Spanish

I will not object..........!!

 

wow, love this topic. i read that there are around 200k words commonly used in the english language with each person relying on 20 k plus, but the language itself has an estimated million words or so available. and as you so crappily pointed out, its easy to add new words!!

i cannot imagine how the chinese function where every definable thing or thought requires a separate symbol or group of characters to express in writing.

as you note english is the default language i think. in my early life you had to know some german and french if you wanted to read research work. now you don't.

its said to speak to a mans head talk to him in english, to speak to his heart speak in his native tongue. sorry, can't get there in bisaya. my fallback is to be a good tipper and hope that makes up for my laziness and ignorance.

one of the things i like so much about dumaguete forum is that with the cosmopolitan nature of the members i am constantly being sent back to the dictionary to understand some of what is said. not sure it makes me any more intelligent but certainly makes me more aware.

eschew obfuscation!!

 

ah, think, "wow, thats sharp" or "you wanna take this outside" or "i'll match you drink for drink"

i agree learning for it own sake is a good thing! (usually)

 

Not having to phrase ones sentences in gender would account for quicker comprehension of the English language sentence structure and having Latin roots found in so many European languages gives it a base millions can identify with. Your right about making up or even mistaken words allowing others to easily understand what you mean. Asawa ko will still say things like throw when she means drop but I get the idea.

 

The Romance languages picked up that gender structure from Latin. English does have a lot of Latin roots but it also has an early relationship to the West Germanic languages like Dutch, German and the Scandinavian languages and you find their roots in many English words, maybe more than Latin roots. Those languages did not structure gender into non-living things like the sea and the Earth (fortunately). Actually, when you sound out words in languages like Nederland (Dutch), the English word often becomes apparent. Maybe the flexible gender and wide spectrum of language origins helps make English easier to understand. Talking about gender structure, it is as if gender designation in the Bisaya language dies not even exist. How many times have you heard males referred to as “she” and males as “she” from Philippine English does hers here? They must have a real hard time dealing with gender specific Romance languages like Spanish.


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English does not have Latin roots, it has Germanic roots. That's not to say there's been no influence from Latin languages (notably French), but the English language sits firmly in the West Germanic group of languages, together with German, Dutch, Frisian and Low Saxon.
Just look at this short list of basic words and it's easy to see which of these belong in the same group of languages.

It's interesting to note that the French have been much more adamant to protect their language from creeping "foreign influence". They even passed a law to prevent a computer from being called computer in French (it's an "ordinateur" whereas most of the rest of the world didn't bother to make their own word).

As for gender, German and Dutch do use gender, also for non living things.
In German it's easier to see, e.g der Computer (m), die Welt (f) (the earth)
whereas in dutch it's harder because the article (de) is the same for male and female words, so the gender only shows when referring to "zijn" (his) or "haar" (her). Example: De boom verliest zijn blad (the tree loses its leaves).

And yes, Bisaya obviously doesn't have the gender concept at all.

 

I beg to differ with you.

English is full of Latin roots. It is the basis of a large part of our vocabulary. Germanic words also contribute roots. It is both.

Latin Root Words
The table below defines and illustrates 25 of the most common Latin roots.
Root Meaning Examples
ab to move away abstract, abstain, aversion
acer, acri bitter acrid, acrimony, exacerbate
audi hear audible, audience, auditorium
bene good benefit, benign, benefactor
brev short abbreviate, brief
circ round circus, circulate
dict say dictate, edict, dictionary
duc lead, make deduce, produce, educate
fund bottom founder, foundation, funding
gen to birth gene, generate, generous
hab to have ability, exhibit, inhabit
jur law jury, justice, justify
lev to lift levitate, elevate, leverage
log, logue thought logic, apologize, analogy
luc, lum light lucid, illuminate, translucent
manu hand manual, manicure, manipulate
mis, mit send missile, transmit, permit
omni all omnivorous, omnipotent, omniscent
pac peace pacify, pacific, pacifist
port carry export, import, important
quit silent, restive tranquil, requiem, acquit
scrib, script to write script, proscribe, describe
sens to feel sensitive, sentient, resent
terr earth terrain, territory, extraterrestrial
tim to fear timid, timorous
vac empty vacuum, vacate, evacuate
vid, vis to see video, vivid, invisible

The term "root" being used here in its true linguistic meaning.

Of course I will defer to you on that. However, your example use gender as a separate articles to modify the nouns and I was referring to a gender distinction on the words itself, such as "us" being used to indicate the masculine, for example Latin (senatus...senate) or for feminine “ae”, for example (copiae...troops) F.

I am curious, can I ask what is the gender designations in Dutch for:

1. Sea
2. Earth
3. Troops
4. Stone
5. Hand
[/QUOTE]

 

1. the sea - de zee (f)
2. the earth - de aarde (f)
3. the troops - de troepen (multiple) , the singular would be troep (m), but then the meaning is different, like in English also
4. the stone - de steen (m)
5. the hand - de hand (f)

Regarding the "roots" matter, when I stated English belongs in the West Germanic group of languages I was referring to the origin of the English language, or history if you will. I don't disagree there are many words in the English language that are inherited/derived from their Latin counterparts.