Poll: One world language... that isn't yours.

[dicai]

Russian, always wanted to learn a totally different language with other letters than ours (And japanese is too challenging - too many random lines for writing a character)

 

[I Max95]

my family is mostly German so i picked that

 

[Ampersand]

Sign language! That would be fun.

 

[Vykrel]

Spanish is the closest to English, so i choose that, because id probably be able to learn it the easiest

Actually no. English is in the Germanic language family while Spanish is in the Romantic language family. And while both are in the larger Indo-European family both also have a lot of other languages that they are much closer to.

The closest language to English is a nearly dying language spoken in northeastern Netherland and northwest Germany called Frisian/Fries. After Frisian English's closest relative is either Dutch or German.

actually...yes. ive taken spanish in school and they are very similar. im not talking about how romantic a language is. why does that matter?

im talking about how close a lot of their words are to looking like our words

 

[pffh]

Spanish is the closest to English, so i choose that, because id probably be able to learn it the easiest

Actually no. English is in the Germanic language family while Spanish is in the Romantic language family. And while both are in the larger Indo-European family both also have a lot of other languages that they are much closer to.

The closest language to English is a nearly dying language spoken in northeastern Netherland and northwest Germany called Frisian/Fries. After Frisian English's closest relative is either Dutch or German.

actually...yes. ive taken spanish in school and they are very similar. im not talking about how romantic a language is. why does that matter?

im talking about how close a lot of their words are to looking like our words

I think you missed his point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

English is not that closely related to the romanic languages. Sure it's related to them but it's much more like the other germanic languages and of them the west germanic languages are on top (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languages).

Although as everyone knows the north germanic ones are the best.

Anyway my vote is for English

 

[Vykrel]

Spanish is the closest to English, so i choose that, because id probably be able to learn it the easiest

Actually no. English is in the Germanic language family while Spanish is in the Romantic language family. And while both are in the larger Indo-European family both also have a lot of other languages that they are much closer to.

The closest language to English is a nearly dying language spoken in northeastern Netherland and northwest Germany called Frisian/Fries. After Frisian English's closest relative is either Dutch or German.

actually...yes. ive taken spanish in school and they are very similar. im not talking about how romantic a language is. why does that matter?

im talking about how close a lot of their words are to looking like our words

I think you missed his point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

English is not that closely related to the romanic languages. Sure it's related to them but it's much more like the other germanic languages and of them the west germanic languages are on top (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languages).

Although as everyone knows the north germanic ones are the best.

Anyway my vote is for English

and i think you missed my point, just as he did. im not talking about how the languages are related. i honestly dont care about that.

im looking at it in the simplest way that i can. i am not a linguistics expert, such as you fine gents... im just a guy, and all i know is that Spanish has a lot of words that look very very similar to English words. some of them are even exactly the same. so, thats the language i would choose.

get it now?

 

[TDM]

Aufs Deutsch

Yeah, German. I'm Dutch, but my German is rather well and I got relatives there, so.

 

[pffh]

Spanish is the closest to English, so i choose that, because id probably be able to learn it the easiest

Actually no. English is in the Germanic language family while Spanish is in the Romantic language family. And while both are in the larger Indo-European family both also have a lot of other languages that they are much closer to.

The closest language to English is a nearly dying language spoken in northeastern Netherland and northwest Germany called Frisian/Fries. After Frisian English's closest relative is either Dutch or German.

actually...yes. ive taken spanish in school and they are very similar. im not talking about how romantic a language is. why does that matter?

im talking about how close a lot of their words are to looking like our words

I think you missed his point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

English is not that closely related to the romanic languages. Sure it's related to them but it's much more like the other germanic languages and of them the west germanic languages are on top (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languages).

Although as everyone knows the north germanic ones are the best.

Anyway my vote is for English

and i think you missed my point, just as he did. im not talking about how the languages are related. i honestly dont care about that.

im looking at it in the simplest way that i can. i am not a linguistics expert, such as you fine gents... im just a guy, and all i know is that Spanish has a lot of words that look very very similar to English words. some of them are even exactly the same. so, thats the language i would choose.

get it now?

