#i find it really interesting to find similarities between hindi/urdu/sanskrit and english

[drowningincaffiene]

8, 17, & 20 for the ask game :)))

HAII DAISYY

8. What is your dream job?

i really really reallyyy wanna be a full time writer like its been my dream since i was like 11 i dont think i have what it takes but i am willing to work on it and if not full time writer then i ATLEAST wanna write one book :D

17. What is something you're really good at?

so whenever somebody asks me this the first thing that comes in my mind is: talking! its a bit silly but its true i love love talking, see now being good at talking doesn't mean i can hold a good conversation, no. it means i can jump from topic to topic and just. simply. not stop talking.

20. What's a totally random and useless fact that you know?

the english word 'bandana' is actually derived from the hindi word 'bandhana' which means 'to tie' i think thats really interesting coz i thought many urdu/hindi words were inspired from english like pajamas/pyjamas but its actually the opposite!

also this doesn't make sense but i always thought of hindi and urdu and sanskrit to be like cousins coz theyre so similar 😭

[thelanguagecommunity]

“what language should I learn?”

“is it better to learn [x] or [x]?”

“is it worth learning [x]?”

I get this type of question a lot and I see questions like these a lot on language learning forums, but it’s very difficult to answer because ultimately language learning is a highly personal decision. Passion is required to motivate your studies, and if you aren’t in love with your language it will be very hard to put in the time you need. Thus, no language is objectively better or worse, it all comes down to factors in your life. So, I’ve put together a guide to assist your with the kind of factors you can consider when choosing a language for study.

First, address you language-learning priorities.

Think of the reasons why are you interested in learning a new language. Try to really articulate what draws you to languages. Keeping these reasons in mind as you begin study will help keep you focused and motivated. Here are some suggestions to help you get started, complete with wikipedia links so you can learn more:

Linguistic curiosity?

For this, I recommend looking into dead, literary or constructed languages. There are lots of cool linguistic experiments and reconstructions going on and active communities that work on them! Here’s a brief list:

Dead languages:

Akkadian

Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian)

Gaulish

Gothic

Hittite

Old Prussian

Sumerian

Older iterations of modern day languages:

Classical Armenian

Classical Nahuatl (language of the Aztec Empire)

Early Modern English (Shakespearean English)

Galician-Portuguese

Middle English (Chaucer English)

Middle Persian/Pahlavi

Old English

Old French

Old Spanish

Old Tagalog (+ Baybayin)

Ottoman Turkish

Constructed:

Anglish (experiment to create a purely Anglo-Saxon English)

Esperanto

Interlingua

Láadan (a “feminist language”)

Lingua Franca Nova

Lingwa de Planeta

Lobjan

Toki Pona (a minimalist language)

Wenedyk (what if the Romans had occupied Poland?)

Cultural interests?

Maybe you just want to connect to another culture. A language is often the portal to a culture and are great for broadening your horizons! The world is full of rich cultures; learning the language helps you navigate a culture and appreciate it more fully.

Here are some popular languages and what they are “famous for”:

Cantonese: film

French: culinary arts, film, literature, music, philosophy, tv programs, a prestige language for a long time so lots of historical media, spoken in many countries (especially in Africa)

German: film, literature, philosophy, tv programs, spoken in several Central European countries

Italian: architecture, art history, catholicism (Vatican city!), culinary arts, design, fashion, film, music, opera

Mandarin: culinary arts, literature, music, poetry, tv programs

Japanese: anime, culinary arts, film, manga, music, video games, the longtime isolation of the country has developed a culture that many find interesting, a comparatively large internet presence

Korean: tv dramas, music, film

Portuguese: film, internet culture, music, poetry

Russian: literature, philosophy, spoken in the Eastern Bloc or former-Soviet countries, internet culture

Spanish: film, literature, music, spoken in many countries in the Americas

Swedish: music, tv, film, sometimes thought of as a “buy one, get two free” deal along with Norwegian & Danish

Religious & liturgical languages:

Avestan (Zoroastrianism)

Biblical Hebrew (language of the Tanakh, Old Testament)

Church Slavonic (Eastern Orthodox churches)

Classical Arabic (Islam)

Coptic (Coptic Orthodox Church)

Ecclesiastical Latin (Catholic Church)

Ge’ez (Ethiopian Orthodox Church)

Iyaric (Rastafari movement)

Koine Greek (language of the New Testament)

Mishnaic Hebrew (language of the Talmud)

Pali (language of some Hindu texts and Theravada Buddhism)

Sanskrit (Hinduism)

Syriac (Syriac Orthodox Church, Maronite Church, Church of the East)

Reconnecting with family?

