18-12-2003 22:15									#61
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Native: Dutch (which means I also speak flemmish, if you consider this a language).
Fluent: English
Get by: German, French, Papiamento (language of the Dutch Antilles and Aruba, where my father is from).
Know some basic phrases: Polish, Hungarian, Shona (Zimbabwe's main unofficial language).

	18-12-2003 22:18									#62
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Flemish is not really an official language. We all speak dutch; the only difference is the accent, and sometimes a different choice of words. That doesn't qualify Flemish as a dialect. For that you need specific differences, like totally different words.
In my local dialect a car doesn't mean: 'een auto', but 'ne voituur'
(people who know French will almost understand our dialect )

Btw the dutch accent keeps on going 'platter'
If you look/liste back to television/radio broadcasts from say 30-40 years ago in Holland you'll notice the accent resembles the Flemish accent a lot more than it does now

Simply listen to Godfried Bomans!

	18-12-2003 22:33									#63
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark Q:What the difference between a dialect and a language? A: A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

That rules out French

	19-12-2003 02:40									#64
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quote: Originally posted by OzzyKP No Klingon?

Bah! To Shark Bay!

Qa'Pla. Puzh.

Yazhak Ao.

	19-12-2003 02:43									#65
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And why Gaelic - Welsh is the celtic language with the most speakers

	19-12-2003 02:44									#66
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French. Canadian french that is.


Spec.

	19-12-2003 02:49									#67
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Another language I'd like to know is Volapuk.

	19-12-2003 02:51									#68
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Its the world esperanto convention

2 leading thinkers of this movement to create a transnational world language approach each other, to exchange greetings in their shared tongue.

"Nu, vas macht a yid?"

	19-12-2003 02:55									#69
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French, Hebrew, Portugese, Spanish, Yiddish and a little Hindi (only fluent in Hebrew and you'll be damned if you hear me talking in anything other than English ).

	19-12-2003 03:22									#70
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quote: Originally posted by Whaleboy French, Hebrew, Portugese, Spanish, Yiddish and a little Hindi (only fluent in Hebrew and you'll be damned if you hear me talking in anything other than English ).

nu. vas macht a yid?

	19-12-2003 03:23									#71
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quote: Originally posted by Ancyrean Sure, but I'm really new to the whole thing, I might not be at your level But yes, it's a fairly easy language, especially after some familiarity with western languages aku tinggal di Jakarta hanya empat bulan dan aku sudah suka kota ini = [I live in jakarta only for 4 months and I already like this city]

Bapak saya dan keluarganya berasal dari Batu Sangkar, di Sumatera Barat.

(My father and his family come from Batu Sangkar in West Sumatra.)

	19-12-2003 04:02									#72
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quote: If you look/liste back to television/radio broadcasts from say 30-40 years ago in Holland you'll notice the accent resembles the Flemish accent a lot more than it does now

One trend we, well, recently copied from from the dutch and one that annoys me beyond aaaarghh is the 'je' and 'jij' form used in shops or tv and such, instead of the more polite 'U' (for the french: using 'toi' instead of 'vous' .
I absolutely can't stand it !!!
Van't Hek once did a great piece on this, using Ikea.

Besides, 'jij' is a terrible words, it just doesn't sound right, neither in dutch or flemish. Luckily we have the older but better sounding 'ge' or 'gij' form.
(not to be used by dutch people though, please don't 'cause you can't pull it off )

	19-12-2003 08:56									#73
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huh . . . i wonder who else at apolyton (besides yin26 and I) can speak korean? i know Q Cubed is korean, but i didn't think he knew the language fluently, maybe I was wrong?

	19-12-2003 10:41									#74
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Korean has the world's bestest written language.

	19-12-2003 11:36									#75
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How come the banana language is not a voting option?


You can't just hide it under the "other!"

Such blasphemy!!

	19-12-2003 15:03									#76
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Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German. At least that's the languages I've read books in. I know a handful of phrases an words in many other languages though.

Well I don't really speak Swedish and Danish per se, but I understand both and have read lots of books in both languages. I speak with Swedes on a daily basis so I don't really have any problems understanding it. Actually I have more problems understanding certain Norwegian dialects than any Swedish dialect I can think of. Spoken Danish isn't as difficult as many claim, when you get used to the "sound of it" it's easy as hell. Strangely enough I've found that many Danes have problem understanding me.

My German isn't as good as it should have been due to lack of practise and exposure. I understand both written and spoken German well, it's just that my vocabulary is quite poor. Luckily taking an English or Scandinavian word and "Germanise" it works most of the time.

	19-12-2003 15:35									#77
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Only four Italian-speaking posters on Apolyton ?

	19-12-2003 15:40									#78
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quote: Originally posted by alva One trend we, well, recently copied from from the dutch and one that annoys me beyond aaaarghh is the 'je' and 'jij' form used in shops or tv and such, instead of the more polite 'U' (for the french: using 'toi' instead of 'vous' . I absolutely can't stand it !!! Van't Hek once did a great piece on this, using Ikea.

The whole U/Jij, Sie/Du, Vous/Tu thing is stupid anyway, half the time you don't know which one to use. I like the uniform English 'You' much better...

quote: (not to be used by dutch people though, please don't 'cause you can't pull it off )

Neither can you Flemish, but we're having too much fun seeing you guys making fools of yourselves to tell you about it

	19-12-2003 15:54									#79
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if rumors prove true and this uni offers a Chinese basic course from next semester on, I'll go for it.

