How Many Languages Do you Speak?

[kovan]

can say how are you in them??

ME
Kurdish > "Chawani"
Turkish > "Nasilsiniz"
Arabic > "Keyfa Halak"
English > "How da f uck are you"

[Sam Finch]

I'm the master of 102 languages and the invntor of 101.

[oetje]

Originally posted by Sam Finch
I'm the master of 102 languages and the invntor of 101.

If you can't list them, you lie.

[kedaman]

kovan is kidding? hehe Is Sam kidding?

well let's wait and see

[Rudy]

i know french and english and that's all lol that's too much already ^_*

[Guv]

Can still read simple French with difficulty, but cannot converse or write in French anymore.
Can converse, read, & write Americanese.
Manage to understand Australianese most of the time, but do not write or speak it.
Manage to understand English most of the time, but do not write or speak it.
Can converse in Bridge.
Can write, but have trouble reading various computer languages.

I spent a lot of time in Belgium many years ago. Three weeks there, one week back in the USA for almost two years.

I used to be able to converse, read, & write in French, but do not consider myself fluent anymore. I could probably pick it up quickly if I had to.

Guv --

Are you one of those ACOL perverts?

[kovan]

[kedaman]

[Guv]

DerFarm, no I do not use ACOL. Many years ago, I had a partner that used ACOL from her side of the table, while I used Roth-Stone when I opened the bidding. It was a fun partnership, but the all powerful ACBL demanded that we both use the same system.

I have used many bidding systems, and now my girlfriend and I use one of my own design. It is unique in that it includes no forcing opening bid. It has been years since either of us picked up a hand which could make game opposite a hand which could not respond to a non-forcing opening. A computer analysis indicates that it should happen about once per year, so we have been lucky. I am convinced that a forcing opening is not necessary, and might be a detriment to good bidding.

Briefly, my system is as follows.

We use losing trick count for evaluation of unbalanced hands. Point count for balanced.
All opening bids of one of a suit promise a hand better than a minimum, but are not forcing.
1NT & 2 Bids promise 14 points or less (12-14 for 1NT; 10-14 for suit bid).
2NT = 23-24 HCP; 3NT = 25-26 HCP.
3 Bids in 1st & 2nd position promise AKQXXX or AKQXXXX with no side values.
Minimum 4441 hands are a systemic problem, and are often passed.

We use splinter bids in many types of auctions.

Standard American bidding is a guessing game when invitational double raises are used. With my Standard American partners, I use a single jump shift to show a singleton & support in a hand stronger than a single raise, but weaker than a game force (a better hand still splinters and makes might make an aggressive bid later). Opener is in an excellent position to decide what to do, when he might have to guess opposite an invitational double raise. We use a forcing NT to a 1H/1S opening followed by a jump raise to show a limit raise without a singleton.

If you know what ACOL means, I assume the above is intelligible.

Of a certainty.

I don't want to be without a forcing bid, because the opposition has one.

I use a weak-nt, 5crd Maj, with a Mortale Defense against
doubles, and nuts who play DONT.

We use baby Roman for the 4441 (11-15) with specialized responses for interference.

I used play "YOUR CARD", that is, we played whatever the
opposition was playing. But my partner moved to NYC and
besides, the ACBL wasn't crazy about it.

[HarryW]

Well I don't speak bridge and from the looks of it that's a good thing

I speak English obviously, and a bit of German, badly. I know about enough French to find out where I can find someone who speaks English

Oh yes, and Kovan I will be amazed if you can say "Hello, how are you?" in DAO

[barrk]

I speak very poor Spanish and adequate English.

[kovan]

HarryW
here is what you do
make a access table
put a field in
call it "SayItBitch"
put "hello, how are you"
then do all the **** you got to do to have your vb project connect to db
open the db, with help of some sql
retrieve it
and print it saying what ever is returned

to prove my point, there is not a SINGLE language in the world that is 100% unique
all of them have some words that are same to other langauges
so you have to get some help from other places to speak the language
and i believe i just proved using this theory

by the way
who said dao was a language?


seriously thou i am starting to forget my turkish
grrr i liked speaking turkish

[HarryW]

Hmm...

[kovan]

i am right
and you know iam right this time

[HarryW]

As you should know by now Kovan, I am not easily convinced

[SteveCRM]

English (Well...I'm in america...) Okay I guess thats what you guys call Americanese.
And Im taking German

English, and a wee bit 'o German....

