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.  

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

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.

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.