Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

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lichtrausch
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Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby lichtrausch » Mon Sep 26, 2022 3:30 pm

What is your relationship with the languages that are closely related to your native language? (sorry to the native speakers of language isolates!)

My native language is English, so I'll talk about West Germanic languages. German is a heritage language for me and was the first foreign language I learned to proficiency. Dutch is somewhat intriguing because it has a decent number of speakers, is spoken in an attractive region, and has a decent literary footprint. Unfortunately, it's too similar to German to really inspire me to dive in. Reading a German translation of a Dutch text, I can be pretty confident that I'm getting an experience very close to reading the text in the original. In my entire life I've never come across a situation where it would be truly useful to speak the language. My relationship with Dutch will likely remain distant.

The downsides of Dutch apply double or triple to the remaining West Germanic languages: Frisian, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Luxembourgish, Scots. Only Yiddish attracts me because I love learning to read a new script, so I'll probably dabble in the language at some point.
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anitarrc
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby anitarrc » Tue Sep 27, 2022 6:18 am

There are many Dutch jokes that won't translate well into German.
Or into English or into any other language. The same applies for any similar language.

Although I know all three languages, I still learn new words and subtle differences in meaning, which also applies to the differences between Nederlands and Vlaams.

To me, Afrikaans is no challenge whatsoever, I can happily participate in the ZA Land Rover forum and hardly ever look up a word.

Scots was an interesting discovery, i was surprised how much I understood in aberdeenshire.

But Luxembourgish (supposedly not a dialect, while the almost 100% identical Hunsrik and East Belgian German are supposed to be dialects) and the very similar dialects are very difficult to me. I can sortof guess the written text up to 70% but that's it.

I'll happily provide some samples
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby Henkkles » Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:11 am

Estonian is a lovely language that I've had as an on-off hobby since 2013. I would say that I'm around some kind of B1 level, that was the level goal on the last university course I did. I speak it semi-regularly with one friend. I make an effort to speak Estonian every time I'm in Estonia, although many people in customer facing jobs speak excellent Finnish.
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby Iversen » Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:52 am

My nearest language siblings must be the dialects of my native language, which happens to be Danish. I speak fairly standard Danish, and of course I can understand our Danish dialects, but I never got around to learn any of them properly - and that is not acceptable. The main reason is that I don't have permanently accessible sources where I can log in and be sure to hear the dialect (or rather bundle of dialects) from a specific part of the country, and there is almost nothing printed in dialect which I could study - except some poems and old writings of people like Jeppe Aakjær who lived 100 years ago. There are some academic dictionaries (partly unfinished), but nothing handy or new - and those few programs on TV that deal with dialects mostly are quizzes where you have to guess unguessable words, not full programs entirely in a certain named dialect. I have sometimes written messages in my log in Jutish dialects, but they are almost certainly not 'native like'.

As for the other Nordic languages: I have studied Swedish and Icelandic as I would study more distant languages,and I have sufficiently good dictionaries for both. As for Norwegian ... well, I really like the written form called Nynorsk, but I have seen statistics that show that only 15% of them actually use it for their writings - the rest use Bokmål, which I find boring because it resembles Danish too much. But even without having studied it formally I can understand practically everything they send on NRK. In principle speakers of the Nordic languages should be able to understand each other (so that people from different countries could have conversations with each one speaking his/her own language) - but in practice many find it easier to speak English in such situations. As for Icelandic (and Faroese, which I haven't studied) I ended up being able more or less to understand its spoken form during my last stay up there, but I have heard very little Icelandic since then. I can however still read it and to some extent think in it. But hardly any of my compatriots would be able to read a newspaper in Icelandic.

The OP specifically referred to siblings of one's native language, but I learned English around age 10-11 and have read and listened to thousands of pages/hours so my situation with that language is not very different from what it is with my native language. And the situation is that I rarely hear something I can't understand - except of course smalltalk with lots of ahems, unfinished phrases, slang words and sous-entendus, which is the hardest speech category by far in any language. I have not deliberately studied the dialects of English, but of course I can hear whether people are Australian or Northern/Southern Brits or some kind of US Americans (or second language speakers). I have however tried to learn one sibling of Standard English, namely Laeland Scots - though once again without attempting to separate the differents dialects. And just as with New Norwegian I have a problem finding sufficiently 'clean' sources.

