What living language is the closest to Latin?

Em Português

The Roman Empire conquered a large portion of Europe, they brought their language, Latin along with them. It was spoken throughout the empire but over the centuries, local, popular, nonstandard forms of Latin called 'Vulgar Latin' evolved into today's Romance languages. 

Image by KayYen

There are 5 major Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian) and several minority Romance languages (such as Sardinian, Sicilian and Occitan). Romance languages are split into two groups, Western and Eastern. Western Romance languages include Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, while Romanian is an Eastern Romance language.  

Fluent Indonesian in 3 months in Australia

Image by Nicolas Raymond

Since 2010, I have been 'studying' Indonesian and have gotten A's on my reports, assignments and tests. But I still can't speak it fluently. Around August 2012, I started 'learning' Indonesian; speaking it on Skype, learning vocabulary on Memrise1 and other resources outside of the classroom. 

For the last couple of years, I have been reading Benny Lewis' blog 'Fluent in 3 months'2 and learnt some key points about languages such as:

• 'Fluent in 3 Months' is not a guarantee, but a challenge.
• You are more likely to succeed in the challenge if you tell a large number of people about it. (I did announce on FaceBook that my new year's resolution is to be fluent in Indonesian)
• Your target language should be part of your daily schedule. (I am working out how to balance assignments with learning Indonesian)
• You learn more from speaking that writing. (Indonesian uses a phonetic Latin alphabet, so each word is written how you speak it)
• Whether you were good at languages at school or not is irrelevant: your commitment is. (I did have the advantage of very enthusiastic teachers who focused on speaking) 
• You don't need to be in the country to become fluent. (He learnt Egyptian Arabic in Brazil)
• All languages are hard, with the exception of Esperanto for some people. 

Image by zsoolt

Volunteering at Wycliffe

Two weeks ago, I volunteered at Wycliffe's national centre in Kangaroo Grounds. Wycliffe is a non-government organisation which translates the Bible into languages that have no written Bible. 

Wycliffe was founded by an American named Cameron Townsend in 1934 after a mission trip to Guatemala where a native Guatemalan man asked him "Why doesn't your God speak my language?" when he was distributing Spanish Bibles. He named the organisation after John Wycliffe, who translated the Bible from Latin to Old English in 1382. Priests and other members of the Catholic Church at that time, thought he was starting a cult. 

Figures about languages in relation to the Bible (2013):

Section                                Number of languages

Complete Bible                  around* 518

New Testament (only)       around 1275

Some scripture                   around 1005

Currently in progress         around 2075

None                                    around 1967

Altogether, there are around 6877 living languages. *Around because linguists have discovered some languages are dialects and vice vera. 

Day 1. 
When I first arrived, I had an open mind, and didn't know what to expect. I was taught the basic history of Wycliffe; what its goal is and about EQUIP training. Later that day, I did a basic language class which included learning to pronounce different sounds in the international phonetic alphabet (such as clicks, the Indonesian 'p' sound as well as the 't' and 'd' sounds found in Indian languages), doing language puzzles and a language understanding game, where I was taught the names of objects in a language (in this case, Northern Tanna) but not allowed to verbalise the name. Then, I had to  show my understanding by picking up the object the teacher called out. At the end of the day, I helped set up a conference room and set out towels, soaps and letters in the guest lodges. 

There was a heavy fog on the morning that I arrived at Wycliffe National Centre

Wycliffe and EQUIP national centre

10 reasons to learn Auslan (BANZSL)

En español

Auslan or BANZSL (British, Australian, New Zealand Sign Language) is a sign language which originates from a deaf sign language used in Britain during the 19th Century. Contrary to a common belief, not all sign languages are the same. For example, ASL (American Sign Language) is very different to BSL (British Sign Language). Also, signed languages are not just word for word spoken language signed but they have their own syntax, grammar and word origins. Also, some countries actually have sign language as one of their official languages, for example: New Zealand. 

I'm going to give you ten reasons to learn Auslan (the sign language in Australia).

Creative Common by Deaf Action 

Creative Common by Wycliffe South Africa

What language fits your personality?

Language is communication. Communication in different parts evolved to be more beneficial for those who speak it. These changes gave the language a 'personality'. Lets find out what language suits your personality. This is my expression of these languages. 

