Category Archives: Multilingualism

The Linguistic Isolation of Brazilians

From the comments section, a comment from a Brazilian physician, of all people: Brazilians do not understand anything in Spanish. A lot of Brazilians think they can understand Spanish due to the affinity of the languages, but when we try … Continue reading

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Filed under Americas, Applied, Brazil, Brazilians, Hispanics, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Italic, Italo-Celtic-Tocharian, Language Families, Language Learning, Latin America, Linguistics, Multilingualism, Portuguese, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, Romance, South America, Spanish

Does Language Learning Carry Over to New Languages?

Not nearly as much as one might think. For instance, I am relatively well versed in the Romance languages. I can read Spanish quite well, but not fluently. I can read a bit of French. And I have studied reading … Continue reading

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Filed under Applied, Aragonese, Catalan, Galician, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Italic, Italo-Celtic-Tocharian, Language Families, Language Learning, Linguistics, Multilingualism, Occitan, Romance

Does Multilingualism Equal Separatism?

Repost from the old site. Sorry for the long post, readers, but I have been working on this piece off and on for months now. It’s not something I just banged out. For one thing, this is the only list … Continue reading

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Filed under Abkhazia, Aceh, Adygea, Africa, African, Americas, Amerindians, Applied, Arab Nationalism, Arab Racism, Arabs, Asia, Asian, Asians, Assyrians, Azerbaijan, Azeris, Bangladesh, Bangladeshis, Basques, Belgium, Blacks, Britain, Buddhism, Cameroon, Canada, Caucasus, Central Africa, Chechens, Chechnya, Chile, Chileans, China, Christianity, Circassians, Colonialism, Culture, East Africa, East Indians, Ethiopia, Ethnic Nationalism, Eurasia, European, Europeans, Fascism, France, Georgia, Hinduism, Hispanics, History, Hungary, Immigration, Imperialism, India, Indonesia, Inner Mongolia, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Israel, Kashmir, Kurds, Linguistics, Mestizos, Middle East, Mixed Race, Morocco, Multilingualism, Nationalism, NE Asia, Near East, Near Easterners, New Guinea, North Africa, North America, Pacific, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Political Science, Polynesia, Quebec, Race/Ethnicity, Racism, Regional, Religion, Reposts From The Old Site, Romania, Russia, SE Asia, Serbians, Settler-Colonialism, Shiism, Siberia, Sociolinguistics, Somalia, Somaliland, South America, South Asia, South Asians, South Ossetia, Southern Sudan, Spain, Spaniards, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sunnism, Sweden, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, USA, USSR, Vietnam, War, West Africa, West Papua, Whites, Zanzibar

Great Site on Endangered Languages of Europe

Repost from the old site. Great site on endangered languages of Europe. Tapani Salinem, a Finnish linguist, has done a bang-up job on this stuff. This report was prepared for UNESCO. The last good report I read on this subject … Continue reading

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Filed under Applied, Europe, Linguistics, Multilingualism, Regional, Reposts From The Old Site, Sociolinguistics

Dual Pronouns

Repost from the old site. We do not have dual pronouns in English anymore, and they have dropped out of my most other European languages too, but they are still found in some languages, including American Indian languages. In these … Continue reading

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Filed under Aborigines, Amerindians, Anthropology, Applied, Austro-Tai, Austronesian, Blacks, Descriptive, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Inuit, Language Families, Language Learning, Language Samples, Linguistics, Multilingualism, Papuans, Philosophy, Race/Ethnicity, Reposts From The Old Site, Semantics, Sociolinguistics

Endangered Languages of Northeast Asia

Repost from the old site. Cool site. Very pessimistic, possibly overly so, but the situation is not one to be optimistic about. In contrast to the sister site about endangered languages in Europe, it seems that the languages of NE … Continue reading

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Filed under Applied, Asia, Eurasia, Europe, Fascism, History, Language Learning, Linguistics, Modern, Multilingualism, NE Asia, Political Science, Regional, Reposts From The Old Site, Russia, Sociolinguistics, USSR

Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family

There is much nonsense said about the mutual intelligibility of the various languages in the Slavic family. It’s often said that all Slavic languages are mutually intelligible with each other. This is simply not the case. Let us look first … Continue reading

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Filed under Applied, Balto-Slavic, Balto-Slavic-Germanic, Bulgarian language, Comparitive, Czech, Dialectology, Indo-European, Indo-Hittite, Language Classification, Language Families, Language Learning, Linguistics, Multilingualism, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slavic, Slovak, Sociolinguistics

How Learning One Language Well Helps You Learn Others

Repost from the old site. In the comments, the ever-perceptive dano notes: dano: The thing is, I’ve found that once you learn to speak a European language, and particularly a Latin-based one, you see similarities in many words across the … Continue reading

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Filed under Applied, French, Italian, Italic, Italo-Celtic, Italo-Celtic-Tocharian, Language Learning, Linguistics, Multilingualism, Reposts From The Old Site, Romance, Spanish, Venetian

English Attacking Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesia

English is the global destroyer, taking out native languages here and there, right and left, over there and over here. I’ve never heard of it damaging actual national languages yet. Looks like it’s going to town on Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) … Continue reading

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Filed under Applied, Asia, Austro-Tai, Austronesian, Bahasa Indonesian, Culture, Education, English language, Ethnic Nationalism, Germanic, Indonesia, Language Families, Linguistics, Malayo-Polynesian, Multilingualism, Nationalism, Political Science, Regional, SE Asia, Sociolinguistics

Polyglots – Riccardo Bertani

Polyglots are very interesting people. A polyglot is one who can speak more than 10 languages well. A great list of polyglots is here. The ability to be a polyglot seems to have a lot to do with genetics. Some … Continue reading

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Filed under Linguistics, Multilingualism