Welcome to Ponyglots! The group for language (and pony) lovers.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what languages you know and/or studying.

Me first!

Native Language: American English
I studied Japanese for 7 years since high school and passed the JLPT level 2.
I am currently studying German.
Duolingo account: The_Ox

I enjoy learning languages and I also want to learn French, Dutch, Russian, and maybe some other languages.

Native Language: American English
No, I'm not American born. I'm actually from the Philippines.
I have a basic undersanding of the Tagalog dialect of the Filipino language and studied French for a semester and a half in high school.

I would love to learn French, any form of sign language, Japanese, Dovahzuul and Elvish.

Hey I am Greek and Nionios is a Greek Slang for my real name. You can just call me Dennis. I study Computer Engineering and love changelings and QC!

Well, I'm American but I have been learning some Arabic and my parents are Indian so I catch up on some Urdu. Below is Arabic I've written. Please let me know if it's any good and sorry for mistakes. Thanks.

مرحبا. أنا أمريكي وأتكلم اللغة الانجليزية وأعمل اللغة العربية قليلا بسبب دراسات في جامعتي
وأستطيع أن أعمل اللغة الأردية قليلا ولكن لا أتكلمها لأن سكنتُ في أمريكا ووالداني من الهند

-W.S.

Name's LupoMikti, Lupo for short. My native language is American English, of the California Central Valley variety.

I'm currently studying… uh, 11 languages at varying rates of diligence. They are in no particular order, Dutch, Esperanto, Nowegian (Bokmål), Ukrainian, German, Turkish, Danish, Irish, Italian, Swedish, and Spanish. I would very much like to learn Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese, then other dialects), Korean, Swahili, Amharic, Hebrew, Arabic, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, and basically any other language that exists.

You can find my Duolingo profile here.

In addition to the plethora of languages I'm learning, I am also constructing a few languages. Click here for the incomplete Beta documentation of the first of these languages called Lykärn. If you have any questions about it, just PM me

Now, for the non-language-related information: I am currently studying Computer Science and Theoretical Astrophysics (at least I will be in full once I transfer to a four-year university). I enjoy Classical and Metal music mostly and currently work as a math tutor at my school.

4422185
Hello My native language is Polish and I also speak English and German. I can also understand Czech, Slovakian, Dutch, and some Russian. I used to learn Latin for a while, but I don't have enough vocabulary to speak it fluently.

4422862
4423014
4423361
4423606
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It's great to have you all on board!

4423361
Sorry, can't help you with any Urdu. Have you tried Google Translate or Babelfish?

4423606
Geez. 11 languages at once!? You love languages more than me! How are you able to study them all at the same time? I'm going to have to ask you about your study methods. I also am going to make a Duolingo account!

4423721
I've met a few Poles before and they have all been wonderful people and spoke a multitude of languages (and I would become instantly jealous.). I would love to see Poland someday.

4424369 Haha, sometimes I wonder if I actually have a problem, if it's even possible to get addicted to learning. Study methods… well I'm not fluent in any of those languages yet, so I wouldn't take a page out my book any time soon. Eventually, I'll begin to focus on each language until fluency, moving from one to the next.

And that's great you're starting a Duolingo account! Let me know your username when you do and I'll follow you. A lot of the time the competition element is what can keep one going every day.

4422185 late to the party! My native language is American English, and I've studied French for about two years. A few years ago I taught myself to write in Tengwar (Tolkien elvish), and I've also dipped a little into Persian. I love learning new alphabets!
Right now I'm studying English and editing, but I'd love to take a crack at some more languages once I get a handle on French.

Oh wow. --Why did I not find this group earlier!?

So. . . I thusly introduce myself.

I am Chicago Ted. My native language is English-- mainly a blend of Southern American from my parents, and Californian from my friends, mixed in with some British and Australian for good measure. It's a bit hard to pinpoint which is it exactly.

I first got into linguistics back last summer, when I first joined the site. After taking a year of high school Spanish (which is very basic), I used the same strategies to pick up Albanian, Esperanto, Kēlen, and words and phrases of various other languages, in varying degrees, from as familar as French, German, and Russian, to as far away as Turkish, Afrikaans, and Navajo!

