What is the official language of the European Union?

Clark   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 07:37 GMT
Criostoir, ya, ich schwetz en bissel Deitsch auf Pennsylvania un auf Deitshcland aa.
Criostóir   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 07:44 GMT
Salut Nic! D'où viens-tu en France? Je ne suis pas allemand - c'était mes grands-parents qui étaient allemands. En 1886, ils se déménagèrent aux Etats-Unis. Mais pendant mes années sur le high-school, je gagnai un prix qui me permit d'aller en Allemagne pour passer un an dans un famille comme élève d'échange, qui m'aida beaucoup à approfondir mes connaissances de la langue allemande. A l'université McGill, je me spécialisai en Langues classiques et Langue et Littérature allemandes. Maintenant, j'habite chez mes parents en Californie du sud.

Et toi, tu écris (et je pense aussi, probablement tu parles) très bien en anglais! Je suis heureux que tu t'es joint à notre discussion!

A la prochaine,

Criostóir, ou Christophe si tu le préfères - c'est le même nom :)
Criostóir   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 07:47 GMT
Clark,

wo hast du dein Deutsch gelernt? In der Schule oder in der Familie? Wenn du auch Französisch kannst, hast du vielleicht schon in meinem letzten Beitrag gelesen, wie ich dem Nic von meinen Erfahrungen mit der deutschen Sprache erzählte. Dieses Forum gefällt mir ja so sehr, da man die Möglichkeit hat, sich nicht nur auf allerlei Sprachen zu äußern, sondern auch sich dabei über allerlei Sprachen zu informieren. Einfach toll, wie dieses Gespräch über eine amtliche Sprache der Europäischen Union sich entfaltet hat!
Damian   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 07:54 GMT
Nic:

Bonjour

You are correct.....the Viking strain exists in some Scottish people, especially those living in the extreme north east of Scotland. If you go to areas like Sutherland, which is right in the north of mainland Scotland you will find tall blond people. I believe at one time the males here were among the tallest in the UK, averaging about 1,82m in height. It shows also in the blood groups of the indigenous local people. The Shetland and Orkney islands are closer to Norway than they are to southern England and here the Nordic / Viking influence is evident, even in the place names. Over most of Scotland the Celtic strain is of course predominant.
www.FreeCatalonia.com   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 10:20 GMT
www.FreeCatalonia.com
nic   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 10:23 GMT
Criostóir or Christophe,


I was born in Lyon my family is originally from the south (Avignon, Nîmes...). I work in Paris but i don't really like it, i'd like to go back in the south. So you are american, is Criostor (sorry the accent) a germanic, that's amazing how 2 countries can be neighbors and having so many diffenrences with names for example. I knew some germans can be called Marcus, Hanz... but Criostor sounds so "exotic" for a french hearing. I am all the time surpised when i see so many diffenrences about 2 cultures which are not far away. The most surprising is when you go to Belgium and when you meet some wallons and the flemmish, they are from the same country but are totally diffenrent.
Did you learn french only with francophone friends, if it's the case you are quite good on language learning. Thank you for the compliment, some anglophone told i spoke bad english mais c'est pas grâve!

I have some firends in Germany, Koeln and Stutgart, I enjoyed Koeln, very nice.

I tried to understand what you wrote on german, i don't understand 98% of it.

Damian,

Is celtic scottish language influenced by scandinavian? Long life to Scotland, the brave...
Ceaser - The Gaelic Scot now speaks!   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 13:36 GMT
Easterner - Thank you soo much. I finally purchaces a "Mastering German" set with 15 discs for English speakers who wish to achieve full fluency in spoken and written German. It apparently was designed to train foreign diplomats and servicemen who needed to use fluent German on a daily basis, so, I am putting my faith in it!

Criostóir - Failte!

Hallo a Criostoir, Ciamar a tha thu sibh? - Tha gu math agus Tha mi gle shgith, tapeadh leabh!

Slan!

To the rest - The Scottish do have plenty of Scandinavian blood in us, even the Gaelige and Gaidhlig languages have Icelandic words in them. It explains why the Scotts and Irish tend to be rather fair in appearance (creating some of Irelands hottest red-head gals!). The Icelanders, who are the closest to the original Viking people, tend to be very fair, blonde and blue eyed. Many Icelanders have Inuit (Native Aboriginal people of the Arctic) in them, so they come out with some beautiful people, like the Icelandic artist Bjork. The true Celts I think were much darker in appearance, the true original celts came from India.... and in fact, if you have ever tuned into a Punjabi or Hindi radio or TV station, Gaelic speakers get freaked out because we understand half of what they are saying! I have scared myself numerous times when I have listened to Indian Radio, because I understand a lot of it. I have expanded my language territory as well, I have been learning to read and write Hindi...!
Easterner   Thursday, August 05, 2004, 15:14 GMT
Ceaser,