If your immediate family speaks a language that you don’t or if you are a heritage speaker that has been disconnected, then the choice is obvious! If not, you might have to do some family tree digging, and maybe you might find something that makes you feel more connected to your family. Maybe you come from an immigrant community that has an associated immigration or contact language! Or maybe there is a branch of the family that speaks/spoke another language entirely.

Immigrant & Diaspora languages:

Arbëresh (Albanians in Italy)

Arvanitika (Albanians in Greece)

Brazilian German

Canadian Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic in Canada)

Canadian Ukrainian (Ukrainians in Canada)

Caribbean Hindustani (Indian communities in the Caribbean)

Chipilo Venetian (Venetians in Mexico)

Griko (Greeks in Italy)

Hutterite German (German spoken by Hutterite settlers of Canada/US)

Fiji Hindi (Indians in Fiji)

Louisiana French (Cajuns) 

Patagonian Welsh (Welsh in Argentina)

Pennsylvania Dutch (High German spoken by early settlers of Canada/ the US)

Plaudietsch (German spoken by Mennonites)

Talian (Venetian in Brazilian)

Texas Silesian (Poles in the US)

Click here for a list of languages of the African diaspora (there are too many for this post!). 

If you are Jewish, maybe look into the language of your particular diaspora community ( * indicates the language is extinct or moribund - no native speakers or only elderly speakers):

Bukhori (Bukharan Jews)

Hebrew

Italkian (Italian Jews) *

Judeo-Arabic (MENA Jews)

Judeo-Aramaic

Judeo-Malayalam *

Judeo-Marathi

Judeo-Persian

Juhuri (Jews of the Caucasus)

Karaim (Crimean Karaites) *

Kivruli (Georgian Jews)

Krymchak (Krymchaks) *

Ladino (Sephardi)

Lusitanic (Portuguese Jews) *

Shuadit (French Jewish Occitan) *

Yevanic (Romaniotes)*

Yiddish (Ashkenazi)

Finding a job?

Try looking around for what languages are in demand in your field. Most often, competency in a relevant makes you very competitive for positions. English is in demand pretty much anywhere. Here are some other suggestions based on industry (from what I know!):

Business (General): Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

Design: Italian (especially furniture)

Economics: Arabic, German

Education: French, Spanish

Energy: Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Engineering: German, Russian

Finance & Investment: French, Cantonese, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

International Orgs. & Diplomacy (NATO, UN, etc.): Arabic, French, Mandarin, Persian, Russian, Spanish

Medicine: German, Latin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Military: Arabic, Dari, French, Indonesian, Korean, Kurdish, Mandarin, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu

Programming: German, Japanese

Sales & Marketing: French, German, Japanese, Portuguese

Service (General): French, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Sign Languages, Spanish

Scientific Research (General): German, Japanese, Russian

Tourism: French, Japanese, Mandarin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Translation: Arabic, Russian, Sign Languages

Other special interests?

Learning a language just because is a perfectly valid reason as well! Maybe you are really into a piece of media that has it’s own conlang! 

Fictional:

Atlantean (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

Dothraki (Game of Thrones)

Elvish (Lord of the Rings)

Gallifreyan (Doctor Who)

High Valyrian (Game of Thrones)

Klingon (Star Trek)

Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange)

Na’vi (Avatar)

Newspeak (1984)

Trigedasleng (The 100)

Vulcan (Star Trek)

Or if you just like to learn languages, take a look maybe at languages that have lots of speakers but not usually popular among the language-learning community:

Arabic

Bengali

Cantonese

Hindi

Javanese

Hausa

Indonesian

Malay

Pashto

Persian

Polish

Punjabi

Swahili

Tamil

Telugu

Thai

Turkish

Urdu

Vietnamese

Yoruba

If you have still are having trouble, consider the following:

What languages do you already speak?

How many and which languages you already speak will have a huge impact on the ease of learning. 

If you are shy about speaking with natives, you might want to look at languages with similar consonant/vowel sounds. Similarity between languages’ grammars and vocabularies can also help speed up the process. Several families are famous for this such as the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian), North Germanic languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) or East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). If you are a native English speaker, check out the FSI’s ranking of language difficulty for the approximate amount of hours you’ll need to put into different languages.

You could also take a look at languages’ writing systems to make things easier or for an added challenge.

Another thing to remember is that the languages you already speak will have a huge impact on what resources are available to you. This is especially true with minority languages, as resources are more frequently published in the dominant language of that area. For example, most Ainu resources are in Japanese, most Nheengatu resources are in Portuguese, and most Nahuatl resources are in Spanish.

What are your life circumstances?

Where you live with influence you language studies too! Local universities will often offer resources (or you could even enroll in classes) for specific languages, usually the “big” ones and a few region-specific languages.

