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Beware of "secret" languages ;-) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Polyphemes Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie Virgin Islands Joined 6286 days ago 48 posts - 60 votes  Speaks: German*, Dutch*, English, French, Italian, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Bulgarian, Greek | Message 9 of 173 05 October 2007 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Some friends of mine were Russian asylum seekers in the Netherlands (where I spent most of my life). Until the government assigned them some sort of house, they had to live in a building with loads of other asylum seekers. They also had dinner and lunch together.
While having dinner, my Russian friend sat down at the table with another Russian friend of his. They sat down next to an African girl, which wasn't... all too skinny. Anyway, he just went on and on to my friend about how he couldn't understand guys that were falling for fat chicks, and so on... All in Russian, of course. He must have went on about this for quite some time, eventually really insulting her. My friend just listened and didn't really contribute. Eventually, they left the dinner table. A couple of days later, my friend was making a stroll through the building. He happened to see the same big black girl, she was speaking to a friend. And she was speaking in ... yes, you guess right. She was speaking in fluent Russian. So he asks one of the by-standers: "How come this girl speaks Russian?" Turns out she had studied in Moscow and was able to hear every bit of that conversation. Poor girl! 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6269 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 10 of 173 05 October 2007 at 7:53am | IP Logged | ||
It's fiction, but in the David Lodge novel Nice Work one of the main characters, an English businessman, goes to Frankfurt for the trade fair and negotiates with Germans who are prone to talk to each other in German from time to time. The Englishman has brought a woman academic with him, posing as his personal assistant and the Germans probably assume she is his mistress. She attends the meeting and although she tries to give the impression of being ignorant, she can understand their German and reports to the businessman what the Germans have been saying to each other. As a result the English businessman is able to outmanoeuvre them in the negotiations. Edited by William Camden on 05 October 2007 at 7:55am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| El Gringo Groupie United States Joined 6257 days ago 65 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 173 13 October 2007 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||
Your Russian friend sounds like a major jerk. 27 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Taiga Diglot Groupie Australia Joined 6307 days ago 81 posts - 85 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Serbo-Croatian | Message 12 of 173 17 October 2007 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I've found Catalan is a perfect "Secret language" in Australia, as I've only met 2 speakers so far :D
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| armando Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6275 days ago 44 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Italian | Message 13 of 173 23 October 2007 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the uk afrikaans is a good secret language - as long as you are not in London! I am amazed at how many afrikaans voices I can hear in a day on the tubes. It truly brings home how many people have left the country :(
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 173 23 October 2007 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you only know Spanish then Catalan may sound like gibberish in the beginning. If you only know Dutch than the same applies to Afrikaans. But in both cases you soon learn to get the meaning of what is being said. I have known a wee bit of Catalan for too long to remember how it was to hear it for the first time. But I have visited South Africa twice and Namibia once within the last five years, and I can understand more each time without having ever studied the Afrikaans language formally - someday I just might want to learn it properly.
The written forms of both Catalan and Afrikaans are even easier to understand - though I must say that one of the books I bought last time has been more recalcitrant than I expected (but ordinary newspapers and magazines in Afrikaans are quite easy to decode). If you really want to speak a secret language then you have to try some languages that are more isolated and less spoken than both Catalan and Afrikaans - such as Basque or one of the smaller Khoisan languages. Or even better: one of the almost extinct languages that are spoken in Siberia. Or Ainu. Or best of all: a totally extinct language - 'Tocharian A' might be a good choice if you can find someone to share your thoughts with. But frankly, if you are in Australia why not follow in the footsteps of Kenneth Hale and learn Warlpiri? I suppose that you can count the number of 'white' Australians who have bothered to feast on the aboriginal languages on one hand. Edited by Iversen on 23 October 2007 at 7:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jody Senior Member United States Joined 6235 days ago 242 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Bulgarian | Message 15 of 173 31 October 2007 at 7:23am | IP Logged | ||
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That is one advantage of learning Bulgarian in the U.S. I've met a very few Bulgarian-speakers in America. Sometimes my wife and I will use this "secret language" to talk about somebody in public. The problem is, however, when you are like me and you don't truly speak the languge. I know how to say only a few things. So it gets suspicious when we're speaking English, and then one of us says one line in Bulgarian and then we switch right back to English.
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| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6451 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 16 of 173 01 November 2007 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||
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A Finnish girl I know once went to New York with her female friend, and they were having a nice walk in the streets. They stop to cross the road, and waiting for the light to turn green, start commenting on the asses of the people standing in front of them. The girl I know says in Finnish: "Wow! This guy in front of me has a really nice ass!" Then all of a sudden the guy turns around and replies in perfect Finnish: "Thank you! I know it is perfect!" :p
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