I currently aspire to construct an international auxiliary language that encompasses all language families (not like Esperanto, which focused on Indo-European langauges-- even ignoring the Indo-Iranian branch!).

I also have a project on Fimfiction where users translate a poem into various languages. Access it here. --Any languages not done yet are welcome.

In addition, I keep track of stories on a dedicated "Linguafics" bookshelf. All stories there utilize at least two different languages (counting English), no matter where or in what amounts. It is accessible to the public-- simply click here. (Note: Mature-rated content is present in the Linguafics bookshelf.)

So, with that said, it's nice to connect with other people who can speak other languages. Until then, dear reader!
--Chicago Ted

4495141 You… you are now my favorite person on this site. Kaj ĉu vi parolas Esperanton!? That's awesome. I'm learning the basics using Duolingo at the moment (well… I haven't done a lesson in a week or two). And somehow we both have the same idea of a "Linguistics Theory of Everything" where a language is constructed from all the language families. This is basically too good to be true right now.

That poem thing sounds awesome by the way. So awesome, I decided to take the time to translate it into the language I'm constructing (it may not be for international auxlang purposes, but it's fun nonetheless). It's meant to be a West Germanic sounding language with Modern Greek used as the root language for the words (yeah, not quite skilled enough to go completely a priori, but that's what I hope to do with the second language I create). It's called Lykärn.

Pfoso Pörz, Mäd Dyso Pörz

Ene einkil viel\
Kermoref od ener reun\~
De ämde synözj ke äld
Pfosor pörz, mäd dysor pörz,
Pallo ein ner
Fasipözj de viel olpfetre.

De pfetrefsu viel\
Kolref od der ämde\~
Dekctesj: dak köra
:Pfoso pörz, mäd dyso pörz:,
Pallo vnece enak pota
A teige od ker.

De iplerefsu viel\
Peloref od dar pota\~
Sjprene: föl dar keuleda
:Pfoso pörz, mäd dyso pörz:,
Pallo vnece enak rämiasu telema,
O aktime.

Dei vytasadikoren\
Wiskref pfose viel\~
Tirizörew teje gogien.
«Pfoso pörz!», «Jes, dyso pörz!!»
Pallo vnecrew dak fasiporemad::
Dek emraude jiw esrähuma:.

Pfose kariesre viel\
Senzef kalepliezore\~
Da sorgmystu cvorema talene äld
Pfosor pörz, mäd dysor pörz,
Pallo ein naydro nikausj
Sur mäner mlosun cma.

Dyso dio naydro\
atychaoli sjtagref toje viel\~
Dan dravsman cerkiprew: wid der ämde,
:Pfoso pörz, mäd dyso pörz:,
Pallo vnecrew de tendeplo::
Dek emraudrew jiw:.

If you'd like to see my (incomplete) Beta Documentation for Lykärn in Google Doc format, click here. It has a table of contents and everything, so if your just interested in the phonology for now, you can get to it quickly. Anything with a single '\', '*', or '$' is started but not complete, anything with two isn't even started yet. If there's no special symbol, then the section is 'complete'.

Anyways, it's nice to finally meet another person interested in linguistics on this site. I wish you all the luck in your language creation.

Idömö won dorn sylon…

Lupo

P.S. I just realized I didn't capitalize any of the nouns that were capitalized in the poem… whoops

4504667

You… you are now my favorite person on this site.

Aww, thanks mate!

Kaj ĉu vi parolas Esperanton!?

Jes, certe, mi povas paroli Esperanton, ĉar kial ne? --Esperanto estas bonan lingvon, paroli! Just take a look at my bio. It means "To speak only one language is to use only one color of paint. The language of friendship is not words but meanings."

I'm learning the basics using Duolingo at the moment

Duolingo? Never heard of it. I used a combination of Google Translate, Glosbe (vocabulary), Omniglot (commonly-used phrases), and Wikipedia (grammar) to learn Esperanto.

And somehow we both have the same idea of a "Linguistics Theory of Everything" where a language is constructed from all the language families. This is basically too good to be true right now.