	19-12-2003 16:28									#80
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quote: Neither can you Flemish, but we're having too much fun seeing you guys making fools of yourselves to tell you about it

But the ones you see/hear are probably attempting to speak something in between their own dialect and propper dutch, which is bound to fail miserably.

	19-12-2003 17:04									#81
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quote: huh . . . i wonder who else at apolyton (besides yin26 and I) can speak korean? i know Q Cubed is korean, but i didn't think he knew the language fluently, maybe I was wrong?

i can understand it with no trouble at all, which is great, because i love korean movies.
the problem is actually talking. i don't have anything beyond the third-grade level or so, mostly because i only speak it around the house.

	19-12-2003 17:14									#82
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Flemish are bad people! And I will tell you why.
You go to Flanders everything is in dutch! Everything!!!
You go to Wallonia everything is in dutch and french.

Bilingualism beautiful. But noooo the flemish have to make a pooint against the formerly oppressive francophones! So noooo french anywhere. And they'll speak english happily but nooooo french. Even if they know it, which they do. Noooo only english. Never speak french with a flemish guy. He'll reply in english.


Only exception Brussels

	19-12-2003 19:18									#83
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quote: Originally posted by Locutus The whole U/Jij, Sie/Du, Vous/Tu thing is stupid anyway, half the time you don't know which one to use. I like the uniform English 'You' much better...

Actually historically English has a singular second person : thou-thee-thy-thine. You-ye-your-yours was the plural, and formal formal form, just like in other western european languages. See Shakespeare, for example. For reasons that arent terribly clear to me the singular-informal was dropped, with the formal-plural taking over for everyong. (the direct object of you "ye" was dropped as well) Quakers of all people retained thou-thee for some time, since it was part of their egalitarian ideology to use the informal for everyone (just the kind of thing our Flemish friend is objecting to above)

Losing the formal - informal distinction doesnt seem to have hurt english one bit, but losing the plural singular distinction is quite annoying - with the result that non-standard second person plurals have reemerged - "you guys" or "Youse" in the Northern US, and "you all" or "Y'all" in the Southern US (Not sure if there is any parallel development in UK, Canada, Oz, Kiwi, etc) Although I generally speak "yankee" i tend to use "y'all" when i need a second person plural, since i can't shake the class associations of "you guys".


Hope that helped y'all.

	19-12-2003 19:20									#84
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quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 Flemish are bad people! And I will tell you why. You go to Flanders everything is in dutch! Everything!!! You go to Wallonia everything is in dutch and french. Bilingualism beautiful. But noooo the flemish have to make a pooint against the formerly oppressive francophones! So noooo french anywhere. And they'll speak english happily but nooooo french. Even if they know it, which they do. Noooo only english. Never speak french with a flemish guy. He'll reply in english. Only exception Brussels

Intersting - kinda like Canada, where anglo canada is bilingual (at least in the East) , and Quebec has language police to enforce French dominance.

	19-12-2003 19:47									#85
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quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 Flemish are bad people! And I will tell you why. You go to Flanders everything is in dutch! Everything!!! You go to Wallonia everything is in dutch and french. Bilingualism beautiful. But noooo the flemish have to make a pooint against the formerly oppressive francophones! So noooo french anywhere. And they'll speak english happily but nooooo french. Even if they know it, which they do. Noooo only english. Never speak french with a flemish guy. He'll reply in english. Only exception Brussels

huh, me thinks you have it upside down..

Flemisch will speak french, english, heck they will attempt to speak chinese if necessairy.
True, signs are dutch only (some are in english for tourists), just like they're french only in the south, only in Brussels they will be bi-lingual (in the german part even tri-lingual).This is by law (peace has come at a price here but peace we have )

A walloon win only (and trust me on this )speak any english or dutch by exception. Younger people will do so more easily although their dutch is very, very poor despite having to learn it at school)

In Brussels you will die of hunger if you don't speak any french.

Having said that, the level of french has deteriorated over the last say 15 years and english is the common second language for most now.

quote: the formerly oppressive francophones!

The're not oppressing us anymore, changed strategy 'cause now they're into blackmail and hostage tactics.

	19-12-2003 20:01									#86
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Em, coming to think about it, I've been to plenty flemish cities (Antwerp, Brugge, Leuven etc etc) but I don't recall any walloon one except Charleroi but I admit I don't remember if they had bilingual signs.
I remember in the "harbour" we entered an all flemish pub and -admittedly- did the mistake of ordering in french. Our drinks never came.... We left went to another ordered in english and in 2 minutes, voila the drinks But ok, this is very extreme.

quote: In Brussels you will die of hunger if you don't speak any french.

That's a little exaggerated...
Although the chances of flemish people speaking french is much bigger than in Flanders proper.

quote: The're not oppressing us anymore, changed strategy 'cause now they're into blackmail and hostage tactics.

What did they do tell me?!

	19-12-2003 20:15									#87
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quote: The whole U/Jij, Sie/Du, Vous/Tu thing is stupid anyway, half the time you don't know which one to use

That reminds me, a girl once said to me "On n'indique pas 'vous' dans le lit."

That wasn't covered in junior high school French class.

	19-12-2003 20:16									#88
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Although I admit I've never tried (/could) to speak to a walloon in dutch to see his reaction So my observations are bound to be one dimensional

	19-12-2003 20:29									#89
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What I can speak/read:

Danish
German
English
ADG's language (My main language)

	19-12-2003 20:52									#90
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quote: Originally posted by Peter Triggs That reminds me, a girl once said to me "On n'indique pas 'vous' dans le lit." That wasn't covered in junior high school French class.

Well, she obviously wasn't in for a ménage à trois then