I grew up speaking and hearing two languages, English and Punjabi. Presumably this early plasticity made the relevant regions and areas of my brain adept at picking up new languages at school. Languages have a logic to them and follow strong rules that make it easy to find your way around, at least amongst the romantics (excluding quaint lil old english whose idiosyncrasies and rule-breaks are tough, leaving you out on a bough and tempted to bow out having had enough of a slough (cough)).
My favorite language yet to be learned is greek. I love that as a potent side effect of a science and math education you can read the mystical glyphs, know your thetas from your psis and can announce all-knowingly that that’s the bus to Θεσσαλονίκη!
New York, of course, is a veritable hotbed of spoken languages and the guy next to me on the subway yesterday was learning “Some words in Macedonian”. I’m pretty hard-pressed to see the everyday use of the particular set of words, listed in this order on his steno pad (I didn’t catch the Macedonian, I’ve added the greek to give you a general feel for the moment):
Death θάνατος
Bright weather ηλιόλουστος
Minor god of healing Δάῤῥων
Pikes used in a Macedonian phalanx λούτσοι
Κϒδοσ to anyone who can use these in a complete and congruous sentence that’s not pretentiously Homerian…………..doh!
I once lived not far from a village called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch [NB there might be a spelling error or two in there, naturally enough]. After that experience, no language can faze me, at least not those using Western/Arabic alphabets. ;)
Welsh scrabble sets have “Ll” tiles in them (I can’t remember how many points an Ll is)!
Probably just one point, in Welsh…
“¡¿Welsh?!”
¡¿Como se llama?!
(Alpaca?)
Wikipedia says llama, I actually don’t know the difference!
What I do know is that llamas are bigger than frogs.
I know you can only take wool from a llama’s trunk region. Alpaca fur can be taken from all over.
What I do know is that llamas are bigger than frogs.
…and are equipped with fins for swimming, and a beak for eating honey.
/Pythongeek
What about the Vicuña? Won’t somebody remember the Vicuña?
Of course, I also forgot the Guanaco, which has the added advantage of sounding like something made of bird droppings.
Shearable once every 3 years, how could I have forgotten the Vicuña and guanaco! Spanish scrabble must have the ñ tile.