And of course I can also understand different dialects of for instance French and Portuguese and Spanish and Italian and German plus some of their siblings, but the closer we get to smalltalkish the harder it becomes.
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby AroAro » Thu Sep 29, 2022 12:31 pm

The languages closest to Polish are Slovak and Czech (I won’t talk about Kashubian which is impenetrable for me, both in written and spoken form, even though it’s supposed to be merely a dialect of Polish according to some linguists). When I was 15-16 years old, I was fascinated by Slovak language, I was really bewildered that another language can be so similar to my own. I even had a short overview of the language in a book form with grammar and simple phrases that I read assiduously. I plan to give it a closer look sometime in the future. Regarding Czech, the stress is put on first syllable and that is what makes Czech sound really "strange" to my ears, it's such an "un-Slavic" feature. When I went to France for Erasmus programme, I had to sign up to Czech language course at the university - it turned out in the middle of semester that I wasn’t gathering enough ECTS points, luckily the lecturer was happy to have another student in her group and made no fuss about it. So even though I joined the class in March (and the course had started in October previous year), I was still the best student because I could rely entirely on my Polish (but I think that past basics and at advanced levels, the two languages differ considerably). I struggled of course with the sound “ř” and never really mastered its pronunciation.

Generally speaking, most Polish people find Czech to be extremely funny, in that there are a lot of false friends (ex. “nápad” means “robbery” in Polish but “idea” in Czech). A few years ago, there was also some kind of fascination here with all the things related to Czech Republic which led to proliferation online of fake phrases that are supposed to be written in Czech, sound funny in Polish, but actually lack any sense in Czech:
- “šmatička na patičku” = “parasol” in Polish ("umbrella") but in reality in Czech “parasol” is simply “deštník” (doesn't sound funny in Polish), "šmatička na patičku" translates as "cloth on a stick"
- “drevny kocur” = “wiewiórka” in Polish ("squirrel") and in Czech it sounds suspiciously ordinary “veverka” (“drevny kocur” means something like "cat on a tree" in Polish)
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby mick33 » Sat Oct 15, 2022 3:50 am

The first time I heard spoken Dutch was a little disorienting, sometimes it sounded very much like English though I couldn't understand anything. In 2007 I tried to learn both Dutch and Afrikaans because I didn't know any better; therefore I truly believed I would easily gain fluency in both languages in 3 to 6 months :lol: :P . After about a month I realized that I was becoming hopelessly confused and not actually learning anything in either language. So, then I decided to learn Afrikaans and I can read and write in the language, but I've never spoken it.

In January of 2010 I tried learning Dutch again and embarrassed myself when I wrote something in my log on the HTLAL forum and made many basic mistakes. I remember in 2009 reading something in German that was pretty simple. I got the general gist of it with the help of a bilingual dictionary though I had never learned the language at all. Sometimes written Afrikaans, written Dutch and written German can look similar but not always. I remember that colloquial expressions didn't always translate well, but my Dutch and German are pretty weak. Maybe more knowledge of both would help with this, but I don't really know that for certain.

I am aware that Frisian is supposed to be the closest Continental Germanic language to English but I have never learned it and don't think I will. I remember watching the Eddie Izzard video where he learns a little Middle English and goes to Friesland to buy a cow that will give good milk. I understood nothing without the subtitles.

The only Scots I have ever heard is from songs like Auld Lang Syne and Jock O'Hazeldean.
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby vish » Sat Oct 15, 2022 6:26 am

The languages closest to my mother tongue Hindi would be Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and some others - all descendants from Sanskrit. I am already fluent in one of them, Gujarati which I grew up with, while I will be learning the others in the future. I already understand 60% of some of those.
A little bit further in South India is the Dravidian family - while not exactly siblings but connected via Sanskrit.
The Dravidian languages are full blown languages with copious literature that is centuries old.
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Oct 15, 2022 11:42 am

