Tell us about what the first language you speak?
By mari123
@mari123 (1861)
China
June 27, 2007 10:50am CST
we have many different languages in this world and every language is unique and interesting, so tell us about interesting things about your language.
7 responses
@duttmyneni (198)
• India
11 Aug 08
i am Telugu speaking guy and i love it. there are so many languages in this world and every language have its own uniqueness and culture. Language not only helps to communicate with the people but also helps to know their culture. I think one life is not enough to learn all the languages in this world. If there is any person in this world who knows all the languages in this world he will be a legend.
@urbandekay (18278)
•
27 Jun 07
English, apart from being the international language of shipping and aircraft is the most widely spoken language, though not the most common mother tongue, which is Manderin Chinese. It has a huge vocabulary with over half a million different classified words and as many again awaiting classification. Indeed a graduate of a UK university may have a personal vocabulary in excess of the total vocabulary of other languages. This lends it a unsurpassed subtlety and accuracy of expression.
Consider only the shades of meaning between, 'anger' 'wrath' 'ire' etc.
Although, English is a Germanic language and approximately 25% of its words are of Germanic origin it has been heavily influenced by Latin to which it owes a similar percentage of words and old French, again accounting for approximately 25% and also incorporates many words from a variety of other languages.
For example
Horde comes from polish
Kazi from Kiswahili (Thought eh meaning has changed)
Jodhper and gymkhana from India
Manderin (meaning a bureaucratic official) from Chinese
etc
It has 6 'ploisives'
3 nasal sounds
1 flap sound
10 frictives
2 affrictives
4 approximants
and 1 lateral approximant
Giving it27 consonant sounds
Thankfully, it lacks the bizarre practice common in other European languages of giving genders to inanimate objects.
In good use of English, words of Germanic rather than Latin root should be preferred when every possible. Thus 'sight' rather than 'vision', 'freedom' rather than 'liberty.' Excessive use of Latin forms not only sounds pretentious but hinders clarity of expression.
Similarly a concrete or direct expression is preferable to an abstract or circumlocution. It is generally written without accents.
It has also become the dominant language of Science, Philosophy and the internet
all the best urban
@sampigadu (223)
• India
12 Sep 07
mine first language is telugu.
lot of intresting things are there about telugu..v'll discuss those later
@gvvijaybhaskar (219)
• India
6 Oct 07
my first language is telugu my mother tongue
it is one of the sweetest and ancient language
i heard it is in 10th place in more people speaking languages
@thrwbckjay67 (2870)
• United States
27 Jun 07
The language I ever spoke was Tagalog, which is a dialect from the Philippines. Even though I was born in the United States, my grandmother and aunts, who raised my until my mother finished college, taught me how to speak in Tagalog way before I learned English. However, since I was in school here and I took ESL courses (English as a second language) I was able to learn quickly. Tagalog actually uses some Spanish words, it comes from the Spanish colonization of the Philippine Islands.







