Weird Lingo

[Neil]

When the initial shock of rearranging life because of Coronavirus subsided, I realised that I would have even more time at home. Then came the question of what I would do with it. I've always fancied learning another language and thought that it might be one of those things that would keep the mind active and maybe help to improve my memory. I'd heard somewhere that Spanish was the easiest foreign language for English speakers to learn so I started a free online course with Duolingo. I'm about a hundred and twenty days into the course and surprised that until now I haven't been that curious about the other language options they offer. Yesterday I checked to see what else was on offer. Spanish is the most popular with 28.5 million learners across the world, closely followed by French with German, Japanese and Italian a little way behind. However the real interest lies in the less popular languages offered. In last place is Esperanto which is beaten by Navajo which in turn is beaten by Klingon with 298,000 learners. For the life of me I can't think of any practical use for Klingon; the Star Trek franchise will never need that many extras. Even more surprising is High Valyrian which my google research tells me is something to do with Game of Thrones. It has 506,000 learners, more than Welsh, Romanian, Finnish, Czech and a few others.

[AndyB]

Neil well done for taking the opportunity to get a new skill. 

 

Going back to WWII in Colditz PoWs preparing their escape would often trade skills. One British officer had a need to learn German from a fellow (Polish ?) PoW to aid his escape but had no skill to trade.

 

So he made up a language and offered this to an unsuspecting fellow prisoner.  His pupil was a quick learner and it was all he could do to keep up inventing new grammar and words for the next lesson.

 

It all worked well till his pupil confronted him with a long spiel the meaning of which he had no idea! 

[TheQ]

it obviously didn't work well on the most recent Colditz film, they had a British officer talking about Train Stations

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

When the initial shock of rearranging life because of Coronavirus subsided, I realised that I would have even more time at home. Then came the question of what I would do with it. I've always fancied learning another language and thought that it might be one of those things that would keep the mind active and maybe help to improve my memory. I'd heard somewhere that Spanish was the easiest foreign language for English speakers to learn so I started a free online course with Duolingo. I'm about a hundred and twenty days into the course and surprised that until now I haven't been that curious about the other language options they offer. Yesterday I checked to see what else was on offer. Spanish is the most popular with 28.5 million learners across the world, closely followed by French with German, Japanese and Italian a little way behind. However the real interest lies in the less popular languages offered. In last place is Esperanto which is beaten by Navajo which in turn is beaten by Klingon with 298,000 learners. For the life of me I can't think of any practical use for Klingon; the Star Trek franchise will never need that many extras. Even more surprising is High Valyrian which my google research tells me is something to do with Game of Thrones. It has 506,000 learners, more than Welsh, Romanian, Finnish, Czech and a few others.

 

Those learning Klingon will be doing it for the same reason you say you're learning Spanish - they just fancy doing it.

 

Thought Elvish had overtaken Klingon after the Lord of the Rings films, although they're probably old enough now for that enthusiasm to have subsided.

[TT-Pete]

Got all the Spanish I need; otra cerveza por favor  :^)

[simontaylor484]

Its all Greek to me

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

The problem with learning Spanish is that the way things are going, long term, all the regions will be reverting to their own languages, round these parts children are taught Valenciano in school and some road signs, public notices etc are bi-lingual similar to Wales, especially in the Basque regions where the local language is so far removed from Spanish as to be of unknown origin, so Spanish might finish up being of as much use as Klingon!

 

Mike.

[franciswilliamwebb]

 

[Bernard Lamb]

20 hours ago, AndyB said:

 

 

Going back to WWII in Colditz PoWs preparing their escape would often trade skills. One British officer had a need to learn German from a fellow (Polish ?) PoW to aid his escape but had no skill to trade.

 

 

Visiting my brother in law in the far north of Germany I was introduced to a local man who spoke English with a very refined accent. I enquired as to how he came to speak English so well and with that accent. I learnt it in Colditz he replied. He was a guard and learnt it from RAF Officers. I was told that there was a very well organised language school within the castle.

Alas most of the people with such tales are long gone and so much of their life story has gone with them.

Bernard

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Visiting my brother in law in the far north of Germany I was introduced to a local man who spoke English with a very refined accent. I enquired as to how he came to speak English so well and with that accent. I learnt it in Colditz he replied. He was a guard and learnt it from RAF Officers. I was told that there was a very well organised language school within the castle.

Alas most of the people with such tales are long gone and so much of their life story has gone with them.

Bernard

 

That reminds me of a young man that I met on a train in Yugoslavia in 1975. Perfect English learned entirely from listening to the World Service.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Joseph_Pestell

[AndrewC]

I have some friends back in Canada who were fairly fluent in Klingon. Can't remember much of it, but it was handy when wanting to talk out loud without any earwigging. 

 

One thing I have noticed is in the Benelux countries, when they speak English it is with a slight to heavy American accent. No doubt due to US television programmes as opposed to watching endless repeats of Are You Being Served. 

[Fat Controller]

25 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

I have some friends back in Canada who were fairly fluent in Klingon. Can't remember much of it, but it was handy when wanting to talk out loud without any earwigging. 

 

One thing I have noticed is in the Benelux countries, when they speak English it is with a slight to heavy American accent. No doubt due to US television programmes as opposed to watching endless repeats of Are You Being Served. 

I've noticed the same in France, and other Francophone countries, over recent years; I'd say a lot of it is attributable due to teaching material at both state learning institutions and the many EFL schools. There is an advert often shown on the Paris Metro which states 'I speak English- Wall Street English'

Now retired after almost 30 years at Eurotunnel, I've become interested in the way people acquire and use language. I had one French colleague who had picked up a lot from watching 'Match of the Day' on BBC; this led to him using a lot of Colemanballs. Another had picked up nuances from 'East Enders'; his riposte to any request for anything slightly difficult was 'It's not wurff it'

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, AndrewC said:

I have some friends back in Canada who were fairly fluent in Klingon. Can't remember much of it, but it was handy when wanting to talk out loud without any earwigging.

