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Kainser posted:I'm surprised that Lithuania is so high when both Latvia and Estonia has significantly larger russian minorities.
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Jul 1, 2014 19:25
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Mu Cow posted:I think the idea is that they're trying to form a Sunni Arab state, so they've left alone areas that are neither Sunni nor Arab or already controlled by Sunni Arabs. If that's the goal, they should at least add all of Jordan to their map.
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Jul 1, 2014 19:29
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English is the second most spoken second language in the UK, Spanish in Spain? If they're counting national languages, shouldn't these be in first place?
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Jul 1, 2014 19:33
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Patter Song posted:If that's the goal, they should at least add all of Jordan to their map. They're still fabricating the claim.
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Jul 1, 2014 19:33
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This is how you know goons are massive nerds, the entirety of D&D is using Paradox references. And posting in D&D.
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Jul 1, 2014 19:34
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Phlegmish posted:English is the second most spoken second language in the UK, Spanish in Spain? If they're counting national languages, shouldn't these be in first place? Honestly, I would've assumed English to be the most common second language in the UK and the map is probably being real merciful to the French skills of your average native English speaker in the UK.
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Jul 1, 2014 19:36
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I know what the map means, I just assumed immigrants speaking the national language as a second language would have boosted it to first place. Yes, always take self-report data with a grain of salt. I honestly doubt 71% of the ever-modest Dutch speak good German.
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Jul 1, 2014 19:41
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Kinda depends on what constitutes a 'conversation'. I'm pretty sure I could point a german to the local library, but I'd have a lot more trouble discussing the finer points of EU politics.
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Jul 1, 2014 19:46
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I wonder how/why there's as many as 1% Russian speakers in Belgium (more by percentage than in Netherlands, Luxemburg or France). East-European immigrants?
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Jul 1, 2014 21:04
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Phlegmish posted:English is the second most spoken second language in the UK, Spanish in Spain? If they're counting national languages, shouldn't these be in first place? It is more likely to be immigrants speaking English as a second language but it could also be those who speak Welsh as a first language. There are schools in Wales that teach in Welsh with English as second language.
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Jul 1, 2014 21:16
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Carbon dioxide posted:I wonder how/why there's as many as 1% Russian speakers in Belgium (more by percentage than in Netherlands, Luxemburg or France). East-European immigrants?
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Jul 1, 2014 21:32
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"Croatian" for Slovenia and "Czech" for Slovakia seems like cheating, the languages are in all likelyhood similar enough to the respective national languages that they understand each other without trouble.quote:quote:quote:quote:quote:
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Jul 1, 2014 21:32
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Kopijeger posted:why is Spanish more widespread in France than either German or Italian? Anecdotally this seems correct. The vast majority of people I know took Spanish instead of German as their second foreign language because they think it's way easier. e: Also, lots of schools don't have Italian teachers.
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Jul 1, 2014 21:39
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Kopijeger posted:It is difficult to believe that Austrians are that much better at English than the Federal Germans. This but I tend to think the worst of our southern cousins so what do I know. I'm not surprised that the Italians and French don't learn much German, there is a lot of cultural baggage there.
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Jul 1, 2014 21:43
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Zudgemud posted:So basically eat the poorer half of Iraq, gorge themselves on all of Syria except the Alawite stronghold of Latika, and not even nibble a bit on either Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Jordan or Saudi Arabia? That is some weak rear end caliphate. They just said they'd tear out the qaba (Mecca rock) before inviting in Sunni intelligentsia which probably means even they have no idea what's going on.
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Jul 1, 2014 21:48
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Sithsaber posted:They just said they'd tear out the qaba (Mecca rock) before inviting in Sunni intelligentsia which probably means even they have no idea what's going on. They don't have to go that far, within a few years the Saudis will have built a WalMart on top of it.
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Jul 1, 2014 21:55
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Soviet Commubot posted:Anecdotally this seems correct. The vast majority of people I know took Spanish instead of German as their second foreign language because they think it's way easier. Nobody took German when I was in school, we were like 10 in class, while the Spanish and English First Language classes were choke full of students. You often hear about how there are fewer and fewer students taking German as First Language. Apparently, there was a spike of German students when Tokyo Hotel were popular haha, but that's it. Italian is a Third Language class (only in high school, usually). My experience with languages in the French school system: collège (middle school): First Language: English or German. Second Language: Spanish, German, English (compulsory if you took German as first language) High school: Third Language: Italian. (some schools offer other choices, for example I know a private school where they had Japanese classes). First and Second Languages are compulsory, third languages is optional. There's also the ancient language option: Latin or Ancient Greek. Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 21:59
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Soviet Commubot posted:Anecdotally this seems correct. The vast majority of people I know took Spanish instead of German as their second foreign language because they think it's way easier. It would be. Both French and Spanish (well, and Italian) are Romance languages, so they are relatively similar. German and English are both Germanic languages, which makes them harder to learn for native Romance speakers. But, in my experience German has lots and lots confusing little grammar rules (e.g. word genders, grammatical cases that change spelling) that English got rid of long ago, making English the easier language to learn of the two, at least for writing. I'm a native Dutch speaker. Dutch language (also in the Germanic family) got rid of some of the confusing grammar rules in the last century, but not nearly all of them. I wouldn't mind if it evolved further in the direction English went. E: By the way, German lost a lot of importance to English in the last few decades anyway. As an example, many important publications in the field of chemistry were only released in German half a century ago. Nowadays nearly everything in the field is in English. It makes my job a hell of a lot easier. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 21:59
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Carbon dioxide posted:It would be. Both French and Spanish (well, and Italian) are Romance languages, so they are relatively similar. Grammatical genders are not confusing, and so called "irregular verbs" are often very regular strong Germanic verbs. It's also tragic that German is one of the few (Western) European languages to retain a case system, Latin had it as well and it rules. It's really sad how languages get dumbed down, German is currently losing one of it's four grammatical cases (though it's by far the least used one).