Creative Common by Enric Archivell

Spanish:
An easy to spell and pronounce language which has a Latin American exoticness. If it was a food it would be spicy without too much to burn on your tongue. It can be helpful with business, if you live in the Americas. It can be seen as a travellers language as it is the second most spoken language after Chinese. 

Creative Common by Doug

Creative Common by Fingle

10 reasons to learn Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) and how

En español 
Em Português

Currently, I am trying to become fluent in Indonesian and want to encourage you to learn the language as well. 

Photo by Mr. T in DC

Here's 10 reasons why:

1. It's easy. Indonesian is VERY easy compared to European languages. There is no word for 'to be' and 'have already' is one word, 'sudah'. To make a word plural you say it twice.

2. The vocabulary is diverse (which can help you learn other languages). Most of it's words come from Malay but there are also some words from Dutch, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese languages (like Hokkien), Portuguese and Spanish. 

3. Many words are sound similar to English. E.g. Filem (movie), telivisi (TV), gelas (glass), polisi (police), kelas (class), musik (music), buku (book).

4. There are many people who speak Indonesian and it is the 14th most spoken language (by number of native speakers). Indonesia is the 4th most populous country with over 238 million people. 

Population map of Indonesia by Worldmapper.org

5.  You will be able to haggle in Indonesian. You can bring prices down just by knowing what to say. 

Photo by clairerowland

Photo by IronChefBalara

 

6. You can on a holiday to Bali or a business trip to Jakarta without much trouble.

7. Indonesia is the 2nd closest country to Australia (after Papua New Guinea). 

8. You can speak it in any island in Indonesia. Each island in Indonesia has it's own culture and language but Indonesian is the Lingua Franca that unites the country.

9. It's phonetic. Every word is spelt the way it sounds. 

10.  You can see tigers, elephants, orang-utans, sun bears, tapirs and rhinoceroses in the wild all in the same island, Sumatra. 

Photo by Peter Lee

Photo by Christine Majul

Photo by cskk

Photo by Robert Goodwin

Fun and creative ways to learn a language:

- Audio lessons (I reckon learningindonesian is one of the best)

- Indonesian music (download TurnInRadio app on your Apple device and search for Indonesian radio or listen to it online)

- Indonesian movies (world movies channel and YouTube)

- Talk to Indonesians on Skype 

- Indonesian Social Network sites

- Write on Lang-8

- Buy an Indonesian phrasebook and read it when you have a spare moment

- Indonesian flashcards (The Gengo flashcards app is a good way to learn)


Selamat Belajar! (Happy Studying)

(By the way, I now have a FaceBook page. Please help promote my blog by 'liking' it. Click Here)

What languages are harder to learn - Photo Blog

Source: http://zidbits.com/2011/04/what-is-the-hardest-language-to-learn/

I believe the table is missing German and Indonesian / Malay. If I was going to add them, I would have German in the bottom of the easy list or at the top of the medium list. I would have also put Indonesian in Medium only because of the diverse vocabulary (Indonesian has a lot of loanwords from Malay, English, Dutch, Spanish, Chinese languages, Portuguese, Sanskrit and Arabic). Indonesian grammar is simpler than Spanish and other Romance languages, the sentence structure is logical and there is no tense. Also questions can be made out of sentences very easily. E.g. Saya tinggal di... (I live in...), Anda tinggal di mana? / Di mana anda tinggal? (Where do you live?).

I agree with 80% of the table but the only fact I disagree with is that it takes 88 weeks to learn Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Arabic because Benny Lewis learnt to speak relatively fluent Mandarin in 3 months.  

What do you think of this picture? Please write your thoughts in the comment section below.

Should I learn Chinese or German?

En español

When you decide to learn a language, you may find yourself in a situation where you want to learn two languages, but do not know to choose one over the other. 
I have come up with an educated solution to this problem by creating a table with properties of a language. For those who are deciding between Chinese (Zhōngwén) and German (Deutsch) you're in luck. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vincrosbie/4712869739/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjuel/5604964197/

