|
 |
Native American Languages | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Guido Super Polyglot Senior Member ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6332 days ago 286 posts - 582 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic | Message 9 of 45 31 August 2009 at 1:21am | IP Logged | ||
|
Quechua has 10 Million native speakers.
With Quechua you could visit Bolivia and Peru. Oh, don't forget that Quechua has 19 cases, which makes it much more fun :D If I were you, I'd go for Guaraní, Quechua, Ojibwe and/or Navajo. (Go for all!) Whatever is your choice, enjoy it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lancemanion Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 150 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 10 of 45 31 August 2009 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||
|
If it were me, definitely Navajo. I used to read a lot of westerns, and Navajo seems to be the big native American
language now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5708 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 11 of 45 31 August 2009 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||
The funny thing is that my Navajo friend always complained about the fact that, eventhough there were supposed to be over 100,000 speakers, the knowledge and use was always a little thing. To quote her: "Those Cherokee, man!" as she thought they were a lot more vigorous is keeping their language alive despite the maybe one tenth of speakers compared to Navajo (aka Dine Bizaad ^_^) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stephen_g Groupie Canada Joined 6133 days ago 44 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Italian | Message 12 of 45 31 August 2009 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||
|
Check out the following link if you wish to hear Inuktitut:
http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/b2726.htm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5389 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 13 of 45 31 August 2009 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||
|
The best sounding language for me is Haida, (X̲aadas Kíl)! Pity is endangered
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drfeelgood17 Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6253 days ago 98 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog*, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Japanese, Latin, Arabic (Written) | Message 14 of 45 31 August 2009 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Among the Native American languages, Quecha and Navajo interest me the most. Quecha because it was once the
language of the Incas and Navajo for its interesting grammar and phonology. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| capuchine Newbie Joined 5363 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 45 05 September 2009 at 6:07am | IP Logged | ||
|
I think you should try Guarani and Quechua, a lot of people in south america speak this languages and both come from interesting culture and in the actuality Peru and Paraguay are really good places to visit, you can check this magazine:
you will find something about quechua and peruvian culture.. http://www.onetooneperu.org/Revista-virtual.html 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6672 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 16 of 45 05 September 2009 at 6:59am | IP Logged | ||
|
I studied a bit of Lakota with the book and tapes "Learn to Read and Write the Lakota
Language" that I got from Amazon.com. The course is very very basic, but it was my introduction to the fact that languages go deeper than words and grammar and into the culture of the people who speak it. That was one of the most important lessons I've learned in all my language learning career. Even though I learned only a precious little of Lakota, I thought it was a wonderful experience and I plan on learning that language as well as I can. There are resources out there to learn it fairly well, and most of them are available at Amazon. As far as other languages are concerned, I would suggest Navajo (another one I plan on learning) and Quechua, although beware that Quechua dialects are very distinct from one another, enough to not be mutually intelligible. The same goes with the Mayan languages. But don't let that stop you by any means. Any one of the languages or dialects will definitely take you on a linguistic ride of a lifetime. As far as resources go, I think Lakota and Navajo probably offer the most, but if you are willing to work through Bible translations and hunt down grammar sketches (and if you are lucky, more complete grammars) you'll probably be stunned by some of the resources you can find. Know though that many of them will probably be written by and for linguists, meaning you'll have to go through linguistic jargon, and in some cases, like with Mayan or Quechua, some of the resources might be in Spanish. But again, the undertaking of studying a Native American language is one of the most unique pleasures that I think many language learners could experience due to their sheer difference from the other language families that many people are rooted in. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