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Jul 1, 2014 22:09
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Torrannor posted:Grammatical genders are not confusing, and so called "irregular verbs" are often very regular strong Germanic verbs. It's also tragic that German is one of the few (Western) European languages to retain a case system, Latin had it as well and it rules. It's really sad how languages get dumbed down, German is currently losing one of it's four grammatical cases (though it's by far the least used one). The purpose of language is accurate communication so it being more streamlined (or "dumbed down" ) is the ideal.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:22
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computer parts posted:The purpose of language is accurate communication so it being more streamlined (or "dumbed down" ) is the ideal. The purpose of language is to articulate meaning. Having only one word for "move fast" (ie run) reduces my means and scope of expression. Your think be ungood.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:30
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Torrannor posted:It's really sad how languages get dumbed down, German is currently losing one of it's four grammatical cases (though it's by far the least used one). computer parts posted:The purpose of language is accurate communication so it being more streamlined (or "dumbed down" ) is the ideal. Both of these views are pretty stupid. More analytic languages can convey the exact same information as more synthetic ones; this "accuracy" point makes no sense on any level, but generally quantifying languages on a simple-complex spectrum is pointless and ill-informed.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:35
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Sithsaber posted:The purpose of language is to articulate meaning. Having only one word for "move fast" (ie run) reduces my means and scope of expression. Your think be ungood. In your example you're not conveying your meaning accurately because you're only using one verb for a variety of circumstances.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:41
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Based on my anecdotal experiences as a Swede, i highly doubt that as many as 1 in 4 Swedes speak German fluently enough to hold a conversation. I would guesstimate that less than 5% of Swedes are that fluent. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 22:57
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computer parts posted:In your example you're not conveying your meaning accurately because you're only using one verb for a variety of circumstances. Exactly.
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Jul 1, 2014 23:01
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Torrannor posted:It's really sad how languages get dumbed down, German is currently losing one of it's four grammatical cases (though it's by far the least used one). They're not getting dumbed down, the information is still there, it just takes a different form. Languages which don't use a case system rely more on rigid sentence structure and prepositions to distinguish between subject and object. It only seems dumbed down because it's the system we're most familiar with, which makes it seem simple. English speakers find Finnish complex because it has a massive case system, but Finnish lacks grammatical gender, articles, prepositions, and a distinct future tense. To Finnish speakers, these concepts are strange and complex. Sithsaber posted:The purpose of language is to articulate meaning. Having only one word for "move fast" (ie run) reduces my means and scope of expression. Your think be ungood. He was referring to changes in grammar structure. Reducing vocabulary would of course hamper communication. Although, you reminded me of something from Russian. In Russian, they have four "verbs of motion" which distinguish between how a person is moving (by self or by vehicle) and direction (one-way or return). In English, we just use "go". Russian speakers are usually surprised by this omission, while English speakers wonder why Russian requires such distinctions.
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Jul 2, 2014 01:05
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Mu Cow posted:He was referring to changes in grammar structure. Reducing vocabulary would of course hamper communication. Although, you reminded me of something from Russian. In Russian, they have four "verbs of motion" which distinguish between how a person is moving (by self or by vehicle) and direction (one-way or return). In English, we just use "go". Russian speakers are usually surprised by this omission, while English speakers wonder why Russian requires such distinctions. There are more than four: http://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/verbs_motion.php
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Jul 2, 2014 01:32
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Sithsaber posted:The purpose of language is to articulate meaning. Having only one word for "move fast" (ie run) reduces my means and scope of expression. Your think be ungood. Linguistic relativity is not a thing that exists, any meaning can be expressed in any language, though theoretically it could require an indefinite amount of syntax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
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Jul 2, 2014 01:43
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Your thinking be ungood. I talk wordy, not differenty. I don't get how stepanworf relates to clarification. Sithsaber fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jul 2, 2014 |
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Jul 2, 2014 02:09
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Could people who have obviously never taken a single linguistics class please stop making GBS threads up the thread? Thanks!
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Jul 2, 2014 03:17
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Verus posted:Could people who have obviously never taken a single linguistics class please stop making GBS threads up the thread? Thanks! 1. Fax me your degree. 2. Who's in the wrong here? It looks like all of us are mistakenly focusing on different aspects of the same concept.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:24
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Most up to date map of Syria and Iraq:
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Jul 2, 2014 03:42
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Bro Dad posted:Most up to date map of Syria and Iraq: Is there a color code to go along with it?
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Jul 2, 2014 03:45
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Bro Dad posted:Most up to date map of Syria and Iraq: With a legend (and jpeg artifacts): 
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Jul 2, 2014 03:45
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It's all been downhill since the days of proto-Indo-European, sad to say.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:46
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The Kurds not having their own country just strikes me as really stupid. Is there any good reason not to form one now that Iraq and Syria are collapsing?
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Jul 2, 2014 03:47
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OctaviusBeaver posted:The Kurds not having their own country just strikes me as really stupid. Is there any good reason not to form one now that Iraq and Syria are collapsing? Don't know if you count it as a good reason but Turkey would at the very least be unhappy with it.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:53
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Anosmoman posted:Don't know if you count it as a good reason but Turkey would at the very least be unhappy with it. Turkey really wants that oil and a way to spite the Muslim brotherhood crushing GCC.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:57
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For map game fans, our Google overlords today have launched their own thing: http://smartypins.withgoogle.com/.
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Jul 2, 2014 09:13
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Pretty easy to get the diamond pin if you set the topic to history or geography. Fun game though.
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Jul 2, 2014 11:26
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