[Guv]

kovan, you are incredible!!! There happens to be about 6000 languages spoken today, about 3000 of which are about to become extinct. To prove some point you state as a known fact that none of those 6000 languages are unique.

to prove my point, there is not a SINGLE language in the world that is 100% unique
all of them have some words that are same to other langauges
so you have to get some help from other places to speak the language
and i believe i just proved using this theory

It is amazing that you have a enough knowledge of 6000 languages to know that none are unique. Or perhaps you are quoting some authority for this piece of information.

[kedaman]

Well we can all agree on that kovan is increadible 6000 languages, thats a lot

[kovan]

Guv
actually i watched a documentary(while ago) on this
and they said that most languages are derived some what based on the languages that existed alright so i started to pull on that string
and in my life (very short)
i have met a LOT of people from different cultures and languages, first usually i tend to wanna know some words
in their language so i stumble over some words that are used by other languages..

and yes NONE language is 100% UNIQUE
bring me a language thats spoken by a majority
and i will forsure find or try to find some words that are found in other languages that mean the same thing

now if your talking about languages joe blow and his tribe of <10 speak
thats a different story

i can invent one of those tomorrow if i wanted
infact i got the name for it too

Kovanica

well i use that word to name everything i invent

and i dont know where you got that 6000 figure
maybe different variations of languages
for example
in phillipines ALONE
there is like 273 languages but they some what over lap
even my own culture, they have over 10 now
and they have small changes, but all is known as KURDISH as one

so if you like to prove me wrong
which i think it will be fun FOR ME
give me a language, the region the language is spoken
estimate of people speaking it
and i will find you some words in that language that are used by some other language


Kedaman

dats all i got to say

[kovan]

Latin Makes A Web Comeback - Dec. 7, 2000 12:24 AM
Despite the American English that dominates 80% of the Web, Latin has been making a surprising come back in chat rooms. Various rooms are dedicated to preserving the dead language in the purest form possible. Experts insist that such chat rooms are culturally useful: of the 6700 languages currently spoken, 90% will disappear in the next century.

[Guv]

Kovan, I have a desk calendar which provides a fact every day. A few days ago it claimed that about 3000 languages were on the verge of extinction, and referred to the 3000 as half the languages now spoken.

I checked the Site you mentioned (it was interesting) and noticed the claim of 6700 languages, with 90% due for extinction in the next 100 years or so.

By the way, my source claimed that there were about 1600 languages in India, few of which were on the verge of extinction.

After reading your recent Post, I suspect that you are basically correct, although I also suspect that there are at least a few obscure languages in isolated regions which do not share any words with another language. To argue with you on that basis is nit-picking, which I object to when others do it.. Besides, I certainly would not want to spend the time to actually find one of those obscure languages.

I suspect that it would probably be extremely difficult to obtain any sort of a dictionary or vocabulary list for some of the really obscure languages, many of which (I guess) are likely to be oral languages, with no written literature. I have no idea how such languages could be analyzed by either of us.

For a minute or so I was tempted to use my New Millennium World Atlas and the Internet to locate some obscure part of the world and claim that its language was unique. Then challenge you to find some non-unique words in that language. I am very unlucky, so if I had done that, the obscure location I picked would have turned out to be the subject of a language research project run by your uncle.

It looks to me that the 50% on the verge of extinction now, and the 90% due in the next 100 years are consistent with each other. I guess the discrepancy between 6000 and 6700 has to do with decisions about what is a distinct language and what is a dialect. The figure of 273 languages in the Philippines is much higher than numbers I have heard elsewhere (the lower numbers I have heard were big enough to surprise me). I suppose it has to do with the issue of what is a language and what is a dialect.

Sorry I teased you. I get annoyed when I see guesses and opinions expressed as statements of fact, which seems to occur frequently on this forum. I often do not react, but sometimes I take the time to question a "statement of fact" which seems to be an opinion.

[kovan]

dont worry about it
i personally hardly ever state something that i am not sure of its accuracy or at least have some source to back it up

273 or what ever figure
i actually got from a phillino lady i use to work with
in "TACO HELL"
and i personally would take that source as being more accurate then world atlas or any other organization that states how many languages there were in phillipines
because she knows better then them, because she is a DIRECT source

and i have came across many different people and cultures
and always find some similairy in language, and other cultural events

again i think that 6700 figure
for languages in the world is out of WACK
i mean there is how many countries in the world?
300?
let say each country to ONE language that is not a dilect of another..
how many different versions of english alone?
i guess they consider them each a language

so in 1 century we will only have 670 i guess
and that does make sense due to globolization


hope i didn't offend you in anywa
as it was not my attempt

i actually enjoyed this little discussion
it was rather interesting

[kovan]

oh by the way

whats that fukto program you got?
i think i would be interested in having that on my desktop as well

300 countries in the world????

