And....
Monolingualism (especially in a country as big as the US) is far greater an asset than a detriment.
Search found 36 matches
- Thu Dec 15, 2005 3:58 am
- Forum: Etymology
- Topic: Zeroing in On the Issue
- Replies: 11
- Views: 27140
- Thu Dec 15, 2005 3:57 am
- Forum: Etymology
- Topic: Zeroing in On the Issue
- Replies: 11
- Views: 27140
a majority of the people of the world - with the exception of those residing on large portions of the North American continent - are, in fact, multi-lingual. Thus multi-lingualism is the norm, not, as some suppose, the exception.... so are speakers of both Norwegian and Swedish multilingual? How ab...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:03 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: Misplaced relative
- Replies: 16
- Views: 36520
of course! I understand that its a joke, but what you said made me think. One of my professors said once that Linguistic change and continuity theory owes a lot to biology. Apparently language changes and develops much the same way genetics does. Its a natural smooth evolution that really cant be ch...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 6:49 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: How does your brain learn languages?
- Replies: 56
- Views: 102877
Slavic-sounding! Ha! I always thought it was like a drunk Frenchman trying to speak Spanish. To me, some languages sound prettier than others, and I'd have to say Brazilian Portuguese is one of my favorites. Eu gosto Os Mutantes e todos dos Tropicalistas. Hopefully I didnt butcher it too much. The p...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 6:34 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: Misplaced relative
- Replies: 16
- Views: 36520
It is probably a poor translation that will eventually work is way into the very heart of Brazilian Portuguese from English until a Portuguese sentense won't seem right unless it ends in a preposition! Apo Again, I don't think borrowing works like that, especially not syntactical stuff like preposi...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:24 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: How does your brain learn languages?
- Replies: 56
- Views: 102877
i think another important point is the difference between comprehension and production. i can understand little bits of lots of languages, like greetings, etc. and I could tell you the basic structures, phonological characteristics, etc. but when it comes to having a conversation or writing novel se...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:59 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: Misplaced relative
- Replies: 16
- Views: 36520
using that preposition sem at the end of the sentence in Portuguese is totally against the rules and idiom. so this construction is not prevalent in spoken Portuguese? Did it make sense when you read it? It seems unlikely that it has anything to do with English 'invading' anything, other than the t...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:42 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: Does learning another language help you with English?
- Replies: 11
- Views: 25296
I agree with the other posters- and I think a very important point to be made is about phonology. As a native English speaker, I never thought about my own language, but as you learn about others, a more sharp focus is put on your own native tongue. i.e.- /th/ in 'this' and 'thin' are different soun...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:01 pm
- Forum: Etymology
- Topic: Some thing WICKED this way comes!
- Replies: 38
- Views: 225576
Re: Some thing WICKED this way comes!
What Valley are you speaking of?And in California, it can be "wicked awesome", but in the valley "wicked" has a few other meanings.
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 3:57 pm
- Forum: Etymology
- Topic: Zeroing in On the Issue
- Replies: 11
- Views: 27140
there seems to be convenient answers for just about everything if one searches, but in reality, especially in language things are never very clean or easy. Some of my favorite language myths: everyone in Spain has a lisp because some king did. Any language is more complicated than another Speaking m...
Re: tasty
this word is the term for the archetypal hero's 'return quest' as seen in the Odyssey. I had originally wondered about its relation to 'nostalgia' it seems to have spark a 'tasty' discussionthe word «*nostos» doesn't remind me of very much at all. Where did you happen upon it ?...
- Mon Dec 05, 2005 3:25 pm
- Forum: Etymology
- Topic: Names of Dacian Kings
- Replies: 19
- Views: 52893
theres nothing boring about Latin names! Its funny that to the English speaking world (of which Im part), Latin and Greek seem lofty and scientific, almost mathematical and free from human contamination, when they are just languages, spoken by scholars and children (in the past) similar to say, Taga...
- Fri Oct 28, 2005 2:54 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: Greek v. Latin - compound words
- Replies: 1
- Views: 8132
Greek v. Latin - compound words
I was thinking about the compounding of words to create new words and the similarities of Greek and Germanic languages. These are examples of Greek and Latin stratarche:s - general, military leader (e: is eta - long e) strategos - general stratopedon - army camp, tent stratia - army stratiote:s - so...
- Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:45 pm
- Forum: Languages of the World
- Topic: From the Language of Advertising and Public Relations . . .
- Replies: 38
- Views: 72528
Good job, Washington. Way to get everyone sumpnspicious of their neighbors and fear and alienate anyone who looks or acts differently and report them to the police. Then they get harrassed just for being the way they are. I think the terrorists are winning. by the way, how do you pronounce this? I s...