Linguistic Discussion Of European Languages of Obscure origin

How about Galatian, an extinct Celtic language once spoken in Asia Minor (modern Turkey)?

catalan is more like a mixture of french and portuguese than spanish, in my experience. not genetically, but just in terms of what it looks like, it sounds like spanish being spoken by people with no teeth, to my ears. its a romance language though. there's no genetic connection to basque, galician or celtic.

yeah, Catalan's certainly got plenty in common with French and Spanish. But there is a weird Germanic aspect to it too.

Originally 'Goatalonia', Catalonia means land of the Goths, the Goths in question being the West Goths known as the Visigohts. All the western romance languages have some germanic influence due to Lombard, Goth, Vandal, Frank, Burgundian, and others invasions.

'Cause they didn't know how to spell.

i love this thread--and this board, by the way! it's putting my linguistics degree to use.

Hmm, I don't if I'm an expert on linguistics. One thing I can say is that Finnish verbs and nouns have several different forms of conjugation, unlike in English. This is due the fact that are no pro/postpositions in Finnish, instead we have case endings. Also, other "supporting" words can be replaced by endings as well; and, in the first and second person the personal pronoun is included in the verb (like in Spanish), only the third person requires you to write the pronoun. Let me demonstrate it with two Finnish words, "kävellä" ("to walk") and "pöytä" ("a table"):

I walk = kävelen
you walk = kävelet
she walks = hän kävelee
we walk = kävelemme
you walk = kävelette
they walk = he kävelevät

while walking = kävellessään
after walking = käveltyään
without walking = kävelemättä
to walk around = käveleskellä
etc.

a table = pöytä
in the table = pöydässä
off the table = pöydältä
from the table = pöydästä
to the table = pöytään
(it is) on the table = pöydällä
(put that) on the table = pöydälle
without a table = pöydättä
(look) at the table = pöytää
with a table = pöytineen
etc.

Old Frisian is incredibly similar to Old English - your grandparents could have talked to Beowulf quite easily.

Chaucer, however, spoke Middle English. Written Middle English would seem familiar-ish to a reader of Modern English. (Some words seem more obscure than others.) However, the way it was *pronounced* ... ye gads! This was before the GREAT VOWEL SHIFT, so it would have been pronounced in a more "European" way. (Or perhaps more like a West Country Yokel.) Also, the random "e"s on the end of words would have been pronounced. So when I take the piss out of "Ye Old-ie Tourist-ie Shop-ie" that's actually quite close to the way that Ye Olde Shoppe would have been pronounced. (Except Y was thorn, oh how I love thorn, bring it back.)

I am fascinated by the GREAT VOWEL SHIFT. No one really knew why it took place. It just happened over the course of the 16th Century.

(If I wasn't Against the Excelsior threads, I would be putting this in it: "There's a Frieslander come to talk to you, Geoffrey." "Tell them to go away - I'm dead".)

The linguistics book I'm reading at the moment must be very old. It gets into the effect of West African languages' syntax on Black English ("Women be shopping") without bringing up the dread spectre of Ebonics. (Though considering the mistakes it's made about the Finns and Arrowsmithing, I'm not sure I believe it.)

(he also told me that the american accent derives from the west country accent of four centuries ago, and the australian accent from the cockney accent of two centuries ago)

(he also sometimes makes things up by mistake)

Australia = Cockney, this is actually true.

(Why do I always imagine that with really heavy reverb on it?)

I'm sorry, that was a poor attempt at a joke. Cracking thread, Kate.

(The Carribean-West Country connection is actually more plausible. Except, again, with large interference by West African grammar and syntax.)

The Southern US - West Country thing seemed plausible because of the vowels. (Southern US vowels show distinct pre-GVS tendencies, but this was common all over the more backwater parts of the UK at the time, such as the Midlands, where many of the Puritans etc. actually came from) However, Southern US accents do *not* show the consonant shift which is very distinctive of West Country accents. ("Zee" for see, "Zoider" for cider, "Vox" for fox, etc.)

So did anyone find out anything about the Basque-American Indian connection? Off topic - but have they proven where the Native American originally came from, as there is evidence to say they could have come from Russia, Scandinavia, West Ghana and practically anywhere you may care to choose. Someone who knows about these things said they were definitely from Northern Asia via the Bering SStraits but I'm not entirely convinced. Sorry, I know this is kind of diverging from the topic in hand so a quick answer is appreciated to stop derailment.

And what of Luxembourgois?

Is the next great vowel shift to do with Estuary English?