Languages are very weird.
By AmberLynn
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104632)
United States
August 31, 2015 6:09am CST
I was just thinking on the way home from work this morning. I am trying to figure out the best way to word this but falling short on a uncomplicated way of doing so.
Ok so you know how in Italian the word for the Italian language IS Italiano or Is it Italiana?. Same for Spanish, it's easy to understand that Espanol (we are pretending there is a tilde over the N) means Spanish. In Dutch the word for the Dutch language is Nederlaanders (or Nederlands I forget which and the spelling is most likely off as well). It makes sense to me as if I am not mistaken the word for the German language in Dutch (as in the Dutch Langauge) is Deutsch (This is in Dutch and in German if I am not mistaken).
Anyway, what I am getting at is in the languages mentioned above it is easy to decipher the name of the languages IN the respective langauges.
Not so in the Celtic Languages. In Welsh, for instance, the word for the country Wales is Cymru. While if you want to say you speak Welsh, you'd say Cymraeg. (Dw i 'n sinead Cymraeg - I speak Welsh (though I may be off on the spelling and / or missing something)
You would not think Cymru meant Wales if I had not told you. Same with Cymraeg meaning Welsh. Now Gaeillge (spelling is off) stands for Gaelic, which I guess is more transparent (identifiable).
I don't know, by now I've gone off on a mad ramble and forgot my point.
Pork chop?
What is the name OF your language IN your language?
6 people like this
6 responses
@topffer (42156)
• France
31 Aug 15
My language is Français and my country France. My mother was speaking Occitàn which is a language from southern France not far from Catalàn. And, by the way, what you call "Español" is only called like this in a part of America. In Spain, Argentina, and perhaps other South-American countries it is called Castellano (from Castilla, the central part of Spain, around Madrid).
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104632)
• United States
31 Aug 15
I imagine in Mexico it is still called Espanol, but i could be wrong. I've never heard of Iccitanbut iha ve heard of Catalan.
1 person likes this
@mysdianait (66009)
• Italy
31 Aug 15
Hi there! 
I (as you know) am English but am in Italy. Here the language is Italiano (if it a noun) or Italiana when used together with the Italian word 'lingua' for language which is femminine. The adjective takes on the gender of the noun therefore:
- the language in Italy is Italian = la lingua in Italia è italiano
- the Italian language is used in Italy = la lingua italiana è in uso in Italia
End of class! 
I (as you know) am English but am in Italy. Here the language is Italiano (if it a noun) or Italiana when used together with the Italian word 'lingua' for language which is femminine. The adjective takes on the gender of the noun therefore:
- the language in Italy is Italian = la lingua in Italia è italiano
- the Italian language is used in Italy = la lingua italiana è in uso in Italia
End of class! 1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104632)
• United States
31 Aug 15
I was going to call you to teach but wasn't sure of what your username was now.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
31 Aug 15
In Welsh the name of my language is Saesnag (which is another way of saying Saxon). Now, Saxony is in North Germany, so my ancestors - or, at least, the ancestors of the language I speak, probably came from there. In fact, the name for the language I speak used to be something like Englisc, meaning the language of the Angles (more or less) but the Angles and the Saxons were different peoples (who spoke fairly similar languages, as it happens) and, after their kingdoms merged, the language they spoke was called Anglo-Saxon. Then William the Conqueror arrived (I've missed out the Vikings who gave us quite a few words but didn't change the grammar that much, I believe) and his followers, who became the ruling class, spoke French, so English changed once again to contain a great many French words and became almost what we have today.
If I were a farmer in the 14th century, I'd probably call my herd of pigs 'swine' but if I killed one and sold the meat to the upper classes, I'd have to call it 'pork'. It's the same if I killed a cow or an ox - the meat would be known by it's French name (boeuf or beef in Modern English). I'll take a pork chop, thank you!
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63252)
• United States
31 Aug 15
Since I only speak English, which is the language of the U.S., there is not United Statesian or is that United Statesish? We don't speak it quite the way they speak it in England, after all, what we speak is primarily what was spoken 200 or 300 years ago in England, though when it was brought over it didn't have a set spelling yet so where the English retained some of the French spellings of words that were dropped in the U.S.
1 person likes this
@Rosekitty (19368)
• San Marcos, Texas
31 Aug 15
isn't it amazing how your mind thinks one way and the words coming out do another?..love the pork chop thingie
American slang is mine...
1 person likes this
@TrabWrites (18)
• Orlando, Florida
1 Sep 15
In Arabic the name of the language is pronounced Arabey. (Ah-rah-be)
