speak to natives of that particular language.
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Laurae Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5039 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Dutch
| Message 312 of 346 09 July 2012 at 11:45am | IP Logged |
Without hesitation, Esperanto
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