I would say there's a lot more than that. But I'm just
guessing. But then you have the formation of countries
and the destruction of existing countries all the time, so
there's not way to keep an accurate count.

If you look at countries that are technologically under
developed, they would tend to have more of the more
obsucre and seperated languages, because the people from
various points of the country would be less likely to
interact with one another... so their "tribe" would have
it's own method of communication.

Throughout history, there's been many cultures to have
not only written language, but oral language as well. And
those languages need not be alphabetic in nature. There's
hyroglific languages and the sort.

I think with the proliferation of the internet, English
will be more widespread than it has ever been. The
advances in communication that we have seen on a global
scale in the past 100 years is unprecidented. The need
for a standardization in verbal communication may arise
where there will only be a need for one tongue. And of
course the language of the leading country would prevail.
(Even though by accounts I've seen, Arabic is the most
widely used language in the world right now, with english
and chinese right behind it.)

Some opinion, some fact. You decide.

Sherm

[kovan]

we are talking about 100 years from now
most of these little languages will dissapear
and according to that article out of 6700
670 will remain

[Guv]

6000 or more languages might not be a really whacko number. Nomadic cultures tend to have a lot of distinct languages.

While a lot of them are extinct now, I think there might have been 50-100 or maybe a lot more languages spoken by the American Indians. Some of those languages might have been spoken by by only 200 to 500 people.

My source claimed 1600 languages in India, and who knows how many there are in Africa? There are probably a lot of languages in Mongolia and other far out parts of Asia.

Even in Europe, there are some obscure languages (I know of two).[list][*]There is the Basque language spoken in the Pyrenees Mountains, which is not related to any other language in the world, although it probably has added some French & Spanish words in its vocabulary.
[*]There is a Romance language called Catalan, which is spoken in Andorra (population about 50,000, area about 175 square miles), which is a tiny country between France & Spain. I do not think it is the majority language there (French & Spanish are also spoken), but it might be the official language.

I know in an effort to preserve the Irish language,
it was made an official language and is taught in the
schools now. If it weren't for the conscious efforts
of the people to keep the language alive, it would
probably not be spoken anymore.

Sherm

[parksie]

I speak:

English (what a language)
French (why all the genders??? )
German (sounds wonderful)
Visual Basic
C++ (language of kings )

Although I think that if it came down to it, it would be a battle between English, Chinese, Japanese, and French for the language that stayed on.

[kovan]

preserving languages is very important
as in my opinion, it is the FOUNDATION of a culture
and if we start to eliminate languages, this would mean eliminating cultures becuase when there is no language there will be no more people
and vise versa

to THIS day
infact to this hour i thought globolization was a very good thing
i am starting to have my doubts on its reactions when the whole world is globolized
sadly history wont be as good
visiting places wont be as exciting
and life will become a CYBERWORLD
outch

[kovan]

Parksie ummmmmmmmmm i think you might wanna revise what you said
arabic is pretty common
and has been common for almost 2 milliniums
i dont see it going any time soon

cus when arabic goes (islam goes)
and SORRY SORRY SORRY to bring religion into this
and wont do it again
but thats a fact...

[shanp]

bhjnjkmk

Well like I mentioned before... English, Chinese,
and Arabic are the three most widely spoken languages
in the world today. I really doubt any of them will
disappear anytime soon.

Languages EVOLVE. They change over time into newer
languages. Latin and Greek and the foundations for
English (and basically most of the European based
languages spoken today). In its short life, English
itself has been evolving. Old English is quite different
from modern dialects... and just looking at English
spoken in the US vs. UK you see differences.

Sherm

[parksie]

kovan - oh yeah...I really should have known that one, but I stick by what I say.

The way I see it is - in any international community the Americans are going to be a fairly hefty driving force, and Arabic is going to be crushed between English and Chinese/Japanese.

(I'm not being racist, or cruel, or anything - it's just my opinion from what I see and hear )

[kovan]

i think americans can only take it to a CERTAIN point
i mean global domination is their ultimate goal
and when they reach it, it will eventually stop at a point and other people will have a say in events that are done int he world

i see United Nation SOME DAY be actually "United Nation"
and not "United States"

[parksie]

If only...

Just because they're powerful doesn't mean they should be in charge - they can't even work out who is in charge!

[kovan]

ya but they can say who will be in charge of the rest of the world
sucks
o well, some things in life you just got to deal with