judodan Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6054 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB1, Russian, FrenchB2 Studies: Swedish, Turkish, Polish
| Message 225 of 306 09 June 2012 at 12:20pm | IP Logged |
Can't think of an answer for the first option but easily for the second option:
Bislama (It has singular, dual, trial and plural).
Name a language with non-configurational syntax, i.e. one in which heads and dependents
of noun/verb/... phrases don't have to stay together and can come in any order:
'The tall man saw the big cow'
could be expressed as something like:
saw cow the man tall the big
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 226 of 306 09 June 2012 at 4:44pm | IP Logged |
Djirbal.
Name a language where the words equivalent to “mama” and “papa” have the same consonant(s), but differ in their vowels (rather than having different consonants but identical vowels as in English and other familiar languages.)
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 227 of 306 10 June 2012 at 9:56am | IP Logged |
Manchurian!
ᠠᠮᠠ ama VS eme ᠡᠮᠡ
They do it commonly with the vowels.
I am not sure about the spelling.
Name a tonal language that makes distinction between singular, dual and plural in pronouns.
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 228 of 306 10 June 2012 at 7:36pm | IP Logged |
Tibetan(Lhasa dialect at least).
Name a language with more than 15 grammatical genders.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
mashmusic11235 Groupie United States Joined 5497 days ago 85 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese
| Message 229 of 306 10 June 2012 at 10:17pm | IP Logged |
Xhosa has 15 noun classes ("genders"), Swahili has 16, and the Fula language has about
26, depending on the dialect.
Name a language whose dialects can be mutually unintelligible (other than Arabic).
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 230 of 306 10 June 2012 at 10:59pm | IP Logged |
Um so many languages but let's go with German.
Name a language that possibly defies Chomsky's law of universal grammar.
Edited by Ellsworth on 10 June 2012 at 11:00pm
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 231 of 306 11 June 2012 at 9:54pm | IP Logged |
Piraha!
Name a language which despite being an official language of one or more countries is endangered.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 232 of 306 11 June 2012 at 10:20pm | IP Logged |
Irish
Name a language that doesn't belong to a language family.
1 person has voted this message useful
|