Global Lingo Thread

[poona]

Woofter in Northern Ireland means a 'Gay boy' or homosexual. It's not widely used anymore but that's how it would be perceived here.

[chief]

Fighting anglicisms they create words that no one uses like oleoduc for pipeline!

I've spoken to some French youngsters and it was completely incomprehensible... They were switching letters in words all the time, kind of an urban youth thing I guess, made me feel sorry for those years of French courses I had in school...

The (Flemish) Belgians and the Dutch also have some words that would mean different things in each country. Although it is the same language.

[Kees]

The (Flemish) Belgians and the Dutch also have some words that would mean different things in each country. Although it is the same language.

I cannot think of an example right now. Flemish TV is subtitled here BTW e.g. "Spoed" (Flemish E.R. like TV series)

[Bruno]

I cannot think of an example right now. Flemish TV is subtitled here BTW e.g. "Spoed" (Flemish E.R. like TV series)

Same here with Dutch tv.

Sadly, the differences in dialect are so huge that people living 100 km from each other sometimes don't understand each other. We purposely teach our kids proper Dutch instead of the local dialect, just as my parents taught me.
I'm all for keepin up the old ways, but local dialects can die out asap as far as I am concerned.

[Chimensch]

Same here with Dutch tv.

Sadly, the differences in dialect are so huge that people living 100 km from each other sometimes don't understand each other. We purposely teach our kids proper Dutch instead of the local dialect, just as my parents taught me.
I'm all for keepin up the old ways, but local dialects can die out asap as far as I am concerned.

It's the same in Italy. Standard Italian is taught in the schools and used in the media (newspapers, TV, etc.) but every town has its own dialect. People born before 1950 spoke the local dialect at home and didn't learn Italian until they went to school. Now that kids grow up watching television, the local dialects are dying out. We're now in the stage where younger people understand it but don't speak it. As an American, I avoid the dialects because I have enough of a headache with standard Italian.

[Spike J]

Silver & I went to the Eisteddfod today. It's an annual celebration of Welsh culture, language, music & art. Its venue changes every year & this year it is in our capital for the first time since the 60s. Superb we thought. Let's go. So off we toddled. I know Cardiff well & I had a hard time finding the entrance as there were no signs for it. At all. Our friend, with whom we met up, had an even harder time & she was giving a speech. It was lovely to hear Welsh being spoken everywhere. We hardly hear it spoken at all locally.

What was not so lovely was that there was no English, anywhere. What was even less lovely was that whenever we spoke English, the most common reaction was a scowl. I mean, get over yourselves. Welsh is spoken & understood by only a third of the Welsh population. The rest are anglophone. It is understandable as Welsh was outlawed as a language in the 18th & 19th centuries. We live in the 21st. Welsh is now taught in all schools & undergoing a huge revival. The lack of signage & reactions were snobbish at worst & parochial at best. I am very proud to be Welsh. What I do not relish is being treated as inferior by my compatriots because I was never given the opportunity to learn our native tongue. It baffles me that there is not much more promotion of & inclusion at the Eisteddfod. It is a superb event & should be dragging the crowds in, not seemingly designed to keep out those who are not part of the club. Nationality should be national, not selective IMHO.

[Kees]

When we lived in Ross-on Wye we often went to Wales (Monmouth mainly), occasionally Newport where I did a few locums) and Cardiff. Apart from bilingual roadsigns never heard anyone speak Welsh. Not even in Abaristwyth (hope I got my spelling correct) which I believe is the centre of Welsh studies. IIRC only North and Mid Wales have a Welsh speaking communitiy.

[Silver]

On the whole the Eisteddfod was great apart from the reasons Spike mentioned. I was royally snubbed towards the end though when one woman came up to me and spoke Welsh. She was all smiles until I looked at her blankly and said sorry I don't understand Welsh yet, to which she rolled her eyes, muttered something else in Welsh, turned her nose in the air and walked away.

It's not like we haven't looked into learning Welsh, but the course fees are too expensive, especially due to the fact we both want to learn it. It averages out at £600 / $1200 USD for us both to do a course.

We know some sayings - Nos Da = Good night, Bore Da = Good day and some others I can say but not spell. lol For fans of Terry Pratchett, Soul Music is a good example of written Welsh with all the double letters (dd, tt, ff) which all have different sounds. It is kinda confusing with the different vowel meanings too. A Welsh Y is an english U unless it is a stand alone letter in a sentance, then it usually means THE.

[Kees]

Living in Cardiff will not get you much opportunity to practice Welsh. I really learnt how to speak in English in the US and England, not in school, not in language courses.

[LX_Emergency]

I cannot think of an example right now. Flemish TV is subtitled here BTW e.g. "Spoed" (Flemish E.R. like TV series)

A couple of years back there was a flemish schoolteacher teaching at a juniorschool (basisschool) she kept telling the children that they couldn't run in the hallways. She kept getting these blank stares from the kids.

What she meant though was no RUNNING in the hallways but apparantly the flemish word for running (don't remember if it was wandelen or lopen) is the dutch word for walking.