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Re: List of natlangs

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Tuesday, December 15, 1998, 16:51
Tom Wier wrote:
> Tukano - (an interesting li'l lang in present day South America: the > people have a social taboo that one must marry outside one's > native linguistic group, which means _everyone_ is bilingual prettymuch)
Ah, yes, I've heard about them. It's actually a group of 20 different tribes, Tukano is the local lingua franca, so everyone is actually at least *tri*lingual, knowing their native lang, Tukano, and one other language. Many know more langs, some all 20. In fairness, over the millenia, the langs have influenced each other so much that they are now almost relexes of each other. There are no borrowed words, tho, since having distinct languages is so important to them, and they perceive languages as consisting of the vocabulary.
> Fun fact: they have only one word for both green and blue.
Quite a few langs are like that, no? -- "Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." -- Joseph Wood Krutch http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/ ICQ #: 18656696 AOL screen-name: NikTailor