Languages

[sesame]

These are the Nineth century Anglo Saxon alphabets. Note that K, W, Y are missing and there's a new letter after T and there's an alien looking S instead of Z! To sum up, I must assume that the English alphabets were less than 26 at that time.

In the next picture, taken from the Library of Minerva, Rome, 9th century, K, W, X, Y, Z are missing. Again, there is an extra S. I think this S was pronounced like Z and was later placed at the end, where Z is now.

[hansen]

Мамицу вам болесну свима педерчине изопачене што вас не побаци, но вас роди такве,све би ја вас од ува до ува разрезо

[Naked Freedom]

Speaking of languages this question comes to my mind......
Which country has the highest number of recognised laguages??
I think it is INDIA

[ila]

Originally Posted by Naked Freedom

Speaking of languages this question comes to my mind......
Which country has the highest number of recognised laguages??
I think it is INDIA

I think that you are right, although I'm sure PRC is not far behind. I'm pretty sure that our esteemed and learned friend sesame will be able to give us a definitive answer, or perhaps Jenae may know.

[sesame]

The Total number of Indian languages, that are still in use will add upto 1,500 or more. That is because there are very twisted dialects of the same language structure if you move to different regions of the same state. There are 28 states in all.

The languages recognised by the govt. and spoken by the majority (more than 10,000) may be summed up as 122. And since there are 28 states, there should be 28 official languages, one for each state!
Well, there are 29 Main languages. Urdu, the Royal language of the Muslim poets, is also an Indian language.

The national language is Hindi. The name India is derived from Hindusthan. Hindu + Sthan meaning the abode of Hindus. The word Hindu came from the river Sindhu (Indus), on whose basin, the Aryan civilization grew up. In my opinion, the national language should have been Sanskrit, since it is the mother of all Indian languages.

Indian languages have assimilated many words from foreign tongues. They include Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, English, French, Turkish, Chinese, Greek, Roman and Bactrian (Bakhtar) (remember the Bactrians, Greeks, Greco-Bactrians who came with Alexander 325 BC ? They opened up a trade route with ancient India. Thats how Gandhara style of Art flourished.)

[basbaque]

Parece-me que não há "falantes" de português neste forum.
(It seems there's no portuguese speackers in this forum.) Could be from: Portugal, Brasil, Angola, Cabo Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Moçambique, Timor and all over the world where the "diaspora" is.

[ila]

Originally Posted by basbaque

(It seems there's no portuguese speackers in this forum.)

That's probably because this is an English site. People that come on here communicate in English. Any other language limits the number of people that are able to read what is posted; and why would anyone want to limit the number of people that can read what is posted?

[Naked Freedom]

Originally Posted by sesame

The Total number of Indian languages, that are still in use will add upto 1,500 or more. That is because there are very twisted dialects of the same language structure if you move to different regions of the same state. There are 28 states in all.

The languages recognised by the govt. and spoken by the majority (more than 10,000) may be summed up as 122. And since there are 28 states, there should be 28 official languages, one for each state!
Well, there are 29 Main languages. Urdu, the Royal language of the Muslim poets, is also an Indian language.

The national language is Hindi. The name India is derived from Hindusthan. Hindu + Sthan meaning the abode of Hindus. The word Hindu came from the river Sindhu (Indus), on whose basin, the Aryan civilization grew up. In my opinion, the national language should have been Sanskrit, since it is the mother of all Indian languages.

Indian languages have assimilated many words from foreign tongues. They include Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, English, French, Turkish, Chinese, Greek, Roman and Bactrian (Bakhtar) (remember the Bactrians, Greeks, Greco-Bactrians who came with Alexander 325 BC ? They opened up a trade route with ancient India. Thats how Gandhara style of Art flourished.)

Thanx, sesame for the info....some bit of research there....

[smc]

I can't believe I missed this thread for so long. I decided at a young age that I wanted to be a polyglot, and so languages became my academic specialty. I read some and read/speak others. When I was young, beginning at junior high school age, I spent a lot of time trying to teach myself to read new languages. I went on to study Classics as an undergraduate and then got a PhD in ancient studies, which meant learning most of the Canaanite/Semitic dialects of the ancient Near Eastern world (Akkadian, Hittite, Moabite, Phoenician, Chaldean, etc.), as well as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Sanskrit. I taught Ancient Greek and Latin at the university level. In addition, I have learned to speak and read German and French (fluently), and I'm reasonably proficient in Spanish and Italian. I can get by in Portuguese and Romanian, and lately I've been challenging myself with other Germanic languages (since English is a Germanic language, and I know German): these include Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, which I try to read on a regular basis. I've never learned any Asian languages, except for a bit of Vietnamese when I volunteered to teach English to immigrants from Vietnam a long time ago. They mostly spoke French, too, but I insisted on picking up some of their native language.