Hey-- why not collaborate!?

That poem thing sounds awesome by the way.

Please, you're starting to make me blush. . . .

So awesome, I decided to take the time to translate it into the language I'm constructing

Wow, awesome!

It's meant to be a West Germanic sounding language with Modern Greek used as the root language for the words (yeah, not quite skilled enough to go completely a priori, but that's what I hope to do with the second language I create). It's called Lykärn.

I'm Lykärn it already. *rimshot*

A West Germanic language, eh? I've never come across it before, despite seeing a few North Slavic languages (i.e. Slevan) before.

Anyways, it's nice to finally meet another person interested in linguistics on this site. I wish you all the luck in your language creation.

Thanks!

--Chicago Ted

UPDATE: Your translation has been published. Dankon! (How do you say "Thank you" in Lykärn?)

4504766 Published!? I didn't think you'd go for using somebody's random constructed language in such a project, so thank you so much. Hehe, collaborating sounds fun, but my other interests tend to distract me from reaching my full linguistic potential (I mean, my short bio alone should give you an idea of what I mean). However, I am willing to try. I've always thought the best way to combine all the language families was to create numerous constructed languages utilizing smaller amounts of families and then finding ways to combine those together. It's just rather unfortunate that some language families are so different from others that it would seem to be nearly impossible to combine them.

Duolingo is a free online language learning program that's pretty much taken the language learning scene by storm. All the courses are created by bilingual volunteers, and the brilliant programmers and staff at Duolingo. The people supply the language and Duo provides the platform for learning them. It's interesting to see the kinds of challenges they have to overcome for certain languages like teaching non-latin scripts, or right-to-left scripts (not quite there yet, but Hebrew is in development and I believe we'll get Arabic soon after that), or logographic writing systems like Chinese (which isn't available for nonnative speakers for a different reason: there are too many ways to translate things in, particularly Indo-European, languages than their system can currently handle). I definitely recommend checking it out, especially since people are so willing to share their other resources for language learning (Duo won't get you fluent, not yet at least, and we're a ways off from that. At most, a well developed course will get you B1, but most likely you'd end up at A2, about what you might get from 4 years of a language in High School and some extra outside study and practice).

Oh, and as for an example of a West Germanic language, German and Dutch fit the bill quite nicely.
The East Germanic languages have been extinct for some time now. North Germanic languages include the Scandinavian languages, like Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

Thanks (as in the quick shortened form) is Chaman. It's literally the noun "thanks" as in "to give thanks".

Thank you is done with the verb "to give thanks" which makes it a dative verb in the language. Instead of a direct object, it is followed by an indirect object because the DO is the implied noun "thanks". That verb is Chare (all verb infinitives end in -re, except for "to be" a modal for "may, might" and the two pseudo-verb constructions "there is/are" and "here is/are"). To say "thank you" usually implies the speaker is the subject or part of the subject; it's really "I thank you" that needs to be translated which comes out to be Cha ler for singular informal you, Cha lir for plural informal, Cha sar for singular formal, and Cha sir for plural formal. To say it with an implied "we" as the subject, cha becomes charem.

To add a "very much", add the word pekoli after your "thank you". So Cha ler becomes Cha ler pekoli.

"Ch" is pronounced the same as German "ch", mostly.

Since I originally created Lykärn with the dual purpose of helping me to better learn linguistics, and to act as my idea of a wolf-race language if wolves existed in the show, there are some specific features of the language that only make sense in the context of wolf packs. For example, I envision there being six major packs, each with its own special farewell based on a pack creed. The one I usually sign my comments with translates literally as "Stick to the shadows" where the imperative "stick" is a formal affirmative polite command form of the verb emore, with the command prefix Ido and the subjunctive suffix -u, to change the word to Idömö after spelling rules are applied. A more appropriate interpretaion is "take care" or "be careful where you're going" depending on tone and level of concern.

Idömö won dorn sylon…

Lupo

4505094

I didn't think you'd go for using somebody's random constructed language in such a project, so thank you so much.