I've heard that there's rather limited vocabulary in Klingon, mostly words useful for Star Trek, so you can describe a failure in the warp drive but not order a cup of coffee.

[AndrewC]

16 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I've heard that there's rather limited vocabulary in Klingon, mostly words useful for Star Trek, so you can describe a failure in the warp drive but not order a cup of coffee.

qa'vIn

[Steamport Southport]

3 hours ago, AndrewC said:

I have some friends back in Canada who were fairly fluent in Klingon. Can't remember much of it, but it was handy when wanting to talk out loud without any earwigging. 

 

One thing I have noticed is in the Benelux countries, when they speak English it is with a slight to heavy American accent. No doubt due to US television programmes as opposed to watching endless repeats of Are You Being Served. 

 

Possibly the other way around. A lot of Americans seem to speak with a Dutch accent.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Americans

[TT-Pete]

7 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

That reminds me of a young man that I met on a train in Yugoslavia in 1975. Perfect English learned entirely from listening to the World Service.

 

Or a Russian I met in Luxembourg on his first Western travel after the Wall came down who spoke English with an American accent, learned from years of illicit radio Voice of America listening.

[Bernard Lamb]

Coming from East Germany SWMBO speaks English with an accent that is not at all like the generally American influenced West German accent. My German is picked up from the family rather than learnt at school or through a course. My accent is Sachsen and my grammar and vocabulary are Sachsen influenced. If I speak German in say Berlin or Munich I get a strange response. However Sachsen is very closely related to the dialect and accent in the Tyrol. In the parts of Northern Italy that were formerly German speaking I can manage quite well. Arriving at one hotel I had a conversation with the receptionist and it was several minutes before she suddenly asked me why as an English person I was speaking not only German but local German.

I had another interesting experience when I went to Austria with a colleague. His formal and technical German was much superior to mine as he had spent several months working for Mercedes in Stuttgart. He suggested that we stay at a small guest house as he wanted to try the local food. When the menu was shown to us he could hardly understand anything as it was written using various dialect words to describe the local dishes.

Bernard

[SHMD]

When I'm travelling around China, (I lived there for about 5 years in total), they say I speak Mandarin (PuTongHua) with a ShangHai accent.

I just laugh and say "I speak PuTongHua with an Oldham accent!"

 

I just love the look of those officials, around me, who were speaking Chinese in front of me before I reply in my (admittedly, Pigeon) Mandarin.

 

   

 

 

 

Kev.

[Kylestrome]

On 19/11/2020 at 12:10, Neil said:

I started a free online course with Duolingo.

 

Do they also have courses in Unwin?

 

 

[simontaylor484]

8 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Possibly the other way around. A lot of Americans seem to speak with a Dutch accent.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Americans

I do believe its the Mennonites that use the midnomerd Pennsylvania Deutsche 

[figworthy]

13 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Visiting my brother in law in the far north of Germany I was introduced to a local man who spoke English with a very refined accent. I enquired as to how he came to speak English so well and with that accent. I learnt it in Colditz he replied. He was a guard and learnt it from RAF Officers. I was told that there was a very well organised language school within the castle.

 

 

On the other hand, you have my maternal grandmother, who was very good at picking up languages.

 

My uncle had a German visiting him on business, and for some reason or other, they called in on my grandmother.  she took the opportunity to speak to him in German, and whilst he complimented her on her grasp of the language, was rather puzzled on the way she spoke, which it transpired was anything but refined.  She explained that she had picked it up whilst working for one of the big shipping companies in the 1920s.  At the time, there was a great deal of emigration from Europe to the US, and if someone turned up in the states unwell, then they were put straight back on the boat, at the shipping companies expense.  So the companies were screening would be emigrants before they boarded, which as a qualified nurse, is where she came in.

 

Adrian 

[Classsix T]

22 hours ago, Reorte said:

I've heard that there's rather limited vocabulary in Klingon, mostly words useful for Star Trek, so you can describe a failure in the warp drive but not order a cup of coffee.

Ooh I dunno...

C6T. 

[SRman]

13 hours ago, Kylestrome said:

 

Do they also have courses in Unwin?

 

 

 

I was going to find and post a link to Unwinism myself, but you have beaten me to it!    

[chris p bacon]

I think I've put this on RMWeb before so apologies if it's a repeat. 

 

 My father had a German penpal in the early thirties and they kept in touch until 1939 ......with the letters backwards and forwards he learnt a lot of German,  In 1938 My father went to stay with the family and while there learnt more German and could converse with them quite well.

Fast forward to 1941/42 and Dad is in a French concentration camp (for Merchant Navy) and an inspection is carried out by Karl Donitz (Gross Admiral) as dad could speak German he was put forward by one of the Captains to speak to Donitz. 

Donitz asked what they wanted to which Dad replied more food. Donitz replied that everyone wanted more food and they were given everything they had. To which Dad replied that couldn't be as he looked better fed than they were ..

 

Off topic but it transpired that the French were stealing the prisoners food the Germans were sending as well as Red Cross parcels, within 24 hours Donitz transferred all the prisoners to Germany (Near Hamburg) for better treatment !

[caradoc]

On 20/11/2020 at 12:05, Reorte said:

I've heard that there's rather limited vocabulary in Klingon, mostly words useful for Star Trek, so you can describe a failure in the warp drive but not order a cup of coffee.

 

Why would a Klingon want to order coffee ? Bloodwine, now !!!