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Ranking list of languages by difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| spanishlearner Groupie France Joined 5454 days ago 51 posts - 81 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 113 of 115 12 March 2010 at 7:50pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks so much for that excellent reply, robsolete!
After mastering Sanskrit I plan to study Hindi, Urdu and Tamil. I guess lack of materials could be a problem with the latter though. From your message I gather you would place Tamil in Class III, one step below the Semitic languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 114 of 115 12 March 2010 at 8:13pm | IP Logged |
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Eh, I'm honestly hesitant to say much about it, since I only studied Kannada. My experience with Tamil is limited to seeing really cool signs and inscriptions on the sides of old temples like Tirupati. And hearing it spoken around Ooty and Coonoor in Tamil Nadu. I spent the most of my time on the Andhra/Karnataka border. So I'm most familiar with Kannada and Telugu, and only "studied" Kannada.
I would basically place it around there if forced, though. Hindi speakers were always aghast that I "even bothered to learn that crazy talking" from the South, whereas Kannada speakers sometimes joke that "if you watch 10 Bollywood movies you know Hindi." Of course, not to say the rate of Hindi fluency was that high in the villages. Still, they seem to think it an easier task than the other way around, and coming from a distant IE language like English I'd figure Hindi would be a bit more recognizable than the Dravidian structure of things. Again, I have no idea what I'm talking about here. But the little bits I do know are hopefully better than nothing. Materials will be an issue for you, though I think that Tamil might be a grade easier than Telugu or Kannada or Malayalam. The only Telugu book I found in a bookstore in the U.S. was written by a British missionary: it was reprinted in the 1990s because there hadn't been much better written since it's original publication--in 1856! I also had to go to FIVE bookstores in BANGALORE to find a Kannada book! IN BANGALORE. So I guess that's what you'll have to look forward to. Tamil seems like it has a fascinating literary history, though. At the school library I read a really great book titled "The History of South India" (forget the author) that really gets into the Tamil literary tradition, which goes back almost as far as Sanskrit if I'm not mistaken. It goes basically from the indigenous migration to the subcontinent up until the Vijayanagar Empire. Fascinating stuff. Good luck! Edited by robsolete on 12 March 2010 at 8:18pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 115 of 115 12 March 2010 at 8:23pm | IP Logged |
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Oh, and another language that I ran into was Konkani (not sure of spelling), which is a pretty obscure Dravidian tongue that was apparently the original tongue of the area around Goa. I made a friend in B'lore who was from Konkani roots, and it's a very odd little language. It has an entirely oral tradition and never had a writing system, so when her family sends e-mails back and forth they just switch to the alphabet they personally prefer each time.
That means that an e-mail Konkani correspondence can start in Hindi script, continue in Kannada script, and end in Roman script (the younger ones)! And since everyone will likely be familiar with each script, nobody bats an eye. My friend said she has even seen it written in Urdu/Arabic. Crazy! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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