You're welcome! Actually, there are several constructed languages cataloged in the project-- Esperanto, Kēlen, Lojban, Klingon (latinized and pIqaD), Dragon Language (the one featured in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim), and now Lykärn. I did the first five of them.

Oh, and as for an example of a West Germanic language, German and Dutch fit the bill quite nicely.
The East Germanic languages have been extinct for some time now. North Germanic languages include the Scandinavian languages, like Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

NOT AGAIN! (I get left and right mixed up all the time. Having two different wests and easts (those relative to Europe and the United State) doesn't exactly help. So yeah, I have heard of West Germanic languages-- and one East Germanic language (Crimean Gothic).)

4505094

I've always thought the best way to combine all the language families was to create numerous constructed languages utilizing smaller amounts of families and then finding ways to combine those together. It's just rather unfortunate that some language families are so different from others that it would seem to be nearly impossible to combine them.

Not so. Take the first-person pronoun, I. In Spanish this is yo, in French je, in Russian ya (я). In various Turkic languages, it is men, min, me, or mi. (Turkish is the exception-- ben.) In the Uralic family, we have én (Hungarian), minä (Finnish), mina (Estonian), and mun (North Sami).

Seeing the pattern? They all faintly sound like the English word me. Now let's try Afro-Asiatic: Arabic ʾāna (أنا), Hebrew ʾani (אני), Syriac ʾenā (ܐܢܐ), Coptic anok (ανοκ). With native American languages, we have ñuqa (Quechua), miyé (Lakota), and ne (Nahuatl).

Oftentimes, due to semantic drift, we get false cognates-- i.e. Navajo shí and ni likely swapped places.

Notice that the words tend to use a nasal consonant, articulated at the alveoli. It may be articulated in a different manner, like a stop, or in a different place. The vowel is front and high (perhaps lowering or shifting back).

Therefore, our so-called "Linguistic Theory of Everything" language would probably use the first-person pronoun ni.

4505261 You have opened my eyes to the true nature of linguistics… I can only hope to reach your level of knowledge in the future.

Seriously, when you put it that way, it's obvious my idea was wrong. And it actually made me laugh because the first person pronoun of Lykärn is basically the opposite of all that

I remember back three years ago when I decided to not use any base language for the personal pronouns, that I saw the exact patterns you just described and thought something along the lines of "Well, let's be different. I want the exact opposite of that for my first person pronoun." The result was Ro. An approximant and a back vowel. Hard to get more opposite from the general trend of nasal and front vowel than that

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An approximant and a back vowel.

Actually, rhotic approximants are pretty rare in the world's languages. More often, they're trills.

Since Lykärn is a Germanic language, you can get away with an approximant-- virtually all Germanic languages have that feature. (The only exception I can think of off the top of my head is Danish-- it uses a uvular trill, similar to French-- but even then it's specific to only a few dialects.)

4506470 Yeah, that was one of the first things I learned back then. Of course I didn't quite know IPA yet, so the site I learned that info from simplified it to "English R", but I got the gist of what they meant.

Fun fact about R in Lykärn: it's actually up to the speaker whether to pronounce them as a rhotic or alveolar approximant or as an alveolar tap/flap (or trills if that's what their native language does). I decided to make the R so flexible simply because my experience with Spanish actually makes me pronounce the tap in certain situations over the approximant. I like the way the tap sounded in those situations and rather than make some crazy system of rules to follow that would tell you when to tap and when not to tap, I decided, R's get to be pronounced just about however they would be pronounced in your native tongue and can be mixed throughout the language, meaning you don't have to stick with one pronunciation. Retroflex is about the only one I don't really see being 'correct' for Lykärn (not the best choice of word but it'll do for now).

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my experience with Spanish actually makes me pronounce the tap in certain situations over the approximant.

Albanian and Armenian make the same distinctions. Albanian writes them the same way as Spanish, while romanized Armenian uses ṙ for the trill. (Armenian uses its own distinct alphabet.)

it's actually up to the speaker whether to pronounce them

Well, that's funny, because Lojban has the same attitude about rhotics. They usually transcribe it as an alveolar trill, but in theory any rhotic sound will do.