	Chinese	German	What is the better choice?
Countries	Officially: PRC, ROC and  Singapore. Widely understood: Malaysia and Hong Kong but also spoken worldwide.	Officially: Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy, Belgium.	Either, both spoken in many places.
Number of Native Speakers	Around 1.2 billion people  (2005)	Around 98 million people (2005)	Chinese
Pronunciation	Tones, most sounds don’t exist in English	Quite easy to pronounce, except for ü, ch and ch in the middle of a word.	German
Grammar	No flexion, very easy syntax	Gender, many word endings, verbs at end of phrase	Chinese
Vocabulary	Words are normally made up of one - two syllables	Long analytical vocabulary (words can be build upon themselves)	Chinese
Language Group	Sino-Tibetan	Germanic (along with English, Dutch, Swedish and other languages)	German
Writing System	No relationship to sound of the word. Made up of characters.	Very phonetic due to spelling reform. Nouns are written in capitals so you can recognise them easily, which speeds up reading.	German
Tally	3 Chinese	3 German	1 Either

http://www.flickr.com/photos/strandell/2658759725/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_p/3344862675/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/4179921545/in/photostream/

Overall, it comes down to whether you want to travel or are on a business trip to Europe or Asia. If you want an easy language to read and write, learn German, if you want a language with easy grammar, learn Chinese. If you still can’t decide, you can always flip a coin.

Danke / 谢谢 

Why Indo-Iranian languages are similar to Romance languages

This week, I decided to learn to count to ten in another language. So, I decided with Farsi (aka Persian) because I can already can count in Turkish which is similar to Arabic which is similar to Farsi. The strange thing is that when I started learning it, it reminded of Hindi instead of Turkish. Not surprisingly, they are both Indo-Iranian languages, along with Urdu. 

Hindi Writing In Front 

Of Cave Temple

Photo by Indi Samarajiva

http://www.flickr.com/photos/indi/4385852295/ 

One to ten in Farsi, Hindi and Urdu:

Key:
F - Farsi
H - Hindi
U - Urdu

Yek F / Ek H / Ayk U
Do F / Do H / Deo U
Se F / Tin H / Teyn U
Char F / Char H / Char U
Panj F / Panch H / Panech U
Shish F / Che H / Cheh U
Haft F / Sat H / Sat U
Hasht F / At H / Ateh U
No F / No H / Neo U
Da F / Das H / Des U

As you can see they're very similar. I think it's because most of those numbers originated from Sanskrit. I have also noticed that the French numbers (and other Romance languages) sound similar to Hindi as well.  

One to ten in French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese:

F - French
S - Spanish
I - Italian
P - Portuguese

Un F / Uno S / Uno I / Um P
Deux F / Dos S / Due I / Dois P
Trois F / Tres S / Tre I / Três P
Quatre F / Cuatro S / Quattro I / Quatro P
Cinq F / Cinco S / Cinque I / Cinco P
Six F / Seis S / Sei I / Seis P
Sept F / Siete S / Sette I / Sete P
Huit F / Ocho S / Otto I / Oito P
Neuf F / Nueve S / Nove I / Nove P
Dix F / Diez S / Dieci I / Dez P

Urdu poem by 

Mir Gul Khan Nasir 

Photo by Zoraak Zagr 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/baask/3845622706/

I have also noticed that the word for 'you' in European languages sound similar to Hindi (and other Indo-Iranian languages). 

E.g. 

Tvam - One of the words for 'you' in Sanskrit
Tum - Informal 'you' in Hindi

Teo - 'You' in Urdu

Teme - 'You' in Urdu

To - 'You' in Farsi
Tu - Informal 'you' in Latin, French, Romanian and Portuguese
Ti - Informal 'you' in Italian
Tú - Informal 'you' in Spanish
Du - Singular 'you' in German
Thou - Archaic 'you' in English
ты (ty) - One of the words for 'you' in Russian


If Romance languages originate from Latin but are similar to Sanskrit that means Latin must have a Sanskrit origin. Latin is based on Greek and Ancient Greece (at one stage) conquered India. Also, the Silk Route brought Indian traders to Europe. That means there is a high chance of Romance languages having some Sanskrit origin. 

What do you think? Do Romance languages have an Indian origin? 

Please write your comments in the section below.

How to impress many, increase iq and meet and speak to more people?

Do you want to impress many, increase your iq or speak to more people?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I believe learning another language or a word in a couple can help you. When you start a conversation the first word you would say is hello (to an unfamiliar person) or hi (to someone familiar). So the word for hello or hi or 'how are you?' would be good word to know in another language. 

