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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

35 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6440 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 33 of 35

02 September 2010 at 4:38pm | IP Logged

frenkeld wrote:

Volte wrote:

Tamil .. is the Dravidian language with the most speakers.

I thought Telugu was the largest Dravidian language. (74 million native speakers versus 66 million for Tamil, according to Wikipedia).

Telugu has more native speakers. Wikipedia used to claim that Tamil had enough more non-native speakers than Telugu to have a higher total; I am failing to find this information again.

1 person has voted this message useful

Olekander
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5884 days ago
122 posts - 136 votes

Speaks: English*, French, Russian

Message 34 of 35

03 September 2010 at 12:48am | IP Logged

Volte wrote:

Olekander wrote:

Well obviously there's no doubt which language I'd
pick <--- eyes left. However this
language, excuse my mocking hyperbolic stereotypes, is only spoken by the scum of the
earth. Thamil really isn't useful unless you're a Christian missionary lol. Nobody of
any
class speaks it, and it's confined to a hundred million or so speakers in the south.
However due to my work out there I ended up doing it.thepeople are beautiful in every
sense of the word.

That's rather high in insulting nonsense.

Tamil has a literary tradition
spanning over 2000 years. It's an official language of India, Sri Lanka and
Singapore, and it is the Dravidian language with the most speakers.

It's an important language for people interested in historical literature, especially
in the context of India. It's also a fascinating glimpse into a fairly large language
family.

It's hiighly infuriating when people fail to see the double-entendres of my messages.
You don't actually think I'd be learning the language of a people I enjoyed mocking?
What I was actually mocking in my message is the "hierarchical cast system" in india,
which treats the tamils like second class system.

Perhaps it's just the fact that internet fails to transmit emotion in messages.

I am well aware of the rich culture of the tamils, and their 6000 year old language
2 persons have voted this message useful

Deji
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5441 days ago
116 posts - 182 votes

Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Hindi, Bengali

Message 35 of 35

03 August 2011 at 5:37am | IP Logged

Shinn wrote:

I wouldn't recommend using Hindi as a jumping point for Bengali. They have different scripts and
although the vocabulary might have tinges of similarity they're still two different languages; although Punjabi is far
more similar to Hindi than any other Indian language. Even when two languages have essentially the same script like
Hindi or Marathi, they may still have their own idiosyncrasies and even a unique letter or two.

I know this is a post from a long time ago, but for any new learners, I definitely disagree! It might make sense if you
just had a little Hindi and then went to a little Bengali, but for me with learning Bengali, everything is easier because
of my hindi knowledge. Fully one-fourth of the words in Bengali are the same as the Hindi. Devanagiri has the same
alphabet sequence as Bengali, and the letters are ALMOST the same. Just think about drawing a triangle where
Devanagiri has a little circle. The pronunciation is almost identical-just substitute "oh' for the short "a' "uh" of Hindi.
I am constantly surprised by the number of Hindi words I can use in Bengali. It is no doubt a different language, but
it's awfully nice to see some familiar faces when you are struggling with building an entire new vocabulary.

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