Gerald Oliver Swift

"Padraig Breathnach" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > "Gerald Oliver Swift" <[email protected]> wrote:
    >>There are basically only 3 "main" European languages / language families:-
    >>Scandinavic - which includes English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish,
    >>Norwegian, etc.
    >>Mediterranic - which includes French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian,
    >>Romanian, etc.
    >>Slavic - which includes Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croat,
    >>etc.
    >>Then there's the rest - which include Turkish, Greek, Finnish, Hungarian,
    >>Basque, Maltese, etc.
    >>If you speak a language in any one of the above 3 main families, you
    >>should
    >>be able to comprehend some of the other languages in the same family. To
    >>what extent is obviously a personal matter!
    > I feel left out!

Sorry! and Gaelic!
Gerry

Gerald Oliver Swift

"m.berger" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Gerald Oliver Swift schrieb:
    >> There are basically only 3 "main" European languages / language
    >> families:-
    >> Scandinavic - which includes English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish,
    >> Norwegian, etc.
    > What's 'scandinavic'?
    > You mean german or germanic (indogermanic) languages?
    > Westgerman or westgermanic languages are:
    > - German (including all the varoius dialects and dialects spoken in
    > Austria and Suedtirol (Bavarian, Alemannisch) / German part of Switzerland
    > (Hochalemannisch) / Alsace (Hochalemannisch)
    > - English
    > - Dutch
    > - Jiddisch
    > Eastgerman or eastgermanic languages:
    > - Gothic (extinct)
    > - Gutamal
    > - Vandalish (extinct)
    > Northgerman or germanic languages:
    > - Swedish
    > - Danish
    > - Norwegian


Scandinavic is a generic term I used for the "Northern European" language
family (as I used Mediterranic for "Southern European" and Slavic for
"Eastern European").
Your sub-divisions are of course quite correct - I merely wanted to stress
the point that there are basically only 3 main (read major) European
language families (plus all the odds & sods).
Gerry

Tim Challenger

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:58:29 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] wrote:

    > If you know English and a little German (or maybe also German and a little
    > English), you can get a surprising amount of sense out of a Dutch
    > newspaper without knowing a word of Dutch!

And Norwegian (and I suppose Swedish and Danish).

--
Tim C.

_merlinO_

"Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

[...]
    > Perhaps I did not make it clear. I mean 13 year olds, from Romania, in an
    > English speaking school, encountering our (native) Italian-speaking
    > classroom assistants for the first time.
    > They seem to understand each other.

Maybe these childrens was been in Italy before, in the last years many
italians families have accomodated east european childrens for some month.

    > Trish
    > Dublin, Ireland

merlinO

_merlinO_

"Magda" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

[...]
    > The Brazilian language DOES NOT exist. It's called Portuguese over there.

ok, however I suppose that you have understood what I wanted to say ;-)

merlinO

_merlinO_

"Gerald Oliver Swift" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

[...]
    > Portuguese similar to Brazilian?
    > Like English is similar to Australian?

Some month ago an American customer was reading the user manual of an our
product in my company. After half page he displeased said: "this is not
American, this is English... please redo the translation". After that day I
call "American" the language spoken in the USA, "English" the language
spoken in the UK, "Australian" the language spoken in Australia and so on
;-)

    > Gerry

merlinO

Alan Harrison

"Frank F. Matthews" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

    > I think that your analysis is primarily grammar related. Personally I
    > find more French to be more understandable than the others that you
    > include with English. Because of the extensive borrowing of vocabulary
    > for modern terms I understood Russian better as a derivative of French.
    > Any of these comprehension comparisons need to consider vocabulary
    > carefully.

Tha analysis isn't grammar related. The grammar of German is very different
from that of English (inflected/not inflected; major syntactical differences
in senetnce structure...). The linguistic test for whether two languages are
related is very simple - was a word in each of those languages once a word
in a common ancestor language? One word would do, but in practice closely
related languages tend to share many such words, and the words tend to
resemble one another more closely. The words need not MEAN the same in the
modern languages (e.g. Hund/hound; Tier/deer; Zug/tug; wolf/volpe).

Loan words (e.g. the many French borrowings in modern English from the
Norman period onward) are another issue. They play a part in the way in
which the same original word may enter a language in different forms
(fact/feat; sutoraiki/sutoraiku in Japanese - one meaning a strike in the
well-known Japanese game "beisuboru" and the other a strike by workers). I
would assume that Italan volpe/lupo are a similar pair, but don't know the
etymological route of "volpe" into the modern language.

Alan Harrison

Magda

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 09:56:20 +0100, in rec.travel.europe, "_merlinO_"
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :


... > The Brazilian language DOES NOT exist. It's called Portuguese over there.
...
... ok, however I suppose that you have understood what I wanted to say ;-)

It's not a matter of understanding or not, but that what you were saying is as false as a
3-Euro coin.

