Think of Malay and Indonesian as Kazakh and Kyrgyz. They're so similar that I haven't yet figured out why they're considered different languages. My Bahasa Indonesia let me read all the signs in Malay in Singapore. There weren't even SPELLING differences; pronunciation was identical as well. At a much more sophisticated level, Indonesian does drop a lot of suffixes in common conversation that Malay keeps, but "proper" Indonesian is functionally identical. Perhaps there are some local vocabulary differences or words that I didn't encounter that are pronounced differently.
Yes, I was aware of this - seems to be more a political matter than a linguistic one.
Tagalog, then, is like Turkish. It sounds a hell of a lot like the other two but it isn't so close that you don't need to try a bit to understand the languages.
Right.
Hawaiian, taking this example further, is like Mongolian. Same language principles, same sounds. The personal pronouns are almost identical with the personal pronouns in Bahasa. If one grates the ear, then the others should as well.
Again, I really don't see why that should be the case. Okay, so you gave an example of similarly related languages that do in fact sound alike, but since I mentioned an example of closely related languages that sound very different (and could mention many more), I just don't get why you insist the Austronesian/Polynesian languages should all sound similar. I mean, hell, even within a single language, English comes to mind, dialects can be so different that a foreigner speaking no English would think they were entirely different-sounding separate languages.
Funny words
- 11/04/2011 03:22:29 PM
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Re: Funny words
- 11/04/2011 04:12:50 PM
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- 12/04/2011 07:31:13 PM
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Yeah, I was going to ask you about the ß but Tim got there first. It is very easy.
- 11/04/2011 11:37:42 PM
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- 12/04/2011 07:31:13 PM
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How about these?
- 11/04/2011 07:30:41 PM
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"Muckefuck" sounds to me like "Schmutzenficken" sounds to you.
- 11/04/2011 11:26:21 PM
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Re: Funny words
- 11/04/2011 09:40:11 PM
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Haha. How are you supposed to pronounce it?
- 11/04/2011 10:36:16 PM
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Moockefoock, though with short "oo"s. I'm guessing it's more the spelling that's funny. *NM*
- 11/04/2011 10:59:37 PM
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Sort of like "book" for both "u"s and with a short "uh" sound for the "e".
- 11/04/2011 11:22:55 PM
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Innstapp
- 12/04/2011 07:44:01 AM
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I think that works because the languages are similar but distinct
- 12/04/2011 03:04:49 PM
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I think some of my funniest foreign words would have to be Norwegian, as well.
- 12/04/2011 07:11:43 PM
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Re: I think some of my funniest foreign words would have to be Norwegian, as well.
- 12/04/2011 07:13:26 PM
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Well, Norwegian is closer to Dutch than Swedish and Danish are.
- 12/04/2011 07:33:22 PM
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Re: Well, Norwegian is closer to Dutch than Swedish and Danish are.
- 12/04/2011 07:35:38 PM
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Re: Funny words
- 12/04/2011 11:58:22 AM
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I found Tagalog to be an unattractive language
- 12/04/2011 03:07:28 PM
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That's an odd way of reasoning...
- 12/04/2011 07:15:37 PM
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Have you spent any appreciable amount of time in Asia?
- 13/04/2011 01:23:13 AM
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Nope. None, in fact.
- 13/04/2011 07:15:28 PM
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The better analogy is with Turkic languages.
- 13/04/2011 07:51:48 PM
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Re: The better analogy is with Turkic languages.
- 14/04/2011 09:02:05 PM
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I always grimace a little when I hear "pupsik". Always sounds like "poopsicle" to me. 
*NM*
- 13/04/2011 06:08:46 AM
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*NM*
- 13/04/2011 06:08:46 AM
192 Views