The material you have sounds good. I think the basics of German will take some time to master, till you get used to the pronunciation and the grammatical peculiarities, but as you make a progress there will be less and less trouble - unlike English, which for me was easier as far as grammar was concerned, but I had more trouble with getting a grip of vocabulary at a more advanced level. At least compared to English, word building is more consistent in German, though here also a word can mean a lot of different things. I recommend listening to a German TV or radio channel at least a few times a week. Reading popular literature or even jokes is very useful as you make an advance (I think jokes are a really good example of everyday language use, and particularly in German I learnt a lot from them).
Clark   Friday, August 06, 2004, 06:03 GMT
Criostoir, ich hab [Pennsylvania] Deitsch gelannt mit en Buch un mit Freinde. Ich hab Deitsch (aus Deitschland in Europe) gelannt in die Schul un mit en Buch.
Criostóir   Friday, August 06, 2004, 06:55 GMT
Also dann Clark, wenn wir beide auf Dialekt reden sollten -

dei Pennsylvania Deitsch hert sich ån wia die boårische Mundart - i moan, in der Schui und sonst iargenwoa in Deitschlånd håb' mia imma Hochdeitsch reda müass'n, aber in der Fåmilie und unter Freinden is's imma of Boårisch g'wesa.

Some advice too, then, to Ceasar - there are lots of German dialects which can be very different from the Standard Hochdeutsch. If I were to speak in Bavarian with a man from the north who spoke Plattdeutsch, we wouldn't understand each other - that's how different the dialects can be!
Jordi   Friday, August 06, 2004, 07:58 GMT
Ceaser said: "the true original celts came from India.... and in fact, if you have ever tuned into a Punjabi or Hindi radio or TV station, Gaelic speakers get freaked out because we understand half of what they are saying!"
As a linguist who only speaks five related Romance languages, English and very basic German (some rusted Latin as well) that is the best joke I've heard in quite a long time. I might pass it on to some of my colleagues. I'm convinced that Ceaser is a Teaser. He can't be "Caesar"(vowels go the other way round), which would be a Roman emperor and his English is definitely odd for a native Scottish speaker who even spelt Edinburgh as Edinborough! A man of such a broad culture, which includes all the world's known languages ranging from Celtic, Romance, Germanic and even Asian linguistic groups, standards, dialects and sub-dialects... Could you please tell us if, in your wisdom, you also spent a summer or two learning Aboriginal languages in the Australian desert? I wouldn't be surprised at all. It's a pity there isn't anyone around to have a nice native abo chat with. I can assure that last linguistic jewel of yours has got me absolutely freaked out.
Jordi   Friday, August 06, 2004, 08:00 GMT
For some odd reason I seem to put Caeser and Criostóir in one same bag. Please forgive me.
Damian   Friday, August 06, 2004, 10:38 GMT

Nic:

<<Is celtic scottish language influenced by scandinavian>>

In reply, no, not at all. Those few areas of north and north east Scotland with the Scandinavian influence are outside the traditional Gaelic speaking parts in the north west and west.
Easterner   Friday, August 06, 2004, 10:50 GMT
Ceaser and Jordi,

I also find it strange that Gaelic and modern Indian languages should have so much in common. I have a very limited knowledge of both but I imagine they are a lot different. Though I have also read that Lithuanian peasants understood much of Sanskrit texts that were read to them. I don't know... I happened to stumble upon a Lithuanian radio station one night and it sounded much like a Slavic language with a strange twist (the melody was much like Russian).

It also strikes me as new that the Celts came from India. As I know they originally lived in present-day Austria, Bavaria and Switzerland (though they may heve lived somewhere else before that, who knows...). We have Gypsies in Hungary and they did come from India, so their language still has an Indian flavour. But I think they have little or not at all in common with the Celts.
Jordi   Friday, August 06, 2004, 12:18 GMT
Dear Easterner,
As far as the Gypsy language is concerned it is clearly related to contemporary Northern India dialects. That is the reason why we actually know where the gipsies diaspora originally came from in the Middle Ages. The racial similarities are evident but they wouldn't be enough for us to know where they came from. If you're interested I'm sure you'll find more information in the Internet. I studied that years ago but I clearly remember the strong similarities.
On the other hand, Celtic languages are as far away from Northern Indian languages as can possibily be imagined within the Indo-European group of languages they both belong to. I know that a lot of nonsense can be read in the Internet but printed letters aren't necessarily the truth.
It's like those who say that Basque would sound like Hungarian. That's also another lie.
It's far too easy, with the Internet, to copy and paste things in your mind without even reading the full articles that often appear without any bibliography.
Let us be more serious with these questions since many young people read this forum and might get all the wrong information.