But how closely languages are related directly translates to how similar they are (both grammar and the words themselves). So for example even if Spanish is similar to English, German is much more similar and would be that much easier for an English speaker to learn.

Besides building up a vocabulary is not the most difficult thing when learning new languages. It's learning the grammar and with closely related languages the grammar is quite similar.

 

[Yankeedoodles]

Spanish is the closest to English, so i choose that, because id probably be able to learn it the easiest

Actually no. English is in the Germanic language family while Spanish is in the Romantic language family. And while both are in the larger Indo-European family both also have a lot of other languages that they are much closer to.

The closest language to English is a nearly dying language spoken in northeastern Netherland and northwest Germany called Frisian/Fries. After Frisian English's closest relative is either Dutch or German.

actually...yes. ive taken spanish in school and they are very similar. im not talking about how romantic a language is. why does that matter?

im talking about how close a lot of their words are to looking like our words

So am I and I, too, have also studied Spanish. I'm saying that while English and Spanish share similarities because they are in the Indo-European language family (and because of globalization), they are in different subsets of the Indo-European language family.

Spanish is in the Romantic language subset, meaning that it evolved from the Latin spoken by the Romans (something having to do with the Romans is called Romantic regardless of how touchy feely it is). Other Romantic languages include: Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian and Romanian. These languages are closer to Spanish on a word-to-word comparison than English is.

English is in the Germanic language subset. It is descended from a language that was spoken by people in present day Scandinavia who then went on to conquer and settle Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and England. The major languages of this subset include: German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, English and Frisian. These languages are closer to English on a word-to-word comparison than Spanish is.

For instance the Spanish word for water is "agua", while in German it is "wasser". Same as with the word white: in Spanish it's "blanco" while in German it's "witte". See how the English word is closer to the German word?

Anyway, hopes that helps! I might have gone a bit over board in my explanation because I find language an interesting topic. If you have any other questions I'd suggest going to wikipedia and looking up "Indo-European languages", "Romantic languages" and "Germanic languages" or talk to your Spanish teacher. Cheers!

 

[Chal]

German is the only other language I'd be able to effectively communicate in, so I'll indulge in a little selfishness and pick that. Besides, it's from the county that produced Rammstein and Blind Guardian. Their language has to be doing something right.[footnote] Please don't hate me for my taste in music[/footnote]

 

[bubba145]

German or Russian both are easy to learn if you speak English.

 

[ThePinkAcidSmurf]

Why the hell can't I vote for English?

Because you ARE English!

No I'm not.

I meant because you already speak English.

It's not wether you speak it already or not, but if it's your primary language. Go read the first post again.

So the world decides to unify everyone under a common language, but doesn't know how to do it. So, they decide everyone must vote for the language they think would be best that isn't their primary language already. That means for most of you English is out. What would you vote for?

Personally I'd vote for Spanish. That language is simply music to my ears.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Spanish.

Because it's the only language I know other than English.

 

[THEMILKMAN]

igpay atinlay

That's "Pig Latin" for you uneducated yokels.

 

[The Great Zegrool]

Everyone that didn't vote Russian is just... really really mean.

You meanies.

 

[fgdfgdgd]

German, it's my family history, so if i was going to pick up a language, it'd be German. Hell, i even fit the steriotypes of a German, tall, dark eyes and hair, wide shoulders[small]...and inclinations to murder[/small] kidding...kidding[small]...but not really kidding.[/small]

 

[KatieKyosuke]

None of the above in the poll. I'd go for Japanese.

I'm fascinated with Japanese stuff, and I love the language.

 

[Blobpie]

What about Binary?

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000011 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01001100 01101001 01100101

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

Out of all those, Russian. I just think it sounds the coolest and would be the most interesting to learn.
Though Icelandic takes the award away from both in general.

 

[Edorf]

*votes English*