Name your Favourite Language

[Cecilie]

I find the nordic languages amusing. Even some dialects in my native country sound completely foreign.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I took a couple Russian courses in university and I loved it, I'd really like to pick it up again sometime. Going to St.Petersburg is on my bucket list.

[Sweetdeath]

I took a couple Russian courses in university and I loved it, I'd really like to pick it up again sometime. Going to St.Petersburg is on my bucket list.

I love listening to Russian music, but reading/writing it is tough! :<

[Looncall]

I quite like Welsh. It sounds musical, it has some neat unusual sounds, and it is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled (what on earth was it that happened to Gaelic?).

[Tank]

I quite like Welsh. It sounds musical, it has some neat unusual sounds, and it is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled (what on earth was it that happened to Gaelic?).

So pronounce this Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch 

[Looncall]

I quite like Welsh. It sounds musical, it has some neat unusual sounds, and it is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled (what on earth was it that happened to Gaelic?).

So pronounce this Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch 

I hope I could come close, but not rapidly at all. what does it mean?

[Tank]

I quite like Welsh. It sounds musical, it has some neat unusual sounds, and it is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled (what on earth was it that happened to Gaelic?).

So pronounce this Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch  

I hope I could come close, but not rapidly at all. what does it mean?

It's a station name. I linked the name to its Wiki page which shows how it should be pronounced  

EDIT. There is an audio file on the Wiki page that actually demonstrates the pronunciation. Good luck

[Looncall]

I quite like Welsh. It sounds musical, it has some neat unusual sounds, and it is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled (what on earth was it that happened to Gaelic?).

So pronounce this Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch 

I hope I could come close, but not rapidly at all. what does it mean?

It's a station name. I linked the name to its Wiki page which shows how it should be pronounced 

EDIT. There is an audio file on the Wiki page that actually demonstrates the pronunciation. Good luck

Thanks.

That sort of thing could make filling out forms really tiresome.

I once worked in a lab on the outskirts of London. A native Welsh speaker in the lab had labelled the distilled water tank "DWR", which means water in Welsh. It puzzled some visitors.

[Tank]

I quite like Welsh. It sounds musical, it has some neat unusual sounds, and it is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled (what on earth was it that happened to Gaelic?).

So pronounce this Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch 

I hope I could come close, but not rapidly at all. what does it mean?

It's a station name. I linked the name to its Wiki page which shows how it should be pronounced 

EDIT. There is an audio file on the Wiki page that actually demonstrates the pronunciation. Good luck

Thanks.

That sort of thing could make filling out forms really tiresome.

I once worked in a lab on the outskirts of London. A native Welsh speaker in the lab had labelled the distilled water tank "DWR", which means water in Welsh. It puzzled some visitors.

Lol.

[CHI83]

My favourite language would be french (even though I don't know alot)  because it flows so nicely.

[Sweetdeath]

I really like the names of french food/beverages. I don't know why.

Mm.. Gateau <3

[Ragnar]

The vast majority of Old English people hear today is Winchester Standard West Saxon, which is about as representative to Old English as BBC English represents post modern English.

Absolutely.  I live in Mercian, Anglian territory.  But there are very few connected texts of literary interest which are not in the W.S. standard.

The West Saxons pronounced their vowels as we all recognise them today.

Oh no!  Have you ever heard of the great vowel shift in Middle English?

There is a vowel shift which makes the difference between Saxon English and Angle English.

No, just a dialectal difference, which is not the same thing.  Are you confusing this with the great vowel shift in M. E.?

Yes, I know about the GVS, which basically meant that the tongue became closer to the roof of the mouth when pronouncing long vowels.  So "boots on our feet" would have sounded like "boats on our fate" before the GVS.

But Middle English is complicated, because there isn't a standard version of Middle English.  ME evolved as a result of the loss of standardisation in Old English after the Norman Conquest.  But the GVS started in the 14th century.

Some dialects were resistant to the GVS.  Other dialects had a vowel shift, but not in the same way as each other.

One dialectic difference between Mercian and West Saxon was that Mercians often pronounced "O" where West Saxons pronounced "A", and West Saxon F was pronounced more like a V

[OldGit]

The West Saxons pronounced their vowels as we all recognise them today.

So if you know of the GVS, you know that no dialect of A/S has kept its vowels into Mod.E.  Not the long ones, anyway.

But Middle English is complicated, because there isn't a standard version of Middle English.

Of course there isn't, it runs from early C12 damn nearly to Shakespeare, over what were at that time huge, almost isolated areas.

[Willow]

The border between middle and modern english that was as taught in school is that King James Bible (1605) belongs to middle english and Shakespeare (late 1500s) belongs to modern english.  This is because the King James Bible is written in retrospective language, trying to be proper and established and legitimate, whereas Shakespeare wrote edgy modern language, making up new words and being linguistically progressive.

I only know my mother tongue well enough, so I can't really comment on a favourite language.
I am tempted to learn Welsh though.  It's just over the border (38 miles).

[DeterminedJuliet]

I took a couple Russian courses in university and I loved it, I'd really like to pick it up again sometime. Going to St.Petersburg is on my bucket list.

I love listening to Russian music, but reading/writing it is tough! :<

haha, when I was doing my courses, I listened to a lot of Tatu 
I'm really rusty at reading/writing now, but I used to get so excited when I could decipher things in Russian. I remember watching "Red October" with my husband and being totally obnoxious about it, haha.