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Your Language Fantasy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| sprachefin Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5748 days ago 300 posts - 317 votes  Speaks: German*, English, Spanish Studies: French, Turkish, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Persian, Dutch | Message 9 of 49 25 May 2009 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have always fantasized about a country where only polyglots live. You must speak at lest 3 languages to live there and one of them must be a predetermined one, such as Latin or an easy one like Esperanto. I just think of these things in my spare time, when I get frustrated with the lack of speakers of the language I'm trying to learn. Also, the school curriculum would consist of mostly languages, and the more languages you would know would equal a higher social status ;).
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| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6667 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 10 of 49 25 May 2009 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The Chinese had a huge armada about a century before the Europeans set out to colonize the world. Had they decided to found colonies in the areas where they traveled, large areas of South Asia and Africa could now be Chinese-speaking.
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| yobar Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7034 days ago 52 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: German, Spanish, Irish | Message 11 of 49 25 May 2009 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
When I lived in Louisiana in the 80s they had Cajun radio stations, all in their Acadian. I had an easier time understanding them than I did the Québecers. I heard Québécois first in upstate New York and had to listen for a few minutes before I figured it was a dialect of French. And I lived in the Alsatian region of West Germany for a while! ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chipile Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6584 days ago 21 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish Studies: French | Message 12 of 49 25 May 2009 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Even though I have never actively studied the languages myself, I would love if Scots and Scottish Gaelic were still the majority languages in Scotland. It would have been interesting to see if Scots would have become to English much like Norwegian is, to say, Swedish. Although, as a Scot myself, I cannot read a modern translation of a story into Scots without cringing. Snaw White anyone?
I suppose I would actually prefer a completely bilingual Scotland with Scottish Gaelic and English, as Gaelic is a much more distinct language from English than Scots is. Edited by chipile on 25 May 2009 at 10:01pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 13 of 49 25 May 2009 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know about Snow White, but I inspected a Scots version of Winnie the Pooh the other day and find it almost impossible to follow. I've also attempted several Robert Burns' poems and monument inscriptions, without much success. It's pretty different from English no need to worry! ;). Edited by Sennin on 25 May 2009 at 10:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 49 25 May 2009 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have just returned from Barcelona, where there is a big exhibition in the Maritime museum about admiral Zheng He, who led 7 enormous maritime expeditions during the reign of emperor Yong Le, expeditions that totally dwarfed anything the Spanish or Portuguese fleets could muster. However Yong Le's successor abruptly stopped all these external activities. If he hadn't done that at least the Southern part of Asia, the eastern part of Africa and maybe even parts of the Middle East might have been under direct or indirect Chinese rule. It isn't too big a leap to see a world where Chinese would be the no. 1 language in the world (in spite of its cumbersome though decorative writing system). But emperor Hong Xi (Yong Le's successor) effectively blocked that. There are other points in the world history where events could turn in all directions. For instance Greek might have been a world language, if emperor Heraclion of Byzans had had the power not only to defeat the Persians, but also to block the succeeding Arab invasion - but now the Middle East fell to first the Arabs, and later to the Ottoman empire. And of course it didn't help a bit that one stubborn venezian doge smashed Byzans which directly lead to its capitulation to the Turks two hundred years later. And the Romance languages might not have existed at all if Hannibal had had the guts to smash Rome as effectively as the Romans smashed Karthage. Or some slightly different meteorological circumstances could have made the Spanish Armada of Felipe II a succes story, and then Spanish would have had the role that English has now (and the inquisition would have been all over the place, the Age of Enlightenment would never have happened and even Portuguese would have waned, because that country never would have regained its independence). Or Charles Martell could have lost the battle at Poitiers... Edited by Iversen on 26 May 2009 at 9:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chipile Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6584 days ago 21 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish Studies: French | Message 15 of 49 25 May 2009 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I always find with Scots that it helps to say the words out loud. Also, I think that people who grew up in Scotland would be a lot more familiar with a lot of words, even if they aren't in their active vocabulary. If I think back to some of the words my Grandparents used when they were alive, I sometimes had to ask them what they were talking about. Sorry, I am going off topic. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Draemr72 Newbie Ireland Joined 5666 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 16 of 49 25 May 2009 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I would love if Irish Gaelic was still the main language of Ireland. Actually, I'd like it if the Celtic languages in general were stronger.
But yeah, I'm an English speaker but I kinda wish English wasn't as widespread as it is. I know quite a few people who think that learning other languages isn't too important because wherever you go, there'll surely be someone who speaks English. Edited by Draemr72 on 25 May 2009 at 11:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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