In which language might greet people in the morning by saying “ṣbah lkhīr” or in the afternoon or evening with “mselkhīr“?
In this language common ways of saying goodbye include “lla yhennīk“, “lla y’uwn” and “thella fārṣek“.
Another useful phrase in this language is: “bghiṭ nteferrezh walakīm mabghītsh ndekhul feha” (I’d like to watch but I don’t want to join in).
I heard today that a new Klingon dictionary is available for the iPhone and iPod, and will soon be available for Windows and Mac. It is an electronic version of the Klingon Dictionary and Conversational Klingon. There is also a phrase book for use by “Terrans” (Earthlings) planning a visit to the fictional world of Kronos, where Klingons live and vice versa.
Are any of you learning Klingon, or would like to learn?
I went down to Cornwall for my sister’s wedding a few days ago and heard some interesting English accents on the way. While waiting on Bristol station, for example, I heard some people talking in unfamiliar accents that might have been Bristolian. At first I wasn’t sure what language they were speaking – it certainly didn’t sound like English. After listening to it a bit more I realised that it was English after all, but I had to listen for carefully to make out what they were saying. It sounded very fast with a lot of elision.
Have you ever heard someone talking in what sounds like a foreign language only to realise later that it’s actually a language you know?
The announcements on railway stations in the UK are usually in RP English which has been pre-recorded and is then spliced together as necessary. So the way the Cornish place names were pronounced by the station announcements sounded quite different to the way they were pronounced by the Cornish conductor on the train. I really like Cornish accents and acquired bits of one myself while I was there, even though I only stayed for a long weekend.
BBC Voices has examples of Cornish and Bristol accents, though none of the recordings sound like the accents I heard on Bristol station, so maybe the people were from somewhere else.
Yesterday I went the dentist, and while I was chatting to the dental hygienist she detected a Welsh accent in my English and switched to Welsh. So we continued talking in Welsh and she was surprised when I told her that I’m not a native speaker as she’d assumed. Apparently I have a mid-Wales accent in Welsh.
Dw i’n newydd dod yn ôl o Gernyw lle briododd fy chwaer Ddydd Sadwrn mewn clwb cefn gwlad ger Saltash. Roedd y seremoni briodas yn syml efo darlleniadau gan gyfeillion fy chwaer ac ein mam, ac ar ôl ffotograffiaeth bron diddiwedd, roedd derbyniad wych. Roedd yr areithiau yn ddiddorol, y bwyd yn flasus, a’r cwmni yn neis, ac roedd twmpath gwych efo band byw ar ôl y pryd.
Mi nes i aros efo fy nheulu a fy mherthnasau mewn pentref gwyliau ger Saltash, ac mi nes i weld fy mrawd am y tro cyntaf ymhen tair flyneddoedd (mae o wedi bod yn hwylio o gwmpas y byd). Mi nes i gwrdd â merch fy nghefnder am y tro cyntaf erioed hefyd – mae hi’n tair blwydd a hanner, yn giwt iawn ac yn lawn o egni.
Mae’n ryfedd bod fy chwaer yn ddynes briod efo dau gyfenwau, ac mae gen i frawd a chwaer-yng-nghyfraith erbyn hyn.
Here’s a recording of part of a story in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
Lowlands-L Anniversary Celebration is an interesting website I discovered recently which features translations of a Low Saxon / Low German folktale, De Tunkrüper (The Wren), in numerous languages. There are also details of the languages and recordings of some of the translations. The author of the site, Reinhard F. Hahn, is keen to collect translations and recordings of the story in as many languages and dialects as possible – perhaps you can help.
The Lowlands-L website contains information about the West Germanic languages of the lowlands along the North and Baltic seas, including many varieties of Dutch, Frisian, Low Saxon and English. The Anniversary Celebration section concentrates particularly on those languages, but also includes languages from many other parts of the world, as well as constructed languages, and extinct languages such as Gothic and Coptic.
At the moment I’m writing an essay on the acquisition of foreign pronunciation. There seems to be a widespread belief that people who start learning a language at an early age are more likely to speak it with a native accent, while those who learn languages as adults tend to speak them with foreign accents. The essay is exploring whether this is true, and what factors contribute to the acquisition of native-like pronunciation.
While there’s plenty of evidence indicating that the younger you start learning a language, the more native-like your pronunciation will be, there are exceptions to this – some adults manage to acquire native-like pronunciation in foreign languages, while not all children do so. Other factors that seem important include the length of time you’ve spent in a country where the language is spoken, the amount of exposure you get to the language, how much you use your first language, whether you have a talent for oral mimicry, and how important it is for you to speak the language like a native. Other factors don’t seem to be as important.
In my case, I aim to speak languages with as little foreign accent as possible, and am reasonably successful in this. I think I have a good ear for languages, which might be related to my musical abilities, and am quite good at oral mimicry. I find that mimicking the way foreigners speak English and doing the same when I speak their language helps.
Do you speak an foreign languages with a native-like accent? What has helped you to do so.
There are a number of radio stations in Ireland and Northern Ireland that broadcast entirely or partly in Irish, and I listen to one of them, Raidió na Gaeltachta, reguarly. However I wasn’t aware until the other day that there’s a radio station in New York (Nua Eabhrac) that broadcasts a weekly radio show in Irish, according to this article.
The show, Mile Failte, is broadcast on WFUV-FM and has been running since 1989. It originally lasted just 10 minutes, but has grown to an hour and includes Irish music, language lessons, poetry and information about Irish culture and history. The same station also broadcasts an Irish music programme called Ceol na nGael.
There seems to be a quite a few Irish speakers in New York, and plenty of Irish language classes in New York City and State, according to this site. There’s some details of some of the Irish-speakers there on this site.
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
