User gender XVXCXICIXC: User linguistics

[Glom]

What languages does everyone speak?

English is obviously my native language. I have done a bit of French, but I stopped studying it at GCSE so I'm a bit out of practice. I know a tiny bit of Hebrew, but not much worthwhile. I did Japanese a bit last year, which was fun. I also did Latin at AS level, although I'm a bit rusty with it.

[jfribrg]

I learned German in high school (or should I say that I learned German in Gymnasium ).

I also took 12 college credits in American Sign Language (yes it really is a separate language with its own grammar, idioms , culture, etc.)

[Gullible Jones]

English is my primary language. I'm taking a Latin class in school, so I know some Latin... And, coming from a Jewish family (and being forced to attend Hebrew school for a couple of years), I used to know some Hebrew. I've pretty much forgotten all of that now, though.

[azazul]

My primary language is C++, but I also know quite a bit in Python, Java, IBM370, PHP, and a few others.

[pumpkinpie]

I learned German in high school (or should I say that I learned German in Gymnasium ).

I also took 12 college credits in American Sign Language (yes it really is a separate language with its own grammar, idioms , culture, etc.)

Same three for me! Primary English. I took 4-1/2 years of German spread over high school and college. I also took three ASL courses at our local Hearing and Speech Agency. Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in either, but I know enough to stumble through.

[papageno]

Italian: mother tongue
German: former native
English: fluent-ish
French: beginner (never really practiced speaking)
Latin: five years in high school
Ancient Greek: again high school
Modern Greek: less than beginner (I won't starve if I am in Greece)
Japanese: a few words picked up from animes (I will starve if I am in Japan)

[SeanF]

English is my primary language. I did take Spanish in high school and a little bit in college, but I never used it so yo no recuerdo mucho.

[TriangleMan]

Here's a ~two-year old thread on languages that BABB posters knew.

[Parrothead]

English, Estonian and extremely broken French (haven't used it in years).

edit for typo

[Candy]

I also took 12 college credits in American Sign Language (yes it really is a separate language with its own grammar, idioms , culture, etc.)

I know you specified American Sign Language, so this may be a really dumb question, but is Sign Language the same in every language? 8-[

[PeterFab]

Danish is my primary language. So I also understand Swedish and Norwegian enough to talk to people from those countries.
I also speak English and German, had 3 years of Russian in school, but no longer remembers enough to speak that. And I had Latin for a year.

[Humphrey]

Gtopian.


and a bit of English.

[Candy]

I've studied Spanish, Japanese, and German.

More Spanish than the others. I was amazed at the first time I actually spoke a sentence without thinking. I'm way out of touch, now. ops:

I can understand bits and pieces of Arabic (only when spoken). I can't read it.

Has anyone else ever noticed that the Japanese use the Spanish a-e-i-o-u when pronouncing their words. 8-[

[Russ]

Birth language: Texan
Current: American
Passible: English
Get my face slapped: German, Spanish, French

[The Supreme Canuck]

English and a bit of French (it got me through France, so it can't be that bad...)

[jfribrg]

I also took 12 college credits in American Sign Language (yes it really is a separate language with its own grammar, idioms , culture, etc.)

I know you specified American Sign Language, so this may be a really dumb question, but is Sign Language the same in every language? 8-[

There are many similar signs in all the languages, especially for common nouns ( a common example is the sign for telephone) , but there are many different sign languages. I'm not familiar with the others, but I do know that American and English sign languages do not even use the same handshapes for the letters of the alphabet.

[Normandy6644]

English: Native

Italian: Getting much better, will be fluent by the end of the summer (going to Italy with girlfriend and her family, where she is from)

Spanish: pretty fluent, though I forget a word here and there, but can normally work around it.

German: Learned the grammar well, speak okay, but severely lacking in vocabulary (in my own opinion)

French: only a little

Italian: mother tongue

I didn't know that! Where are you from?

[V-GER]

Besides Finnish; English, Swedish, a bit of German and I'm now studying
Italian in evening school.

[mopc]

Portuguese of course is my mother language. Early in my life I started learning Italian and English, and now I speak English almost as fluently as a native. At 14 I started learning German, which I came to master quite well too, besides a good Swedish later complemented by a knowledge of Dutch, never forgetting to get in touch with the Romance languages, of which after Italian I speak Catalan the best. Romanian, Spanish, Latin and French I can understand, i've taken a look at them

Of the Slavic languages I have studied Polish and Russian, which I speak at a mediocre level even though I used all of their grammar gadgets like the declensions.

Outside Europe I know Chinese better, I can have a conversation and I know more than 500 characters already, it's the language I am studying now and the one I intend to become fluent in just like English and German, thus it will be my third choice as a foreign language to be learned all the way. I'm learning at least 10 characters every day and I'm teaching Chinese at elementary level.

I've studied some Arabic, but I've only mastered the alphabet and the grammar structure, little vocbulary. Another alphabet I have learned, which is my favorite, is the Nagari or Devanagari script of India.

I've also studied Persian but not too much.

I have hundreds of books about virtually every language you've ever heard of, and I am attempting to answer the questions: what is there in common between all human languages? Why are languages the way they are??

