Non English Earth languages and alien languages?

[Deckerd]

Interesting conversation. Native English speakers can't really comment on the ease or otherwise of learning English. That's the domain of all the non-native English speakers on the board. I have a smattering of French and Spanish and can say the gender of nouns is the biggest pitfall for an English speaker.

 

[Mr Silver]

I would imagine that Spock, for instance learnt the main human dialects as part of his education (considering his mother is human, Sarek likely made sure his son was fluent in both languages, "it is logical")

 

[Nerys Myk]

I have no idea what is possibly appealing about French. It's a combination between speaking through your nose and hocking up a hairball. There's nothing romantic about it. If you want something that really sounds romantic, Italian is the way to go. Melodic sounds, no speaking out of the nose or hocking hairballs.

Portuguese isn't as bad as French, but does have some of the same drawbacks.

Reminds me of a classic Steve Martin routine that ends with a choking sound and someone shouting "Help him! Help him! He spoke French!"

 

[Deckerd]

This is a convention of anti-Francophone posters called Nerys.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Nah, I just grew up listening Steve Martin's albums far too much.
The whole bit "Philosophy/Religion/College/Language" can be found here. The French thing is at the end.

 

[scotpens]

Different strokes for different people, I guess. Personally, I love French's “purring” sounds, and Portuguese has a sing-song quality that I find enchanting.

It's the lilting or up-and-down inflection that's also heard in the Irish, Scots, and Caribbean dialects of English. The scouse accent also has a noticeable lilt. I sometimes think Portuguese sounds like Spanish spoken by an Irishman who's just been to the dentist and has a jaw full of novocaine.

 

[Crewman47]

Different strokes for different people, I guess. Personally, I love French's “purring” sounds, and Portuguese has a sing-song quality that I find enchanting.

It's the lilting or up-and-down inflection that's also heard in the Irish, Scots, and Caribbean dialects of English. The scouse accent also has a noticeable lilt. I sometimes think Portuguese sounds like Spanish spoken by an Irishman who's just been to the dentist and has a jaw full of novocaine.

There's something I just thought of. Can you imagine a Trek alien with a Scottish, Irish or Scouse accent or trying to emulate an accent of any region?

 

[Myasishchev]

Interesting conversation. Native English speakers can't really comment on the ease or otherwise of learning English.

I dunno. English must be easy, since it was the only language I was ever smart enough to become fluent in.

 

[iguana_tonante]

It's the lilting or up-and-down inflection that's also heard in the Irish, Scots, and Caribbean dialects of English. The scouse accent also has a noticeable lilt. I sometimes think Portuguese sounds like Spanish spoken by an Irishman who's just been to the dentist and has a jaw full of novocaine.

You maybe onto something there. I'm far from a linguist, but as far as I remember, the Galician region of the Iberian peninsula had a very strong Celtic substratum, which could have very well influenced the speech pattern in the region, even if the lexicon was of Latin origins. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the Irish dialects is non-existent, but as a comparison,, Portuguese's sounds have a distinct similarity with the Catalan and Ligurian languages, which are know to have strong Celtic influence.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's the lilting or up-and-down inflection that's also heard in the Irish, Scots, and Caribbean dialects of English. The scouse accent also has a noticeable lilt. I sometimes think Portuguese sounds like Spanish spoken by an Irishman who's just been to the dentist and has a jaw full of novocaine.

You maybe onto something there. I'm far from a linguist, but as far as I remember, the Galician region of the Iberian peninsula had a very strong Celtic substratum, which could have very well influenced the speech pattern in the region, even if the lexicon was of Latin origins. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the Irish dialects is non-existent, but as a comparison,, Portuguese's sounds have a distinct similarity with the Catalan and Ligurian languages, which are know to have strong Celtic influence.

The wiki says Portuguese and Galician are closely related and that many people ( but not the Galicians) think Galician is a dialect of Portuguese. Oh and Galicia is derived from the Celtic tribe called Gallaeci by the Romans. The "gal" in Portugal is supposedly derived from Gallaeci.

Iberia was bretty much all Celtic till the Romans showed up. ( no offense )

 

[iguana_tonante]

None taken.

I live in Northern Italy, and ethnologically speaking I consider myself "Celtic" as much as "Roman" (whatever the terms could mean one thousand years after they ceased to be useful).

 

[Nerys Myk]

My wife's grandparents are from Northern Italy. With her blue eyes, red hair and fair skin not too many people think she's Italian as she doesn't fit the stereotype. The other side is Mexican and thats even a harder stretch for some folks.

 

[The_Baroness]

Heres a thought. How come, with the use of Universal Translators, are the Klingons still able to talk perfectly freely in their own language without it being translated and then back to being translated into English at the drop of hat. Usually, when they call someone a Patakh, or other such nonsense.

 

[Myasishchev]

More likely patagh seems to have become an English loanword.

 

[Timo]

Or then the UT censors all those words it considers dirty or potentially dirty, by refusing to translate them. Which means that some 12.3% of Klingonaase is left as is...

Alternately, Klingons on those occasions are throwing English insults around, in order to insult the humans present, and the UT indicates that by doing the reverse. This would be supported by the conversation in "Blood Oath":

Dax: "You never had much use for the Federation, did you, Koloth. I used to call you D'akturak (turns towards Kang, as if translating the word for him), 'Ice man' (turns back), because no proposal, no matter how reasonable, no matter how much it favoured the Klingon Empire would satisfy you."

Now, Kang obviously wouldn't need to get the English-to-Klingon translation of D'akturak from Dax. But then again, Dax wouldn't be speaking English in the presence of two fellow Klingons - she'd be speaking Klingon. OTOH, back during those old peace negotiations she's talking about, he was a Federation negotiator and probably was speaking English a lot.

So odds are, she's saying in Klingon that he used to call Koloth "Ice man", an English expression she then helpfully translates to Kang as "D'akturak"... And we the audience hear the conversation in reverse because we supposedly are all English and the UT does its best to serve us.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

^^^ Timo, did you consider that D'Akturak just might be Ice Man in Trill?
.
If D'Akturak were a Trill term, and hypothetically Kang didn't speak that language, then Dax's entire sentence makes sense.

 

[Timo]

Makes perfect sense - and satisfies the Klingon speakers among us, some of whom are no doubt already thinking that the Klingon words for "ice" and "man" are not evident at all in the construct "D'akturak"...

This assumes that there is such a thing as the Trill language, of course. Which runs contrary to another pet theory of mine, in which Trill is the name of the symbiont species only, and the hosts can come from any species as long as certain compatibility issues are met. The hosts would then likely provide their own language as well - Jadzia and Ezri would obviously be speaking Kriosian, for example...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deckerd]

I don't think symbionts can go into anything but Trills, as Ezri's experience demonstrated. It would be consistent with both species evolving on the same planet and symbiosis evolving at the same time.

 

[Timo]

But symbionts can go into William T. Riker!

Or to the other host species of "The Host". They simply happen to be very choosy (and needlessly so, as "Equilibrium" explicates), and pick a Kriosian whenever they can...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

... and pick a Kriosian whenever they can...

I was under the impression that the humanoid Trill and the Kriosian-Valtese were two separate species. Given how many species are outwardly identical to Humans, two (or more) peoples simply having spots shouldn't make them the same species.