[OFF TOPIC] Language Thread

[Olympian1010 8,073]

This is the place to talk about all things languages. Differences, similarities, grammar, slang, language facts, funny sayings, etc. Have fun!

[Olympian1010 8,073]

Ok my Tokyo 2020 planning group we were talking about differences in language, and it made me realize how much I’d love to have a thread about that on Totallympics.

 

The conversation started when someone used “Cali” to describe California. Californians never use the word “Cali”, we do use “SoCal/NorCal”, but not “Cali”. I once reprimanded a kid from New Zealand for saying that when he visited. 
 

Also, at @Wanderer I have a question about Kiwi slang if you don’t mind. 

[Griff88 1,971]

  On 10/17/2019 at 4:34 AM, Olympian1010 said:

The conversation started when someone used “Cali” to describe California. Californians never use the word “Cali”, we do use “SoCal/NorCal”, but not “Cali”.

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Definitely, because Cali is in Colombia

[Wanderer 1,738]

  On 10/17/2019 at 4:34 AM, Olympian1010 said:

Ok my Tokyo 2020 planning group we were talking about differences in language, and it made me realize how much I’d love to have a thread about that on Totallympics.

 

The conversation started when someone used “Cali” to describe California. Californians never use the word “Cali”, we do use “SoCal/NorCal”, but not “Cali”. I once reprimanded a kid from New Zealand for saying that when he visited. 
 

Also, at @Wanderer I have a question about Kiwi slang if you don’t mind. 

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Mare, shortened from nightmare, squizz which would be to take a look. Although I like to think "knackered" as common word but this one so loved that is constantly overused.
When I first came in Wellington, the videos on the language I watched were just a bit helpful. It didn't come to me as a piss. When someone starts talking fast, with every "e" in word sounding as /i:/, you often find yourself confused. But it is sweet as, you get used to it, one day your "hid" is on another world and everything is cracked up  

[hckošice 15,122]

Just was asking myself,

 

There any other different countries that speaks different languages but understand themselves without any problem. Like Czechs and Slovaks, The Czechs speaks Czech and Slovaks Slovak but both understand each other and thus can still discuss in their respective languages ?

 

I mean if there any other countries with different languages having the same thing, like for example - or speaking countries - speaking countries, or how it works in countries like where there many different languages, did peoples understands each other without problems ?

[Wumo 3,016]

@hckosice

First of all, this is my personal experience.

Speaking: I will say not all Swedish is easy to understand. Personally I can understand most Swedes from the Southern part of the country. It's become more difficult the more north you travel up in Sweden. I do understand most Norwegian, but some of the dialects in the Western parts of the country are very difficult to understand. 

 

Written: It's much easier to understand written Swedish and Norwegian for me. Swedish is probably a bit more diffucult to understand written than Norwegian. However, two points about written Norwegian. Norwegian can be separated into two categories: Bokmål (Book language) and Nynorsk (New Norwegian).  Bokmål is 95-100% intelligible with Danish, but Nynorsk is much lower. It has to be said that most written Norwegian is in Bokmål, so I have no issue reading it. 

 

The other Nordic languages, Finnish, (I'm not really sure if it is considered a Nordic language officially. Uralic langugage is probably more correct), Icelandic, Faroese are so faaaar from Danish. Though, I can pronounce Eyjafjallajökull correctly according to those Icelanders I have spoken with 

 

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Wumo

[Laraja 1,496]

  On 10/17/2019 at 12:15 PM, hckosice said:

Just was asking myself,

 

There any other different countries that speaks different languages but understand themselves without any problem. Like Czechs and Slovaks, The Czechs speaks Czech and Slovaks Slovak but both understand each other and thus can still discuss in their respective languages ?

 

I mean if there any other countries with different languages having the same thing, like for example - or speaking countries - speaking countries, or how it works in countries like where there many different languages, did peoples understands each other without problems ?

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Spanish and Portuguese are very similar languages. Particularly, for me it's pretty easy to understand and read Spanish. I believe that it's the same for Spanish speakers. Right @LDOG?

 

But, of course, those languages are different and when we try to speak in Spanish, usually, we talk "Portunhol". A mix between Spanish and Portuguese

 

Another curiosity is the different accent between Brazilian Portuguese and the Portuguese from Portugal or Angola... Sometimes I prefer to watch videos in Spanish than in Portuguese from Portugal, because it's easier to understand.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Laraja

[Dolby 739]

  On 10/17/2019 at 12:15 PM, hckosice said:

how it works in countries like where there many different languages, did peoples understands each other without problems ?

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We do encounter a number of problems with respect to the vast diversity of languages. We not only have many different languages, we have languages from different Language families (Indo-European, Dravidian and Sino-Tibetan). Plus, there is regional/cultural pride associated with these languages and so it creates even more problems. But, by and large we manage because of 1) large influence of Sanskrit on almost all the languages 2) large population understanding Hindi (which is basically the common term used for the various dialects spoken in North India) and 3) growing influence of English. Also, it is  quite common for people to have basic knowledge of atleast 3-4 languages (Hindi, English, their mother tongue and languages close to their mother tongue). For example, I can converse/write/read Hindi, Gujarati and English easily. I can read and understand Sanskrit with some effort. My mother tongue is Marwari, which is a sub-dialect of Rajasthani dialect of Hindi, in which I can converse easily. During my stay in Bengaluru, I picked up key words of Kannada and can read albeit with a lot of effort. I can also understand almost all the dialects of Hindi. Can understand the gist of what is being said in Marathi/Punjabi.

 

I think we have been the most diverse participant of TISC in terms of language. To the best of my knowledge, till date we have entered songs in Hindi, Haryanvi, Rajasthani, Bengali, English, Malayalam. And this year's entry is a curious mix of Konkani and Portuguese. 

[Griff88 1,971]

  On 10/17/2019 at 12:15 PM, hckosice said:

Just was asking myself,

 

There any other different countries that speaks different languages but understand themselves without any problem. Like Czechs and Slovaks, The Czechs speaks Czech and Slovaks Slovak but both understand each other and thus can still discuss in their respective languages ?

 

I mean if there any other countries with different languages having the same thing, like for example - or speaking countries - speaking countries, or how it works in countries like where there many different languages, did peoples understands each other without problems ?

Expand  

 

and is usually said to be 90% intelligible (for the formal/standard language) since it came from the same root.

But from what I observe nowadays, younger generation in Indonesia will have more difficulty in understanding Malay because there are many vocabularies that is now become rarely used by them. And with more Indonesians understanding English, they just won't bother to think about trying to understand Malay when they happen to meet Malaysians.

 

 

 

Side story: As I am Chinese descent with ancestry from Fujian Province, I speak Hokkien. And I found out that even Hokkien speakers in Indonesia has different variations, where sometimes the difference in the vocabulary can be quite big. The Medan Hokkien (the one I spoke) is mostly intelligible with Penang Hokkien in Malaysia, which means it's quite isolated compared to other variants. My father once arranged to meet a Singaporean businessman and my father thought that as they both can speak Hokkien it is alright (he barely understands English or Mandarin). When they start discussing, it turns out my father doesn't totally understand what the Singaporean was saying. Luckily I was there, and suddenly became the middleman between them lol

Edited October 17, 2019 by Griff88

[heywoodu 15,353]

Anyone here using Duolingo?