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More than 6 anyone? | ||
Tags: Number of Languages | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6462 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 25 of 53 13 November 2007 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Haha, yeah I know. I actually do like the discussions, it's just that I find myself spending more time reading these threads than I do learning my languages!
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| Bojan Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Germany Joined 6036 days ago 35 posts - 35 votes Speaks: Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian*, German*, English | Message 26 of 53 15 November 2007 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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The famous polyglots are also telling that these languages are not all the same.
They count Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin etc. all as different languages. Edited by Bojan on 15 November 2007 at 1:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Henryk Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 6161 days ago 34 posts - 35 votes Speaks: German, English Studies: French, Spanish, Swedish | Message 27 of 53 15 November 2007 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | ||
Why doesn't that surprise me? Edited by Henryk on 15 November 2007 at 3:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6968 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 28 of 53 15 November 2007 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Indeed, they are not the same. Yet are they different languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Scott Horne Newbie Canada Joined 6037 days ago 34 posts - 38 votes | Message 29 of 53 15 November 2007 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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By linguistic criteria, those are a single language. Their minor differences are greatly exaggerated for political reasons.
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| bushwick Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6056 days ago 407 posts - 443 votes Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese | Message 30 of 53 15 November 2007 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Nah, they aren't really exaggerated.
(I live in Croatia, I can tell) However, I did meet people who were mad about no Croatian subtitles appearing in Serbian movies. Which is just too much. People sometimes overdo it, as it's somewhat insulting to the people here calling these languages Serbo-Croat. However, all are aware it's practically just different dialects, and will agree upon it if discused. I mean, it's even a common joke here saying that you know 5 languages: Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Bosnian and Slovenian (Slovenian is largely intelligible to Serbo-Croat speakers) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6099 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 31 of 53 15 November 2007 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Lloydkirk,
I guess I have to address this ALL over again. Lloyd, once again you impress me with bold statements that are inaccurate. Punjabi is written in Gurmukhi script. This script is completely different from Devanagri and Perso-Arabic. The language itself is different. The spoken form is largely intelligible to those Urdu or Hindi speakers that are PUNJABI. However, there are plenty of Urdu or Hindi speakers that are NOT Punjabi. And for them, Punjabi is NOT intelligible. Other elements: #1. Native Hindi *readers*, Native Urdu *readers*, Native Punjabi *readers* can NOT read each other's language. Each of these languages have their OWN script. Comparing them, is like comparing Mandarin to Japanese, Thai to Arabic. #2. Urdu has plenty of Arabic and Persian. This makes the overall vocabulary of Urdu very different from Hindi. We know that language consists of words and grammar, and vocabulary is a big part of this prerequisite. Urdu vocab can be largely different from Hindi vocab, particularly that of an educated Urdu or Hindi speaker. Otherwise, most Urdu speakers end up speaking what is actually Hindi, because they are not as formally educated or influenced in Urdu. Thanks to Bollywood, this influence makes it even more apparent and compels Urdu speakers to use more Hindi-based words, and not their own native vocab. Hindi-Urdu-English mix has also become very 'chic' for many urban-dwellers in these countries. #3. It is completely possible to find Hindi and Urdu speakers that can not understand a single word of Punjabi, and vice versa. Particularly if you goto parts of India or Pakistan that are distant from the state/province of Punjab in both of these countries. i.e. Karachi or Balochistan in Pakistan. Madras, Hyderbad or Bombay in the mid-south of India. Although they speak Urdu and Hindi respectively, they will not understand Punjabi, unless they were a Hindi or Urdu speaker near Punjab, i.e. New Delhi or Lahore. Most of us that can switch between Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi do so only because of cultural proximity between all three languages in that part of South Asia -- i.e. Punjab. Sort of like the Italian that can speak French and Spanish. 4. The ethnicities of the people. Pakistan used to be a part of India at one point, ethnically the people are the same. Culturally and religiously they are different. However, people that are not accustomed to "brown culture" do not notice these differences. Often, they will make the assumption we are "all the same." It's similar to the confusion you see with Asians. Chinese being confused for Vietnamese, Japanese, vice versa. How often have you heard someone call *any* asian person -- "Chinese?" "Yeah I gave it to that Chinese guy" when in fact the guy is Korean. Same deal. This happens with Indian people ALL THE TIME. Many people don't realize, although we are from the same country, we can be very very different ethnically, culturally, linguistically, religiously, physically, etc. 5. The influence of Bollywood has converted many native Urdu speakers into Hindi speakers. Many 'young/hip' Urdu speakers will have alot of Hindi in their language, but that is Hindi they are speaking -- not Urdu. Edited by xtremelingo on 15 November 2007 at 7:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6362 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 32 of 53 16 November 2007 at 7:25am | IP Logged | ||
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