Languages

[Tread]

Originally Posted by ila

I can't see that Frisian is close to Scots. Frisian is a Germanic language and Scots belongs to the Celtic family.

I?m ungifted in speeches, for me, a middle strong dialect sounds like a different language, so I can only say what people told me or ask the internet. I even can?t remember if I ever heard someone speaking (Lowland) Scots.

answers.yahoo.com

Wikipedia Frisian_languages

Originally Posted by Wikipedia Frisian_languages

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The Frisian languages are the most closely related living European languages to English, although Scots is sometimes considered a separate language rather than a dialect of English, which would make Frisian the second most closely related.
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Frisian is the language most closely related to English and Scots, but after at least five hundred years of being subject to the influence of Dutch, modern Frisian in some aspects bears a greater similarity to Dutch than to English;
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mamalisa.com

Originally Posted by mamalisa

Frisian is the closest language to English after Scots. Some people consider Scots a dialect of English. Considered thus so, Frisian is the closest language to English.

[smc]

Originally Posted by Tread

I’m ungifted in speeches, for me, a middle strong dialect sounds like a different language, so I can only say what people told me or ask the internet. I even can’t remember if I ever heard someone speaking (Lowland) Scots.

I think ila's two points, both of which I agree with, are that a) Frisian sounds like English, and b) it is not considered a part of the Germanic family but is a Celtic language. These classifications are made on a basis that takes the sound of the language into consideration only marginally, if at all.

[ila]

Originally Posted by ila

I can't see that Frisian is close to Scots. Frisian is a Germanic language and Scots belongs to the Celtic family.

Originally Posted by Tread

I?m ungifted in speeches, for me, a middle strong dialect sounds like a different language, so I can only say what people told me or ask the internet. I even can?t remember if I ever heard someone speaking (Lowland) Scots.

answers.yahoo.com

Wikipedia Frisian_languages


mamalisa.com

When I referred to Scottish I actually meant Gaelic which is not accurate since lowland Scots is descended from Old English. Gaelic is part of the Celtic languages, but is not called Scottish. Rather it is often referred to as Scottish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, and Highland Gaelic. Reference is here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic

[Tbone]

They say English can be confusing, but some just say....

English is a Stupid Language (A Poem)

Lets face it
English is a stupid language.
There is no egg in the eggplant
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England
French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that
Quicksand takes you down slowly
Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If writers write, how come fingers don't fing.
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth
If the teacher taught,
Why didn't the preacher praught.

If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What the heck does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and
Drive on parkways
How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day
And as cold as hell on another

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down
And in which you fill in a form
By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!

English was invented by people, not computers
And it reflects the creativity of the human race
(Which of course isn't a race at all)

That is why
When the stars are out they are visible
But when the lights are out they are invisible
And why it is that when I wind up my watch
It starts
But when I wind up this poem
It ends.

[smc]

I thought some of our language enthusiasts might find this interesting.

Riding home on the T yesterday (the T is Boston's trolley system), I had occasion to help an elderly couple with some directions. I could tell they were lost. The man asked the driver for help a couple of times, in English, but wasn't really getting the information he needed. Then he would carry on the conversation with his wife. I could tell they were speaking another language (which sounded Germanic), but I couldn't hear it very clearly until I moved to the front to offer some assistance.

When I asked the man if he needed some help, the accent of his reply immediately told me he had been speaking Yiddish. So, I spoke Yiddish to him. His wife chimed in, and after I helped them with directions I sat and spoke to them for another 15 minutes before they got off the trolley. It turned out that the wife did not speak English (or barely), and they had lived in the United States for nearly 20 years! This is highly unusual.

[Tread]

I don?t find this unusual. I can?t speak for USA, but I guess you?ll find more of long time barely English speaking people in the immigrant quarters. In the case of Boston the most would be Italian or Spanish speaking.
Mostly they are female, married, don?t work, under average income household, and in my experience some kind of religious.
You don?t need to speak well to buy the usual supplies. For doing the paperwork or dealing with authorities, the husband, children, or a friend have to assist.
They don?t integrate and stay most of the time in the quarters, this is because it seems to be an exception, but I?m sure there are quite a lot of them.