Re: "Usefull languages"

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 22:54:14 +0100, Florian Rivoal
<florian.rivoal@...> wrote:

>Hi every one
>
>When it comes to conlanguing, I think it is very usefull to have a large
knowledge about natlangs. It woudl like to know what language you think is
usefull to know. Not if it is spoken by many people or any thing like this. I
>mean Languages that are exotic enough to make you think about features that tdo
not exist in your mother language, and that could be usefull for conlaging. I
will start with my own list of languages I know, and what i like
>them ofr
My list:

Spanish, if you live in the US (and particularly the southern row of states).

Basque, so you can learn what ergative noun grammar is like.

Korean, for its phonetic writing system, and I like the sound of it anyways
(though it might be considered "rough" in layman's terms).

Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic/Syriac and Ge'ez/Amharic/Tigrinya if you're a member of
an "Abrahamic" religion (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Bahai'i, Mandaean,
Samaritan -- and one might include Zoroastrian since there is some Judaic
influence there). In fact, Semitic is probably the closest to Nostratic, if such
a distant-past proto-language ever existed.

Yiddish. Where else can you find expressions like "what are you, meshugginah"
and "that shikse's so sheyn I thought I was gonna plotz".

Old and Middle English, if you're an English-speaker who wants "get to one's
roots".

French, since it was what English is now in the world, and if you're American or
Canadian, that's part of your heritage, especially if you're Quebecois(e) or
Cajun.

Russian; there's a strong technical/scientific tradition there.

Ukrainian, Belarussian, Rusyn (or Carpatho-Ruthenian), and Old Russian, if you
speak Russian (you already know those languages at least somewhat). As a matter
of fact, just go ahead and learn ALL the Slavonic languages.

Greek and Latin, not only for their professional/scientific/religious usages,
but they are great aunts of modern European languages.

Irish and Scots Gaelic, if you're Irish (who isn't?)

Lithuanian -- it's modern Sanskrit... sort of....

Navajo (aka Dine), where you can find polysynthetic grammar, lateral affricates,
ejectives AND nasal vowels -- and with high or low tone too!

And finally, a Khoisan language like !Xu~, and I wish I could produce just a few
of those clicks.

~Danny~


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