Key:

(r) = rolled r

(rh) = guttural r

˜ = nasal sound

How to say hello in common languages:

#1 Mandarin Chinese: 你好 (ni2 hao3) (pronounced 'knee' with a high rising tone and 'how' with a high falling then rising tone) 

#2 Spanish: Hola (pronounced o-la)
#3 English: (I hope you would know that already)

#4 Hindi: Namaste (pronounced na-mahs-tay) or Namaskar (pronounced na-mahs-ka(r) )

#5 Arabic: مرحبا (pronounced ma(rh)-ha-ba) or السلام عليكم (pronounced al-sa-laahm a-lay-koom) meaning 'peace be with you' or 'peace upon you'

#6 Bengali: Nomaashkaar (pronounced no-maahsh-shkaah(r) (Hindu) or Asalaam Alaykum (Muslim) 

#7 Portuguese: Olá (European) or Oi (Brazilian)

#8 Russian: привет (pronounced p(r)ee-vet) or Здравствуйте (pronounced zd(r)ahv-stvoo-ee-teh)

#9 Japanese: こんにちは (kon'nichiwa) (pronounced kon-nee-chee-wa)

German: Hallo
Vietnamese: Xin Cháo (pronounced shin chow or sin chow depending on the dialect) 

French: Bonjour (pronounced bãn-zho(rh) )

Korean: 안녕하세요 (pronounced ahn-nyeong-ha-se-yo 
or ahn-yông-ha-se-yo)

Cantonese: 你好 (pronounced lei with a high rising tone and hou with a high rising tone or nei with a high rising tone and hou with a high rising tone)

Turkish: Merhaba (pronounced ma(r)haba

Italian: Ciao (pronounced chow)

Polish: cześć (pronounced cheshch) 

Indonesian: Selamat (pronounced se-lah-maht):  Pagi (pronounced pah-ghee) (in the morning), Siang (pronounced see-ung) (in the early afternoon), Sore (pronounced so-(r)ay) (in the late afternoon) or Malam (pronounced mah-lahm) (at night) or Halo

Thai: สวัสดี (pronounced sa-wa-dee)

Tagalog: Kamusta (pronounced ka-moos-tah) or Halo

Romanian: Bună Ziua (pronounced boo-nuh zee-wah)

Dutch: Hallo

Khmer: Sok subai tei? (how are you?) (pronounced sock soo-bye tay)

Greek: γειά σου (pronounced geia sou)

Catalan: Hola (pronounced like Spanish)

Czech: Ahoj (pronounced a-hoy)

Swedish: Hallå (pronounced ha-looh)

Hebrew: שלום (pronounced shah-lom)

Finnish: Hei (pronounced hay)

Afrikaans: Hallo

Norwegian: Hallo

... and one more -

Esperanto: Saluton (pronounced sah-loo-ton)

Pop quiz:

1. What is significant about the first nine languages on the list? 

2. Why is Dutch before Norwegian and Vietnamese before Italian?

Please write your answers in the comment section below. Answers revealed next post.

What language should you learn?

There are many reasons to learn a language such as being useful for business, it is useful for traveling and it helps you understand how difficult or easy your mother toungue is. If you learn an 'easy' language you will realise that your native language is more difficult than you thought and vice versa with more difficult languages. I have made a quiz to help you decide what language should you learn.
What language should you learn?
I hope you enjoy it.

How to be more creative

I've noticed some people are amazed at things like artwork, writing and music that others create but they don't know that they can be just as creative as they are. Using these tips you can be more creative. 

#1. Sleep. Studies have shown that REM sleep cycles can boost our creativity levels. Recording your dreams can give you inspiration. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ were based on dreams the authors had.

#2 Exercise. Exercise can also promote creative thinking and gives you a brain power boost for a few hours. Before writing a essay go have a jog, skate, play a sport etc.

#3 Daydream. It may seem like a waste of time but it is an essential part of coming up with new ideas.  Wonder around and question things in your mind, like a child. E.g. “Why is a shadow longer, the further away light source?” etc. Try to do this a couple of times a day..

#4 Learn something that you have no idea about. This will help you think in new ways. Learn about different types of medication or animal behaviour or marine life or a foreign language like Indonesian and French or even one that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet like Korean or Japanese if you want something a little more challenging. This can also be an interesting conversation topic.

#5 Put yourself in a nerve-wrecking situation. Frustration can actually promote enervating thinking. Go to a ‘swim with the sharks’ program at an aquarium, go on the ferris wheel, go abseiling. 

#6 Write. Write down your thoughts and opinions throughout the day. This will help you think of the right words when you're having trouble writing an assignment, letter, email etc.