Also consider if what communities area near you. Is there a vibrant Deaf community near you that offers classes? Is there a Vietnamese neighborhood you regularly interact with? Sometimes all it takes is someone to understand you in your own language to make your day! Consider what languages you could realistically use in your own day-to-day. If you don’t know where to start, try checking to see if there are any language/cultural meetups in your town!

How much time can you realistically put into your studies? Do you have a fluency goal you want to meet? If you are pressed for time, consider picking up a language similar to ones you already know or maintaining your other languages rather than taking on a new one.

Please remember when choosing a language for study to always respect the feelings and opinions of native speakers/communities, particularly with endangered or minoritized languages. Language is often closely tied to identity, and some communities are “closed” to outsiders. A notable examples are Hopi, several Romani languages, many Aboriginal Australian languages and some Jewish languages. If you are considering a minoritized language, please closely examine your motivations for doing so, as well as do a little research into what is the community consensus on outsiders learning the language. 

[ineffableidiots99]

Oh I find this topic very interesting, mostly because most of my theories are pure speculation, and I love to hear everyone's thoughts😂

So, yes, he would've known Gujarati, I am almost certain of it. In my hc, he could also understand, if not speak, Marathi. I say this because of Panchgani's geographical location in the state of Maharashtra, and also because he had relatives living in Bombay. Ofc, he may not have been exposed to the local life to a great extent, and it is possible that his relatives also spoke Gujarati at home, but there is a slight possibility that he might have picked up Marathi. Again, this is speculation on my part.

I do not think he could speak Hindi (and this saddens me lol cuz that's the language I can speak). He wasn't into Bollywood songs according to his classmates, and I don't really see him getting into Hindi films either. So yeah, him knowing Hindi isn't a likely scenario. Maybe he could understand a few words (both Hindi and Gujarati, like every Indian language, are derived from Sanskrit. Thus, they have many common words or similar forms of words), but I don't think he could form a sentence in the language.

It is possible that he could speak Arabic, because of Zanzibar, but I am not too sure of this theory. Mustapha has some Arabic words but I don't know how much of it came from his own knowledge. Swahili via his ayah seems plausible, but I don't know how fluent he could've been in it.

There is an account by a Persian belly dancer who said that Freddie spoke a few words of Farsi to her. But I remember another story where he said that he couldn't speak a lot of Farsi, when someone spoke to him in the language. God, I hope I am not mixing the languages. I think the language in question was Farsi. However, the ancient holy book followed by Zoroastrians is written in old avestan language. Mustapha contains some phrases that belong to this language. It is not widely spoken now, according to a Persian fan with whom I've interacted, but I cannot say what the case was 50 years ago. Anyway, she could not translate Mustapha very well for me lol as she couldn't understand the old avestan language used. It's possible that Freddie knew some avestan because of his religion, maybe? I mean, I speak Urdu that has some similar words to Persian (and ofc Arabic), and his pronunciation in the song seemed perfect to me.

I think Freddie felt the most comfortable with English, even before migrating to England. British boarding schools were (and still are) very strict about providing UK level education in English. So that habit of speaking, thinking, talking in English would've present in him since childhood. Plus, ofc, it would've been the common mode of communication in Zanzibar between his family and the locals. And yes, I can totally see him adapting to the English culture completely on migrating to the UK, and I do not know how much he remembered the other languages that used to speak.

So as a multilingual person, here's something I've been pondering on for a long time: what were Freddie's abilities in languages other than English? We know his parents spoke English, and given their status and background they likely encouraged it above all else, but they were from Gujarat and almost certainly spoke Parsi Gujarati (if not standard Gujarati) with each other and at Freddie and Kash when they were being brats 😂. And being a British protectorate meant that the "educated" used primarily English amongst each other and in official business.

But Zanzibar is also almost completely Muslim, having been under control of Oman, so Arabic is a major language, as well as Swahili which is the predominant language of the people. My head cannon is that his ayah used Swahili so he must have been conversational, at least until he was sent to India. I think Kash mentioned that they used Swahili but I can't for the life of me find the source.

Phoebe has mentioned before that he never heard Freddie use anything other than English, but if Jer was anything like my mother (who hated speaking English) then she would insist on English in front of others because it's rude to speak another language in front of people that don't speak it.

Or maybe like one of my Russian friends, he refused to speak anything but English upon arriving in England. In the case of my friend, all I know is that she doesn't miss Russia and she laughed when I asked if she stayed in touch with her friends since she left as a teenager in the mid 90s. For whatever reason she chooses to leave that part of her life behind and only identifies as American, and only uses her rusty Russian to talk to her father. I can absolutely see Freddie holding on very tightly to being a British citizen and wanting to let go of as many reminders of his childhood as possible in order to integrate.

@a-froger-epic @quirkysubject @ineffableidiots99 @aboutnothingness what are your thoughts?