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.  

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

Travel Review: Degani Bakery Café - Photo Blog

Last Friday night, I ate at Degani Bakery Café at Plenty Valley. I visited there to taste for myself the mix grill that many have bragged about.

A normal plate, a normal fork, a steak knife

Chicken, two types of steak and salad

Calamari, prawns, salad and potato

My Degani Bakery Café experience was excellent but other reviews won't agree, I guess I struck a good night out. 

Link:
Degani website

London 2012

Creative Common - Flickr by Ell Brown

Since the Olympics started, I have been glued to the TV (like most of world) which is funny, because I didn’t really like watching sport four years ago. I love the feeling of watching my country (Australia) win a Gold or Silver medal. I became very excited when I saw the Australian women’s swimming relay and they played Advance Australia Fair. Swimming is now one of my favourite sports to watch because you can see what the athletes are doing from bird’s eye view and underwater. 

Creative Common - Flickr by Brendan Shanahan

Creative Commo

Creative Common

Creative Common

I found it interesting how Taekwondo (sparring) became an Olympic sport during the Sydney Games but not during the Seoul Games (although it was performed). Also, I reckon the Olympic Committee should make Artistic Taekwondo (Poomsae) an Olympic sport along with sparring because it will give other Taekwondo athletes a chance without such an anaerobic strain on the heart to compete (sparring is very tiring, well at least for me) and by having Artistic Taekwondo more people would be able to compete. Sparring is only one aspect of Taekwondo and is basically knowing what your opponent is about to do next. Poomsae is more of the art form of Taekwondo where you focus on technique and rhythm of rehearsed individual combat developed hundreds of years ago. Poomsae is also very nice to watch because the movements flow in the pattern (known as kata in Karate or forms in Kung Fu).  I really like the concept of the Olympic Games, the whole world are playing sport against each other and forgetting about war and fighting. I also like how the Olympics has its origins from Ancient Greece. 

Creative Common - Flickr by SPARC Beijing Olympics 2008

Creative Common - Flickr by International Olympic Committee

Carmen Marton is one of Taekwondists competing in the Olympics. She happens to go to the same Taekwondo branch I train in: Melbourne Taekwondo Centre. Make sure to watch her.

Interesting fact: French is the co-official language of the Olympics (along with English) because the person who started the Modern Olympics was French.

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.

Recipe: French Toast with Banana and Orange Syrup

- vegetarian 

- peanut free

- 20 minutes (max) to make

- can be eaten for breakfast or lunch


Ingredients:

1 Vienna loaf, café sliced
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
200 grams of white or caster sugar
200 mls orange juice
3 bananas, cut into eighths or 2 oranges, sliced into segments
1 T butter
icing sugar, to dust

Method:

1. In a heavy-based saucepan, melt a small amount of sugar and then add small amount at a time until all is dissolved and coloured light brown.  

2. Then lower heat and add orange juice until dissolved.
Pour over fruit in a bowl, then cool.

3. Beat eggs with milk in a shallow dish.

4. Soak bread in mixture until absorbed. 

5. Melt butter in frypan, then cook bread until golden. 

6. Flip when cooked.

French toast with orange

7. Serve with fruit and syrup, then dust with icing sugar.

French toast with banana

Bon appétit! 

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.

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.