[Swift]

English is my native tongue, some might even say I'm fluent. :wink:

I've not learned three other languages: Spanish in high school, German in college, French in France. After 10 months in France, including 2 months of night classes, I could barely get by. Most of that has leaked out my mind in the 18 years since. I guess I got all the chemistry genes and my sister got all the language genes (English major with a minor in French and Italian).

I do feel bad when i visit other countries and have to depend on their abilities in English (rather than my ability in their language), but I'm close to hopeless.

[iFire]

I can speak American! I have learned a tiny bit of French over the past two years at school.

[Charlie in Dayton]

To paraphrase Russ:
Birth language: South Buckeye
Current: Amurrican
Passable: English
Workplace dialects: Windows XP, Lotus Notes, MS Office, Novell
Not a clue: wimmen-speak

[papageno]

Italian: mother tongue

I didn't know that! Where are you from?

North-East of Italy (Veneto).
This is my village.

And in this picture

you can see my house (right next to the church, on the right).

[dvb]

Wow, that's a beautiful landscape.

Canadian English is my primary.

Learned Canadian French in kindergarten, but haven't used it since. Like they say, if you don't use it, you lose it.

[papageno]

I have hundreds of books about virtually every language you've ever heard of...

Anything about Ladin?
(It's the "dialect" from where I am from -- well, it is considered a language rather than a dialect.)

[Grendl]

I learned German in high school (or should I say that I learned German in Gymnasium ).

I also took 12 college credits in American Sign Language (yes it really is a separate language with its own grammar, idioms , culture, etc.)

I know the sign language alphabet fluently. When we were kids there was this deaf kid on Squirrel Island in Boothbay, so we learned when I was eight. I don't know a lot of the sign terms or images, though, just the alphabet and words. My ex-neighbor and best pal here interprets for a living. A cool side benefit: he gets front-row tickets to all the best concerts, since deaf people have special front-stage access. He'll get a call from the concert producer, say, because some deaf people want to see Cher, and off he goes. I think it's a great job. He transcribes for university classes (the lectures), too.

Here's a nifty little quiz regarding the ASL alphabet: ASL Quiz

[PhantomWolf]

well I have a splattering or French and Maori though not really enough of either to do little more than say hello and introduce myself along with a couple of other phrases and ideas.

I am pretty good at BASIC, Pascal, Modula-2, ADA, C, C++, VB6, VBA, VB .Net, VBScript, JavaScript, HTML, XML, MU*Code and am passable in LISP.

I'm trying to learn American too, but that is even weirder than Australian.

[Grendl]

Italian: mother tongue

I didn't know that! Where are you from?

North-East of Italy (Veneto).

Your village is gorgeous! I never had the time to explore the mountains when I went to Venice years ago, (my mother lived in Venice before permanently settling in Rome), but I did have a "perfect moment"* in Siena, in Tuscany. I just love the Italian villages nestled within the mountains. The thing is, I can never understand why people would leave those places, except for job prospects, I suppose. If I had mountains to look at like that every morning, I would never leave. I guess when one is younger, they need or desire more city-life excitement and stimulation--I can see how a youth might be bored in a small town like that--I know I was when a teenager. Now I'm just old and decrepit. 8-[

Thanks for sharing the pictures and site. Maybe people will be inclined to put it on their itinerary now. I didn't know there was an Italian on the board- ops: -hope you didn't see my comments on the Romans stealing the Greeks' gods. But they did....

*reference to Spalding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia"
Edit: Sienna to Siena-oops.

[papageno]

Italian: mother tongue

I didn't know that! Where are you from?

North-East of Italy (Veneto).

Your village is gorgeous! I never had the time to explore the mountains when I went to Venice years ago, (my mother lived in Venice before permanently settling in Rome), but I did have a "perfect moment"* in Sienna, in Tuscany.

Well, it takes three hours of train travel from Venice (just to get to the end station).

I just love the Italian villages nestled within the mountains. The thing is, I can never understand why people would leave those places, except for job prospects, I suppose.

That is the problem.
The best chance of a job would be in tourism.
But then, I'd rather move to Santorini.

If I had mountains to look at like that every morning, I would never leave. I guess when one is younger, they need or desire more city-life excitement and stimulation--I can see how a youth might be bored in a small town like that--I know I was when a teenager. Now I'm just old and decrepit. 8-[

It is a very small village (150 inhabitants) and not directly connected by public transport.
There is just a little shop (*cough* guess who's the owner *cough*) and a sort of pub.
Personally, I prefer living in a city (I lived in Berlin for a while, and I loved it).

Thanks for sharing the pictures and site. Maybe people will be inclined to put it on their itinerary now. I didn't know there was an Italian on the board- ops: -hope you didn't see my comments on the Romans stealing the Greeks' gods. But they did....

Well, the Romans stole the intellectuals from Greece, not to mention most of the tragedies and comedies (my high school was a liceo classico: we did plenty of Greek and Latin literature).

[Normandy6644]

That's so cool papageno. I'm going to Fondi this summer, but I'll probably travel all around too.