What languages do we speak?

[Dr. Stiby]

Native: Dutch (which means I also speak flemmish, if you consider this a language).
Fluent: English
Get by: German, French, Papiamento (language of the Dutch Antilles and Aruba, where my father is from).
Know some basic phrases: Polish, Hungarian, Shona (Zimbabwe's main unofficial language).

[Traianvs]

Flemish is not really an official language. We all speak dutch; the only difference is the accent, and sometimes a different choice of words. That doesn't qualify Flemish as a dialect. For that you need specific differences, like totally different words.
In my local dialect a car doesn't mean: 'een auto', but 'ne voituur'
(people who know French will almost understand our dialect )

Btw the dutch accent keeps on going 'platter'
If you look/liste back to television/radio broadcasts from say 30-40 years ago in Holland you'll notice the accent resembles the Flemish accent a lot more than it does now

Simply listen to Godfried Bomans!

[Locutus]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Q:What the difference between a dialect and a language?

A: A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

That rules out French

[Brent]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
No Klingon?

Bah! To Shark Bay!

Qa'Pla. Puzh.

Yazhak Ao.

[Myrddin]

And why Gaelic - Welsh is the celtic language with the most speakers

[Spec]

French. Canadian french that is.


Spec.

[Brent]

Another language I'd like to know is Volapuk.

[lord of the mark]

Its the world esperanto convention

2 leading thinkers of this movement to create a transnational world language approach each other, to exchange greetings in their shared tongue.

"Nu, vas macht a yid?"

[Whaleboy]

French, Hebrew, Portugese, Spanish, Yiddish and a little Hindi (only fluent in Hebrew and you'll be damned if you hear me talking in anything other than English ).

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
French, Hebrew, Portugese, Spanish, Yiddish and a little Hindi (only fluent in Hebrew and you'll be damned if you hear me talking in anything other than English ).

nu. vas macht a yid?

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by Ancyrean


Sure, but I'm really new to the whole thing, I might not be at your level But yes, it's a fairly easy language, especially after some familiarity with western languages

aku tinggal di Jakarta hanya empat bulan dan aku sudah suka kota ini = [I live in jakarta only for 4 months and I already like this city]

Bapak saya dan keluarganya berasal dari Batu Sangkar, di Sumatera Barat.

(My father and his family come from Batu Sangkar in West Sumatra.)

[alva]

If you look/liste back to television/radio broadcasts from say 30-40 years ago in Holland you'll notice the accent resembles the Flemish accent a lot more than it does now

One trend we, well, recently copied from from the dutch and one that annoys me beyond aaaarghh is the 'je' and 'jij' form used in shops or tv and such, instead of the more polite 'U' (for the french: using 'toi' instead of 'vous' .
I absolutely can't stand it !!!
Van't Hek once did a great piece on this, using Ikea.

Besides, 'jij' is a terrible words, it just doesn't sound right, neither in dutch or flemish. Luckily we have the older but better sounding 'ge' or 'gij' form.
(not to be used by dutch people though, please don't 'cause you can't pull it off )

[connorkimbro]

huh . . . i wonder who else at apolyton (besides yin26 and I) can speak korean? i know Q Cubed is korean, but i didn't think he knew the language fluently, maybe I was wrong?

[Brent]

Korean has the world's bestest written language.

[MrFun]

How come the banana language is not a voting option?


You can't just hide it under the "other!"

Such blasphemy!!