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Old 11-30-2010, 10:06 AM
 
Location: Brooklyn
40,049 posts, read 34,536,424 times
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Some years ago, the New York Times published a map of Africa the way it would look if the colonial powers had not imposed themselves there. Each individual tribe, being divided mainly by language, would have resulted in a continent with more than 450 separate nation-states.
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Old 11-30-2010, 12:06 PM
 
14,993 posts, read 23,824,916 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
Next time you should save your money and just stay at home watching YouTube, you would apparently learn more.

Ahh the internet life.
Why get married? I can just look at Youtube chicks on the internet.
Why go out to eat? I can watch YouTube broadcasts of the food channel and eat peanut butter and jelly.

oh, and "learn more", yeeeah.
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Old 11-30-2010, 12:29 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,978,939 times
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Originally Posted by Dd714 View Post

oh, and "learn more", yeeeah.
Well if you can spend money to go to the continent and have to return to ask a question about indigenous languages on a internet forum... it may be your last best hope.
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Old 11-30-2010, 12:56 PM
 
14,993 posts, read 23,824,916 times
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Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
Well if you can spend money to go to the continent and have to return to ask a question about indigenous languages on a internet forum... it may be your last best hope.
Where is this coming from? Are you confusing me with the OP? Some sort of strange travel envy? I asked no questions in this thread.

I was in Egypt last month, ask me about hieroglyphics...or Egyptian Arabic, not the language of the Congo.
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Old 11-30-2010, 01:15 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,978,939 times
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Originally Posted by Dd714 View Post
Where is this coming from? Are you confusing me with the OP? Some sort of strange travel envy? I asked no questions in this thread.

I was in Egypt last month, ask me about hieroglyphics...or Egyptian Arabic, not the language of the Congo.
Nope, no confusion on my part. But if you can read hieroglyphics, I would imagine you could follow the flow of the thread.
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Old 12-01-2010, 02:34 PM
 
Location: The Port City is rising.
8,868 posts, read 12,529,929 times
Reputation: 2604
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Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
Americans seem to the the only people in the world who are unable to fathom the simple concept of bilingualism. Nearly all Africans can speak several languages. Worldwide, it is likely that more than half of all human beings can carry on a conversation in at least two languages. In China, everyone can speak Mandarin, but at least half speak a different language at home. In India, most people can speak English, but nobody speaks only English. In Europe, nearly everyone (except the French and British) can speak another European language. It is a humbling experience for an American with a PhD, who can speak only one language, to arrive in an the African interior and find simple villagers who can speak 3 or 4 languages fluently, but cannot read or write any language at all.

I am pretty sure (would have to check) that barely 10% of Indians can speak English. Thats STILL a lot of people, and there are non-english speakers in India who are bilingual, but still.

There are of course many Americans who are multilingual. My wife, who is an immigrant, in addition to being fluent in English, is more than conversational in Yiddish, once managed to translate between Yiddish and Modern Hebrew, and knows a bit of Magyar. She doesnt even have a graduate degree, thoguh she is literate (really only in English, though).

In fairness, most of those bilingual Chinese speak Mandarin and another form of "Chinese". There is of course some debate whether those are "languages" or "dialects"
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Old 12-01-2010, 02:37 PM
 
Location: The Port City is rising.
8,868 posts, read 12,529,929 times
Reputation: 2604
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred314X View Post
Some years ago, the New York Times published a map of Africa the way it would look if the colonial powers had not imposed themselves there. Each individual tribe, being divided mainly by language, would have resulted in a continent with more than 450 separate nation-states.

showing the NYT doesnt understand alt history. If you did the same thing with the linguistic map of europe circa 1400, youd also get several hundred states, including the Isle of man, brittany, at least one state in a provencal speaking part of France, etc, etc.

For the most part States created european linguistic unities, not the other way around. Absent colonization, nascent african states would have imposted linguistic homogenization. Probably.
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Old 12-03-2010, 04:25 PM
 
Location: Florida
3,359 posts, read 7,315,603 times
Reputation: 1908
Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto View Post
Next time you should save your money and just stay at home watching YouTube, you would apparently learn more.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1w


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_DOi...eature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXpBm...eature=related

This is just a small, minute fraction of the 2,000 indigenous languages spoken in Africa today.
Thanks...I can't wait to watch these...when i get to a good internet reception area...

I've already learned 'thank you' from that one video...

I would spell it as I think it's pronounced...but the last time I wrote in other than english...I got punished...

Even though their language is ancient and foreign...those hand shakes looked very 'Detroit'...

Ahh...I guess hip is hip...regardless of where you are...

That language has a 'tickling' or 'tingling' effect on my inirds....
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Old 12-04-2010, 07:53 PM
 
39 posts, read 114,954 times
Reputation: 54
That handshake didn't originate in Detroit. It may not be centuries old but it is Ghanaian - men do it,culturally not women though I'm sure they know how to. It's is quite hip though! You wouldn't do it at a business meeting.

Thank you = pronounced meh-dah-see = short for "meda wo ase" whose literal translation is "I lay before you" which probably stems back to ancient times when one would prostrate oneself in front of another as a sign of respect/gratitude...you know bow down all the way to the floor.

Anyway, it seems ignorant to think that the whole continent of Africa would not have had a way to communicate with each other (in their various ethnic groups) outside of grunts, clicks, and hitting things. Not everyone had a written language, but who says writing is the only way to pass on info and record things?

Of course with contact with other peoples (other African tribes, various groups of Europeans, Indians, Arabs etc) words have been incorporated into indigenous languages just as non-English words have been incorporated into the English language.

You know what else African tribes had? Idioms, metaphors, riddles, proverbs all without the help of Europeans.
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Old 12-05-2010, 06:03 PM
 
Location: Florida
3,359 posts, read 7,315,603 times
Reputation: 1908
Quote:
Originally Posted by curiousg View Post
That handshake didn't originate in Detroit. It may not be centuries old but it is Ghanaian - men do it,culturally not women though I'm sure they know how to. It's is quite hip though! You wouldn't do it at a business meeting.

Thank you = pronounced meh-dah-see = short for "meda wo ase" whose literal translation is "I lay before you" which probably stems back to ancient times when one would prostrate oneself in front of another as a sign of respect/gratitude...you know bow down all the way to the floor.

Anyway, it seems ignorant to think that the whole continent of Africa would not have had a way to communicate with each other (in their various ethnic groups) outside of grunts, clicks, and hitting things. Not everyone had a written language, but who says writing is the only way to pass on info and record things?

Of course with contact with other peoples (other African tribes, various groups of Europeans, Indians, Arabs etc) words have been incorporated into indigenous languages just as non-English words have been incorporated into the English language.

You know what else African tribes had? Idioms, metaphors, riddles, proverbs all without the help of Europeans.
I know it didn't...but it just kinda reminded me of that basketball scene in 'Airplane' the movie...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymMBEwtRZOg

Well I couldn't find the basketball scene...but this is still a classic moment in cenima history...

Last edited by Time and Space; 12-05-2010 at 06:15 PM..
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