5.10.2006

My Language Bottom Ten

Going along with the list, I have another list of my own

As “The Polylgot,” (which was given to me, not self-assumed) because I like to learn as much as possible in every language. If I meet someone that speaks a specific language, I do what I can to try to speak to them. I’ve had short conversations in Swahili, Urdu, German, and Cantonese, but Russian is my serious project. But anyway, aside from my favorite languages, here’s my language bottom ten: the languages I have absolutely no interest in learning. This is bound to change if I meet someone who speaks one of these, but I have met someone who speaks a few of these, and still haven’t cared any more about it. In no particular order, here they are:

 

  1. Laotian
  2. Yiddish
  3. Cambodian
  4. Thai
  5. Esperanto
  6. Turkish
  7. Anything Creole/Pidgin
  8. Welsh
  9. Basque
  10. Myanmar (Burmese)

I have recently enjoyed dabbling in Finnish, Cantonese, Norwegian, Arabic, Persian, Bengali, and German. It’s fun, but that’s my bottom ten. Enjoy.

2 comments:

Horse N. Buggy said...

I have to object to Welch. My name is Welch, so you're speaking it whether you know it or not.

Esperanto is not a real language, I don't think it counts.

Yiddish? You're such a goyim.

Laotian? That proves you've never been out in service in Forest Park. One of the best things is being yelled at, "I Lao! I Lao!" "Why yes, I can see that. Take this tract."

What the heck is Basque? Some regional dialect of French?

Turkish sounds an awful lot like Russian. I had two Turkish co-workers and I always thought I should understand them.

Alan said...

Well, Welsh is, to me, one of the worst sounding Celtic languages, except for maybe Breton. It's a toss-up. Maybe Scottish Gaelic, because it's non-Irish.

Esperanto is considered a "constructed language" like Interlingua, but it's more like caveman spanish and only a handful of a handful of people take it seriously.

Yes, Yiddish. And yes, I've heard from Paige the "I Lao" story.
Basque is the region situated between France and Spanish, but unlike Catalan, a Romance language similar to Spanish (and some argue is spoken by as many as 12 mil. people) Basque is a langauge isolate, meaning it has no traceable relatives. It's ugly and wierd.
Turkish has a lot of influence from Arabic, but is considered a Turkic language (imagine that) as a subgroup of the Oghuz language family, which some people believe to be related to the Altaic language family, tracing its lineage (as I recall) to north of China, meaning Mongolian, Kirghiz, Kazakh, and even (some say) Korean. Never thought Korean and Turkish were cousins, did you?