My native language is Australian English. I often feel that while we are a very linguistically diverse nation due to immigration and indigenous aboriginal languages, we're also very much a nation in which English completely dominates almost everywhere. I feel the (mother tongue English language) accents over this, the sixth biggest country in the world barely change much at all from one end to another when compared to other bigger and smaller countries such as the USA or the UK or even with my experience in the case of Dutch in the small country that is the Netherlands. Perhaps the biggest difference with accents here in Australia being between standard city folk vs the other extreme - farmers, who actually don't always have discernable accents. I've spoken to many aboriginals over the years who know a few words or none at all of their heritage language, a result of cultural decimation by the settling conquerors and all powerful cultural domination where they have been surrounded by an ocean of English speakers who unfortunately usually saw little value in their cultures and languages. As for immigrants, well there are whole large areas of at least Melbourne and Sydney where you could swim in languages like Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese and perhaps to a certain extent even Italian, Spanish and Greek. Usually though, especially where I live now, it's English all day every day, day in day out.

Therefore, the drive to explore sibling languages, as to be expected, is not generally very high. While there have been considerable numbers of Dutch and German immigrants here over the years, English still dominates. My heritage is Dutch so I became interested at some point in the language (although it was more because of a friend, not my family), but not before being interested in German first, as it was the first foreign language I studied at school at age 12 - far too late given my curiosity towards European languages from a younger age. I was curious about other (mainly European) languages from pretty early on and it was little to do with the fact they were sibling languages. I've since learned a good deal of Dutch and conversely not progressed much with a couple more stints of German study over the many years that have passed since. Afrikaans is of little interest to me at this stage, but I've been curious about Frisian - especially when among it's speakers is the likes of Doutzen Kroes. I visited that part of NL some years ago. I'm unlikely to ever find the time to learn this language but were I for some unknown reason to find myself living in Friesland, I'd definitely take on the language as well.

I've also been curious about North Germanic languages having started learning Norwegian, but I don't think it means much with regards to proximity to English, because I've also spent the most time on French over the years, not a sibling, more like a cousin of English, right? ;)

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anitarrc wrote:There are many Dutch jokes that won't translate well into German.
Or into English or into any other language. The same applies for any similar language.

Although I know all three languages, I still learn new words and subtle differences in meaning, which also applies to the differences between Nederlands and Vlaams.

To me, Afrikaans is no challenge whatsoever, I can happily participate in the ZA Land Rover forum and hardly ever look up a word.

Scots was an interesting discovery, i was surprised how much I understood in aberdeenshire.

But Luxembourgish (supposedly not a dialect, while the almost 100% identical Hunsrik and East Belgian German are supposed to be dialects) and the very similar dialects are very difficult to me. I can sortof guess the written text up to 70% but that's it.

I'll happily provide some samples


It's not clear (to me) from your comments nor your profile what your native language is. Would you mind sharing that please anitarrc? And then can you elaborate on how you've been so fortunate to travel and learn so many languages if you're okay with that?
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raoulhjo
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby raoulhjo » Sat Oct 15, 2022 8:06 pm

My native language is French.
I studied some Spanish and Italian on my own some decades ago. The last time I traveled to Spain, I was able to talk to a shopkeeper in Spanish. I am only able to get by shopping but I would be unable to sustain a normal conversation.
I can still understand some Italian when it is spoken at a reasonable speed.
I once met a young guy from southern France; I had to have him repeat some words because I couldn't understand. I rarely experienced this twice in my life with a native speaker of French. Another time was with a woman from Quebec.
There must be a new dialect emerging with some young uneducated people (I am 60). Some of them speak so fast that I would need an interpreter to make out what they say!
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anitarrc
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Re: Your relationship with your linguistic siblings

Postby anitarrc » Mon Oct 17, 2022 6:48 am

PeterMollenburg wrote:
It's not clear (to me) from your comments nor your profile what your native language is. Would you mind sharing that please anitarrc? And then can you elaborate on how you've been so fortunate to travel and learn so many languages if you're okay with that?


I don't know either :mrgreen: . My tongue in cheek definition of a mother tongue is:
What mum learns from her kids.
Whether some here want to believe it or not, those like me tend to overwrite some less used hard disk space with different languages. I didn't use Dutch for nearly 30 years till I started this job. Oh sugar, there are soo many new terms and sayings that have evolved since, and I don't mean computer technology only.

My parents were from the Baltics.
the rest is here

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 30#p212518
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