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Snowy Owl
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09 May 2006, 7:56 pm

I took a semester of Esperanto as a college elective. Any language geek presented with an opportunity to study Esperanto, should. It's easy and it's genius. A Polish linguist invented it a hundred years ago, trying to create the simplest language possible; he succeeded. There are no irregular verbs; there are in fact no exceptions to the rules at all, and the rules are few and straightforward. The primary accent of each and every word with more than one syllable, for example, is on the penultimate syllable. Secondary accents, on the other hand, are left undefined as a matter of personal style and preference; use them however you like. Words and grammar were designed to resemble both English and the romance languages, and there are semblances to German and other languages as well. The word 'the' is always 'la;' the words 'a' and 'an' are omitted entirely. The suffix tells you whether the word functions as a noun, verb, adjective etc., so you can structure sentences almost any way you please (Talk like Yoda you can!) It's hard to keep from geeking over a hundred different simplifications, but believe me, you can. The whole language is just truly brilliant.

Unfortunately, the people who learn Esperanto never seem to be people who can perform, or recite verse. When most English-speaking people learn it, though their recitation may be technically perfect, aesthetically it tends to come out something like a Kentucky high school student speaking first-year French. Properly spoken, IMHO, it should have a sexy Russian feel to it. (Remember John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda? Like that.)


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09 May 2006, 10:34 pm

I have to learn Thai and english in school because I am in the bilingual program (used to be in International school) I know some dutch,chinese,hebrew and japanese... hebrew is for bible reading



impeachgod
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13 May 2006, 3:38 pm

Human Languages: Chinese and Japanese, maybe.
Computer Languages: Lisp and Python.



Keeno
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14 May 2006, 11:38 am

deep-techno wrote:
Keeno wrote:
Aramaic, Sanskrit, Zend, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic.


Where are those languages used? Is Gothic meant to be Old English? I know Aramaic is the language used in the Bible and spoken by Jesus.


These are all ancient languages, which is why they are key for etymology and studying the relationships between languages. They are all dead languages, apart from probably Aramaic.

Aramaic was spoken in large areas of the Middle East, including Israel, Syria and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). It had loads of different dialects. I understand vestiges of it still survive today in the Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic languages, spoken respectively by the Assyrian and Chaldean people who both mostly live in Iraq.

Sanskrit is the ancestor of Hindi, Urdu, and maybe Punjabi and Gujarati as well. Was spoken on the Indian sub-continent.

Zend is an ancient language of Persia, related to Persian. Zend is normally known today as Avestan.

Gothic is not Old English, but was related to German. Was spoken all over Europe (the continent at least) by the Visigoths and Ostrogoths.

Old Church Slavonic was the liturgical language of the Eastern Orthodox Church. IIRC it was the earliest known Slavic language. It was important in Russia and other countries until the 19th century. Closest modern language to it is probably Bulgarian.



Rhisiart_Steffan
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14 May 2006, 12:58 pm

I want you to learn Welsh.


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ion
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14 May 2006, 2:09 pm

Chinese or japanese would be useful.
Chinese is spoken by 1/5th of the world population, so if you learn that, you have covered a lot.
Japanese can be good if you want to work a lot with the latest technology.

I'm studying chinese myself.



theHappyHiker
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15 May 2006, 6:33 pm

I'm semi-fluent in German (which I took in high school), and am planning to teach myself some amount of Spanish in the summer. Sometime in the future I'm hoping to learn Chinese and Arabic (both very relevant), Russian (sounds awesome), Latin (would provide a better understanding of my own English language), and Italian (a very lyrical language).


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Raph522
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18 May 2006, 10:31 am

I have always wanted to learn german. I have a few books and i took four years of german in hgh school. I haven't spoken it or looked at my books for a while and am begining to forget.



phoenixjsu
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19 May 2006, 4:49 pm

I wish my highschool would have had German. I only had a choice of French and Spanish, neither of which caught my eye. I'd like to learn Chinese.



iamlucille
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20 May 2006, 11:33 am

i really want to learn italian. it's in my blood, it sound beautiful, and i'd be able to visit my family! languages are just amazing though



Raph522
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20 May 2006, 3:41 pm

iamlucille wrote:
i really want to learn italian. it's in my blood, it sound beautiful, and i'd be able to visit my family! languages are just amazing though


Italian is a great language. I have always liked the way it souds and Italy is a very beautiful country. I never tought about learning it.



SolaCatella
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22 May 2006, 5:29 am

I'm currently taking Latin, but I would also like to learn Gaelic, Sanskrit, German, and Italian. Unfortunately the only languages my high school offers besides Latin are Spanish and French, and while I would not mind learning French, I can't fit it into my schedule. I have a deep, deep hatred of Spanish by this point, and once I finish this year, I will not be attempting it again.


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Deus_ex_machina
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23 May 2006, 3:13 am

I would most like to learn Latin (As my name will atest :lol: ) both in spoken and written because it's just so damn cool, also German because I like a few German bands and I would like to understand their lyrics and same goes for Japanese.

And if possible Drow :twisted:


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Anna
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27 May 2006, 10:04 pm

deep-techno wrote:
In my school for Year 10 I have taken French as an option for a subject. In school we can only do French and Italian but what other languages would you like to learn apart from the ones you do in school?

Apart from French, I would like to learn German and Japanese.


I've studied Spanish, German, Italian, Russian and Attic Greek. The next one I'd like to learn is Latin. Or Sumerian, just for fun. ;-)



Anna
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27 May 2006, 10:11 pm

impeachgod wrote:
Human Languages: Chinese and Japanese, maybe.
Computer Languages: Lisp and Python.


Python rocks!



What-ever
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27 May 2006, 10:17 pm

i wish i could go back and learn latin again. i only had one year of it, as our school discontinued it. there are so many really old book that have passages in latin (and old french) that give me fits to deciper.... and the REALLY old books are in latin anyway. would like to be able to read it in the original and understand it, rather than relying on translations somebody else did.