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Which is the original language of your country?

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Which is the original language of your country?
    Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 11:46

Native languages are fascinating because they are linked to the land where you are.

Let's define Native language as the older language that was once spoken in the land where you are right now. For example, in the Americas the native language of Paraguay is not Spanish but Guarany. In Cuba is Taino. In some states of Canada and U.S. is Cree or Navajo. In Europe the native language of Ireland is Celt, of Italy is Latin and of Greece, ancient Greek. In Egypt is the Coptic language. In Australia is the aboriguine tongue and in New Zealand is Maori-Polynesian. In India is Saskrit and in Japan the native language could be the tonge of the Ainus.
 
How to distinguish a native language from newer ones?
 
Because native languages are usually perpetuated in history and in the toponimics of the region where you live. The hills, valleys, rivers and bays of your country usually have place names in native languages.
 
Why are they so fascinating? Because they are very descriptive and natural. An example, close to where I live there is a lake called "Vichuken", which in native language means "serpert lake". If you visit it or see a map of it you will notice the lake has the shape of a serpent. By the way, the native language of the part of Chile where I live is Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuches.
 
So, please tell us what is the native language of the place where you live. Not of your country as a whole, but of the state, province or region where you live right now.
 
You don't have a native language there? Common, hard to believe, figure it out LOL
 
 
 
 
 


Edited by pinguin - 18-Nov-2007 at 11:52
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  Quote Leonidas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 12:40
IIRC there were around 400 - 700 or so different indigenous languages before Europeans crashed the relative peace, so take your pick. we dont have half that now


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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 12:59

Certainly, but in the province, state or region you live, perhaps there is a dominant language that left its mark in the landscape. I don't know where in Australia you live, but if you do in New South Wales, you have the following rivers that sound native:

Wollombi
Colo
Warragamba
Woronora
Moruya
 
Among many others.
 
What do they mean?
 
It is curious, but when I was a kid I read some cartoon about some air force heroes, and a pilot called Captian Cooper, whose base was somewhere in Australia, in a place called Woomera. It was a place where missiles and planes were tested. I found later the place was real, but only recently in this forum I learn that "woomera" is the spear thrower of the Australian Aborigins, and that the base got the name because of that reason.
 
A woomera:
 
 
 
I found that very interesting.
 
 
 
 
 


Edited by pinguin - 18-Nov-2007 at 13:07
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  Quote jacobtowne Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 18:25
Here in New England, the aborigines spoke local dialects of Algonquian, a very large linguistic group. It's easy to distinguish from English.Big%20smile

There are hundreds of place names here derived from the Indian tongue - Megansett, Narragansett, Quabbin, Massachusetts, Quonset, Mashpee, Quisett, Naushon, Connecticut, Mohawk, Cataumet, Quoddy, Kennebunk (not sure about the last one) - to name a few. These names include towns, states, harbors or bays, islands, lakes, roads.

IIRC, the 'ett' or 'sett' suffix means 'place.'


JT



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  Quote Knights Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 19:34
As Leo said, Australia had hundreds of dialect groups, such as the Eora, Dharug and Ku-ring-gai peoples, who lived around Sydney. Of those rivers you mentioned, two are around Sydney. The Colo is just north, and Warragambah is actually a huge (well, not so full right now) dam which supplies much of Sydney's water. No dialects have remained dominant until today, however there are still nomadic tribes of Indigenous Australians in the North (eg. Arnhem Land and North Queensland). We do tend to name regions/landforms/places.etc after Aboriginal words in the local dialect.
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  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 20:25
Present day national bounderies didn't exist in prehistoric times so on that score alone you cannot talk about your country's original language in prehistoric terms.
 
Also no-one knows what original languages were. In Britain the first speaking inhabitants were probably homo-erectus over half a million years ago, maybe they spoke English, I'm not sure. Neanderthals may have had language too. Then CroMagnon man came 40,000 years ago, he spoke for sure, but I doubt we'd understand him. The post glacial paleolithic cultures then followed around 10,000 years ago, and for 8,000 years we have no idea what they spoke, it may have changed many times. Finally travellers from the Hellenic and Roman sphere came and recorded something about the language. They noted most importantly more than one language was spoken, just as in many countries today there are many languages. So even then there was no one language to be called original. The modern country was created in 1701, but not everyone spoke the same language, in fact it wasn't till the 20th century that everone in the country spoke English.
 
So with the pre-requisites, the existence of the country(required by the question) and one language spoken by all(implied by the question), the answer is English in the 20th century.
 
I guess the answer for the US too would be English in the 20th century. Ironically they may have acheived it earlier though.
 