There are enough false ideas around, you don't need to increase their number.

Magda

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 09:43:58 +0100, in rec.travel.europe, "_merlinO_"
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :

...
... "Trish" <[email protected]> wrote in message
... news:[email protected]...
...
... [...]
... > Perhaps I did not make it clear. I mean 13 year olds, from Romania, in an
... > English speaking school, encountering our (native) Italian-speaking
... > classroom assistants for the first time.
... > They seem to understand each other.
...
... Maybe these childrens was been in Italy before, in the last years many
... italians families have accomodated east european childrens for some month.

Children is already a plural.

_merlinO_

"Magda" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

[...]
    > It's not a matter of understanding or not, but that what you were saying
    > is as false as a
    > 3-Euro coin.
    > There are enough false ideas around, you don't need to increase their
    > number.

I would not use the word "false" in this context, I think what I wanted to
say is clear, perhaps not precise but clear.

merlinO

_merlinO_

"Magda" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

[...]
    > Children is already a plural.

ok, "child"

merlinO

Magda

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 19:19:08 -0600, in rec.travel.europe, [email protected] (Big Bird) arranged
some electrons, so they looked like this :

... In article <[email protected]>, Magda <> wrote:
... < On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 22:06:44 -0000, in rec.travel.europe, "Gerald Oliver Swift"
... < <[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :
... <
... < ... Slavic - which includes Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech,
... < Serbo-Croat, etc.
... < ...
... < ... If you speak a language in any one of the above 3 main
... < ... families, you should be able to comprehend some of the other
... < ... languages in the same family. To what extent is obviously a
... < ... personal matter!
... <
... < In the Slavic case, it's close to zero.
...
... A friend of mine who is fluent in Polish (and French and German and
... speaks English natively) says she can usually understand Russian.
... Also that she can understand some Czech, but they pronounce things
... weird. :-)

Oops ! Can't Gerald separate subjects with a blank line ? I thought Greek was part of his
"third group" ! My bad.
(I muddle my way through Greek and don't catch a word in Russian, Ukrainian or any other
language he mentioned in the "third group")

Magda

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 09:56:36 +0000 (UTC), in rec.travel.europe, "Alan Harrison"
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :

...
... "Frank F. Matthews" <[email protected]> wrote in message
... news:[email protected]...
...
... > I think that your analysis is primarily grammar related. Personally I
... > find more French to be more understandable than the others that you
... > include with English. Because of the extensive borrowing of vocabulary
... > for modern terms I understood Russian better as a derivative of French.
... > Any of these comprehension comparisons need to consider vocabulary
... > carefully.
...
... Tha analysis isn't grammar related. The grammar of German is very different
... from that of English (inflected/not inflected; major syntactical differences
... in senetnce structure...). The linguistic test for whether two languages are
... related is very simple - was a word in each of those languages once a word
... in a common ancestor language? One word would do, but in practice closely
... related languages tend to share many such words, and the words tend to
... resemble one another more closely. The words need not MEAN the same in the
... modern languages (e.g. Hund/hound; Tier/deer; Zug/tug; wolf/volpe).
...
... Loan words (e.g. the many French borrowings in modern English from the
... Norman period onward) are another issue. They play a part in the way in
... which the same original word may enter a language in different forms
... (fact/feat; sutoraiki/sutoraiku in Japanese - one meaning a strike in the
... well-known Japanese game "beisuboru" and the other a strike by workers). I
... would assume that Italan volpe/lupo are a similar pair, but don't know the
... etymological route of "volpe" into the modern language.
...
... Alan Harrison

As far as I remember volpe is a fox, and lupo a wolf. Why are you pairing them ?

Magda

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 00:35:06 +0000, in rec.travel.europe, Padraig Breathnach
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :


... > ... I feel left out!
... >
... >You speak English !
...
... There's more to me than that.

You are still one of us. Na !

Magda

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:52:44 +0100, in rec.travel.europe, "_merlinO_"
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :

...
... "Magda" <[email protected]> wrote in message
... news:[email protected]...
...
... [...]
... > It's not a matter of understanding or not, but that what you were saying
... > is as false as a
... > 3-Euro coin.
... >
... > There are enough false ideas around, you don't need to increase their
... > number.
...
... I would not use the word "false" in this context,

Brazilian is NOT a language. What's "true" in what you said ?

I think what I wanted to
... say is clear, perhaps not precise but clear.
...
... merlinO

Use Brazilian as an adjective, then, as in "Brazilian Portuguese" (as opposed to
"Lusitanian Portuguese").