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Opinion of Gaelic in Scotland? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Remster Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4805 days ago 120 posts - 134 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: German, French | Message 25 of 38 03 October 2011 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree with Cainntear that ''difficulty'' in languages is a rather abstract meaning, but I still think it's more difficult to grasp than English.
As far as I know, Hindi doesn't really have a connection with Gaelic, so why do you think they'd have an easier time learning gaelic instead of English? What you said about the career move might be true, I didn't know, so I agree if it's correct, but I think that only goes for people from Scotland themselves. I see you speak Scottish gaelic, so you'll probably know what you're talking about, but I still want to know why you think a monolingual Hindi speaker has an easier time learning Gaelic. That got me curious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 26 of 38 03 October 2011 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
They are both Indo-European. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 27 of 38 03 October 2011 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
In fact, from the similarities in the form of the languages, it is postulated that the Indic and Celtic tribes left the Indo-European heartland at very similar times. The Indic languages don't tend to have any simple present -- neither do the Celtic languages. Both rely on the progressive aspect for present tense statements or the habitual aspect for ongoing states (in the Goidelic family, this habitual aspect has merged with the future and conditional). There are also many concepts that most IE languages express using verbs that the Indic and Celtic languages express using prepositions. The most noteworthy one is possession. While they do have possessives (my, your etc), these are restricted to "inalienable" possessions -- parents, body parts etc. When you have an item in Gaelic it is literally described as being "at you", and in Hindi it is "your closeness thing" (a thing in your vicinity). This leads into "love" -- again, no verb. Instead, you have love for someone, or literally "love is at me on someone" (Gaelic), or "my closeness love is towards you" (Hindi). The two language families are separated by such distance that there are very few clear cognate words, and the sound systems are very different, but the underlying logic of the languages remain very similar. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 28 of 38 04 October 2011 at 6:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's a coincidence. There is a verb "to love" for example, but it is obsolete. In Russian we also say "У меня что-то есть" "At me (near me, by me) is something", this construction replaced dative possessive. There are also similarities in phonology (it is seen better in Irish Gaelic) - broad and slender consonants. It's like saying that Persian and English language are from the same group: both of them lost cases and genders. Or even better: how similar English and Chinese languages are! Both do not use many inflections, both can convert words from one part of speech to another, both tend to lack the difference between transitive and non-transitive verbs etc. Conclusion: we have to regard history. There is big similarity between Celtic and Semitic languages: word order, prepositional pronouns, masculin and feminin genders. Edited by Марк on 04 October 2011 at 6:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Remster Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4805 days ago 120 posts - 134 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: German, French | Message 29 of 38 04 October 2011 at 9:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for your replies, though I'm a bit lost now.
Mapk, do you agree or disagree? I didn't know Hindi was Indo-European as well. I already learned something new! Interesting stuff. (I edited only to erase some errors in my spelling, because I'm behind a laptop and I'm not used to one, I often hit the wrong key). Edited by Remster on 04 October 2011 at 1:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 30 of 38 04 October 2011 at 9:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hindi is an IE language, but it is not closer to Gaelic than, say, to English.
Some similarities in Grammar and phonology do not prove that languages are genetically related, we have to consider the history. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 31 of 38 04 October 2011 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
They are genetically related, that much is a given. They have diverged greatly in many ways, as have all IE languages. Maybe they're not genetically closer to each other than any other pair of languages, but they certainly are very similar in concept.
That's not a "big" similarity, it's a superficial one. I have a fairly dark pigmentation. I have brown eyes and dark brown hair, and I tan easily. I am short. I have a brother who is blonde and blue-eyed, who burns easily and is slightly above average height. But those are superficial differences, because we actually look quite similar. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Remster Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4805 days ago 120 posts - 134 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: German, French | Message 32 of 38 04 October 2011 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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So I guess they're related, but more like ''far far far cousins''.
Wouldn't that essentially exterminate any advantage in learning that language? I'm Dutch, but when someone speaks Czech, it sounds completely foreign, even the words and writing and grammar are nothing alike. Maybe you're right and they do have some things in common, but I can't really imagine a language helping in making Gaelic S. easier than English, except for other gaelic languages. Oh well, that's just me, I guess I'm stuck between two people who know a bit more than I do. I'll keep a watch on this one. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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