Edited by Paul - 18-Nov-2007 at 20:33
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  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 20:28
some celtic dialect.
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 20:32
it was gaelic here i think, after many waves of people coming here, its divided into three forms, welsh, scotch gaelic and the almost extinct cornish gaelic.
In the scheme of things english as we know it is quite modern.
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 20:37
i think the isle of man between ireland and great britain has its own indigenous language called manx, but im not sure if its still spoken today, it may be a dead language nowadays
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 20:44
english, the early form of it atleast comes from the old central kingdom of england called mercia, according to what is most recently known.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 21:12
Originally posted by jacobtowne

Here in New England, the aborigines spoke local dialects of Algonquian, a very large linguistic group. It's easy to distinguish from English.Big%20smile

There are hundreds of place names here derived from the Indian tongue - Megansett, Narragansett, Quabbin, Massachusetts, Quonset, Mashpee, Quisett, Naushon, Connecticut, Mohawk, Cataumet, Quoddy, Kennebunk (not sure about the last one) - to name a few. These names include towns, states, harbors or bays, islands, lakes, roads.

IIRC, the 'ett' or 'sett' suffix means 'place.'


JT



 
That's interesting. It caugh my hear the name Massachusetts, because it is so widely known worldwide and from a song I can remember the title.
 
I looked for info about that about it in Wikipedia. And indeed Sett mean place. I wonder if the wiki definition is accurate:
 
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett, whose name can be segmented as mass-adchu-s-et, where mass- is "large", -adchu- is "hill", -s- is a diminutive suffix meaning "small", and -et is a locative suffix, identifying a place. It has been translated as "at the great hill," "by the many small hills" "at the little big hill," or "at the range of hills," referring to the Blue Hills, or in particular, Great Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton, to the southwest of Boston.[2][3][4] (c.f. the Narragansett name Massachusuck;[3] Ojibwe misajiwensed, "of the little big hill").
 
 
 
 
 


Edited by pinguin - 18-Nov-2007 at 21:13
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 21:15
Originally posted by longshanks31

it was gaelic here i think, after many waves of people coming here, its divided into three forms, welsh, scotch gaelic and the almost extinct cornish gaelic.
In the scheme of things english as we know it is quite modern.
 
Gaelic? That's a form of Celtic language, isn't? Does people in Britain still speak Gaelic? I found out a community in Argentina that still speaks Welsh. I hope that language is preserved. I wonder if it shows in the toponimics of your land.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 21:16
Originally posted by Temujin

some celtic dialect.
 
Are there where you live names that people don't know the meaning in German? That would be interesting to find out.
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 21:44
pinguin, welsh is alive and well, id say although it is a guess there are atleast a million welsh speakers here minimum maybe two million at the most, a few hundred thousand scotch gaelic speakers and cornish im sorry to say is almost a lost language.
 
gaelic does have celtic heritage, but there are many celtic languages, many lost today i imagine.
 
the welsh were the origonal occupants of the island along with the scots and the picts, pictish as far as im aware is no longer alive as a language.
 
when the angles, saxons and jutes arrived in britain the celts were push north and westward settleing in wales, scotland and cornwall.
 
the picts possibly the oldest tribe of these islands were already in scotland, they became overwhelmed and consumed by the scots.
 
scots gaelic though linked to the welsh language is very very different its possible that the pictish language greatly influenced the scots language and hence the great difference.
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 21:51
i believe there is a lot of welsh descendants in argentina, many went there in years gone by to raise sheep, its nice to know the language has a new home there and is aliveThumbs%20Up, thanks pinguin
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  Quote Styrbiorn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2007 at 22:32
South Sweden: Swedish/Danish/Norwegian.
North Sweden: Sami.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2007 at 00:18
Originally posted by Styrbiorn

South Sweden: Swedish/Danish/Norwegian.
North Sweden: Sami.
 
Sami!
 
That's interesting! Besides the language of the Norse it is also interesting... samples please...
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2007 at 00:23
Originally posted by longshanks31

i believe there is a lot of welsh descendants in argentina, many went there in years gone by to raise sheep, its nice to know the language has a new home there and is aliveThumbs%20Up, thanks pinguin
 
 
Yes. Please visit this thread. They still speak welsh there.. amazing.
 
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  Quote Patch Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2007 at 01:35
Originally posted by longshanks31

it was gaelic here i think, after many waves of people coming here, its divided into three forms, welsh, scotch gaelic and the almost extinct cornish gaelic.
In the scheme of things english as we know it is quite modern.
 
No such thing as 'Cornish Gaelic' Cornish is a Brythonic 'p' Celtic language very similar to Welsh and Breton..  Gaelic is a 'q' Celtic language originally spoken in Ireland and related to the Celti Iberian 'q' Celtic.
 
Earliest known language of mainland UK was an early form of Welsh, which depending on which theory you believe was very similar to Gaulish. 
 


Edited by Patch - 19-Nov-2007 at 01:44
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Nov-2007 at 01:51
Hey, and what place names in Britain are in Brythonic, Celt Iberian, Welsh et al?
 
That would be nice to know


Edited by pinguin - 19-Nov-2007 at 01:51
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