Languages, Dialects, Accents (page 14)

LoveUniHateExams

The following is another interesting video by Maha Yakoub.

It's about the different ways Arabs say 'thank you'.

The first is shukran (jazeelan) - 'thank you (very much)'. That's pretty much standard.

But there are other ways of saying thanks.

Barak Allah fik - literally 'may God bless you'.

Sellim ideyk - literally '[may God] keep your hands safe', used after someone hands you something.

Kattir kherak - literally '[may God] multiply your goodness'.

Yikhlif 'aleyk - literally '[may God] compensate you (for your good deed)'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXHpGW-2v0

knowsnothing1

I love the study of languages. Indo-European languages especially.

My mother is Colombian, but I was born in the States, so I grew up speaking Spanish at home and learned English from TV and school.

Being bilingual fueled my love for languages. I would love to compare English and Spanish cognates.

Some examples:

Commence - comenzar

Obedience - obediencia

Salute - saludar

I often found myself sounding more sophisticated than my friends because I would use the Spanish word in English.

For example, I was discussing something with my friend and I remember I used the term aggrandize. I could have used something more English sounding like inflate or boast, but aggrandize came naturally because of my Spanish substrate. Not that there is an exact cognate, but 'engrandecer' came first to my thoughts, and so out came aggrandize. I even had to look it up later in the dictionary to make sure I was speaking properly, and it turns out that yes aggrandize does exist.

One of my best life friend that I met in middle school was Brazilian and spoke Portuguese. I was fascinated with that language as well, it's so similar to Spanish. So I self taught myself a bit. There are some false friends you have to be aware of though.

Embarazada in Spanish is pregnant, where as embaraçada in Portuguese is the same as in English, embarrassed.

To top it off, my dad is Romanian. I got a chance to pick up another Romance language and use it. The grammar is more difficult than the other Romance languages, but I honestly didn't find it too difficult to pick up the basics, because of the Latin roots of all Romance languages.

It just fascinates me how languages evolved over time.

LoveUniHateExams

Hi knowsnothing1 - so you speak English, Spanish & Romanian?

Wow, that's pretty cool. I guess your ability in Spanish helped you pick up Romanian.

As for me, I learnt a little French and German at school.

I started teaching myself Arabic several months ago but stopped because the Arabic I was learning was Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). I found out after working halfway through book 1 that Arabs usually speak in their own dialect. MSA is the equivalent of Shakespearean English.

There are 4 main dialect groups - Gulf, Levantine, Egyptian & Maghrebi.

So, I'm thinking of learning Levantine (Shami Arabi). This includes Palestinian and Lebanese varieties. The lady in the videos above is Palestinian and she's doing some dialect lessons. Plus, I also found a series on youtube about learning Lebanese Arabic, so I've had a look at both videos.

I'm only a beginner but I'm beginning to get a feel for it. Reading and writing Arabic script is ok but pronunciation can be very tricky!

Here are some of the ways MSA and Shami Arabi differ ...

Ma ismuka? - shou ismak? - what's your name?

Ma haadha? - shou hayda? - what's this?

Man anta? - meen inta? - who are you?

Kayfa haaluka? - keef haalak? - how are you?

Ana bikhayr. - ana mneeh. - I'm fine.

Wahed - wahad

Ithnaan - itnein

Thalaatha - talaateh

Arba3a - arba3

Khamsa - khamseh

Sitta - sitteh

Sab3a - seb3a

Thamaaniya - tamaanya

Tis3a - same

3ashara - 3ashra ... these are the numerals 1 - 10.

Eleven to nineteen are a bit more different, e.g. ahad 3asher becomes ihdash ... ithna asher becomes itnash.

One of the main differences in pronunciation is Lebanese and Palestinians don't pronounce Arabic Q - it's a glottal stop. So, qalam (pen) is pronounce alam.

It's not easy but I'm definitely getting a feel for it.

smiddy3

It fascinates me how some people can speak multiple languages fluently. I have two grandsons who can speak Japanese and English and their only 9 and 7 years old.

stan livedeath

i attended an all boys grammar school in birmingham ( UK ) in the late 50's. we had to choose either latin or german as a subject. i chose german as the lesser of 2 evils. one word i soon learned was father---vater. it cracked me up. for those who dont know its pronounced FARTER.

stan livedeath

as a nerdy little swot at the kingdom hall meetings i read up the list of languages the watchtower was printed in. one such language was tagalog. i dont know why--it amused me. i had no idea where it was spoken. but i soon forgot that.

now--60 years later--it is often spoken in my house--it is one of many languages of the Philippines, and my wife is filipina. she usually speaks tagalog to her family, scattered all over the world. she is also fluent in ilocano., but doesnt understand vissaya, cebuana or loads of other local dialects.

so far i have failed to learn any tagalog. ignorance seems bliss.

LoveUniHateExams

It fascinates me how some people can speak multiple languages fluently - yes, me too because I speak only English fluently. My aunt's partner is English but he lived in France for twenty years, married a Frenchwoman, had a daughter, then divorced his wife and came back to England. He and my aunt got together because they liked each other in the 70s and still had feelings for each other. And he speaks fluent French ... had no lessons apart from a bit at school and yet he just picked it up like a native. His daughter's half English but still lives in France. He didn't bother teaching her English so the only English she knows is from school. I've heard him talk to her on the phone, if you didn't know better you'd think he's French.

one word i soon learned was father---vater. it cracked me up. for those who dont know its pronounced FARTER - this is kinda true. But Americans, Canadians and West Country people pronounce Vater and 'farter' differently. Perhaps a better way of showing the pronunciation would be FAHTA.

she usually speaks tagalog to her family, scattered all over the world. she is also fluent in ilocano., but doesnt understand vissaya, cebuana or loads of other local dialects - One of my in-laws has two cousins who are half English, half Filipino. I met them last Christmas/New Years in the Scottish highlands. They're fluent in Ilocano. I asked them if they understood Tagalog and any other languages. They said they could understand Tagalog but not any of the others.

LoveUniHateExams

It just fascinates me how languages evolved over time - indeed.

Here's a text ...

Englalandes nama cymþ of þǣm Englum, anum þriora mægþa Germania þe hie ofcomon to Englande, oþerum tƿæm mægþum þe hie ofcomon to Englalande to eardian sind Eald-Seaxa mægþ and Iota mægþ, þe habbaþ Englaland gesetled þǣm 5an and 6an gēarhundredum. Siþþan 1707, þe man Grēate Bryten scōp, nu Englaland is ungeƿilde þeod.

Wanna guess which language it is?

Amelia Ashton

Old English?

My daughter is tri lingual after meeting her partner who is German in Spain. They communicate in Spanish but then after the crash of 2008 she moved with him to Germany where she had to learn German to work. My granddaughter is also tri- lingual.

LoveUniHateExams

Old English? -

It's the same language that I'm typing now but at a different developmental stage of its history.

If you're English, your ancestors over a thousand years ago would've spoken a variation of the above text.

It helps if you know some German ... e.g. 'þǣm' is OE for 'the' - the German equivalent is 'dem'. Both are definite articles that are masculine/neuter in the dative case.

Another example - 'gesetled' (settled). Like German past participles, it has a ge- prefix.

The word for centuries is interesting: gēarhundredum. It's literally 'year-hundreds', with the -um ending telling me it's in the dative case.

And finally 'sind' means 'are' ... sind also means are in German.

My daughter is tri lingual after meeting her partner who is German in Spain. They communicate in Spanish but then after the crash of 2008 she moved with him to Germany where she had to learn German to work. My granddaughter is also tri- lingual - that's pretty cool.

Languages, Dialects, Accents

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