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Well, I've met my match! Languages have been my first love and passion too! Like your bro I am fluent in Hebrew too, biblical and modern...not Yiddish even though I did study German. I do know Ladino though but do not claim it as a language because it is comatose, if not completely dead. You may still hear it in some corners of Spain, maybe Toledo, in the ancient quarters where the most ancient synagogue in that part of the world still stands.
There is a singer who is absolutely wonderful named Yasmin Levy. She sings in Ladino, Spanish and Hebrew (modern and ancient) and you can find her on youtube. To listen to her is like going back in time...I listen to her everyday. I love those Andalous songs that gypsies sing and how she brings back old biblical verses (The Song of Songs) and reinterprets them. She has a song Naci en El Alamo in Spanish, send it to bro, he'd appreciate it.
Love,
Monique
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
Thanks for the great laugh! Very clever. Hilarious really!!! I especially cracked up over your ability to cook rice, the nameless tools, the pulse requirement, and your comparison to Mother Teresa. HAHAHAHAHAHA. This made my day.
Although I am fluent only in English, I loved learning languages (French, Russian, Mandarin Chinese) and almost pursued a career as an interpreter.
Love,
Polly
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
Thanks Monique. I will let my brother know about Yasmin Levy and "Naci en Alamo". I have absolutely no facility with languages and am jealous of those who do.
Hi Monique, Great post. The men must have to take a number for a date. If we keep getting loans from the Chinese they will own us and we will all have to take Chinese as a second language. Jon
I'm impressed at all the languages you and others speak. I speak three and a half. I claim only a half for my first language, Haka Chin, because I left there when I was 12, and have forgotten a lot of it. And of course, I only ever had the vocabulary of a child.
Glad you'll are having some fun with this post. A little levity now and then is good for our spirit (well, a little spirit for our body now and then wouldn't be a bad thing if we could have it :-)
Polly---you learned Chinese? I am impressed! I never went there...I also worked as an interpreter earlier in my career. Mais le Francais est la plus belle langue du monde! But English has become the lingua franca of the world.
Jon--thanks for your thoughts :-) One day I may have to write about my experience on match.com
Martha--did you grow up in Burma, Indonesia, India? Hakha Chin is not in my repertoire.
Love,
Monique
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
Wow, Monique, you are GOOD! Hakha Chin is the updated spelling; when I lived there it was still spelled Haka. Hakha better represents the pronunciation. I grew up in Burma, and went to boarding school for a year in India when I was 12. I lived in Indonesia and the Philippines as an adult. I learned Indonesian and a tribal language, Uma, in Indonesia, but never learned any Philippine languages. We lived in the big city there and got by well with English.
I remember the days when it was still up in the air whether English or French would become the lingua franca of the world. I never studied French. I took Latin, Spanish, and German in high school and used to delight in tormenting my friends who were taking French by purposely mispronouncing French as badly as I could. My amazing high school let me take extra language courses instead of physics and calculus.
You guys are killing me! I feel so inadequate now. The extent of my foreign language skills is to say "My aunt bought a new table" in Polish. Not a very useful phrase for most folks, but who knows?
Hi Monique, I hope you do not send any man money that you meet on match.com. There were two woman from Manchester N.H. that send most of there life savings to a man they thought was a traveling business man from Finland but he was an man from Africa who used his picture to create a new identity to use on the dating site. They had a report an the Boston CBS news. Jon
Monique I love your post, it's great!!! It really gave me a good laugh.
I find it amazing how many of us are polyglots to one degree or another.
I do believe if it becomes necessary, I will ask you for help in writing my "white male seeking".... Dating website ad LOL (although quite occupied at the moment) I loved yours, what a great attitude!!
I have loved languages since I can remember, more so in what the language teaches us about a particular culture. As far as fluency, I can get by quite well in German (both high and low), English (sort of), Attic Greek (of all things), Yittish (long story, get slapped a lot!!), Spanish and a modest amount of French.
The toughest language which I am working on day and night is Australian....can't quite seem to get that one down :-) ...I have always had a lot of respect for those who can work between the oriental and occidental mindsets, who can pick up the Asian languages, for me those are tough. I spent a little over month on mainland China and Hong Kong in the 90's after studying Mandarin for 6 months and still had a tough time.....what a beautiful people and language(s). To have the opportunity to study the culture and language is such a treasure and so historically meaningful.
Overall languages are such rich as snapshot into the culture and how that culture has evolved and changed as a people over time. For me it's more than a hobby to study them, it's a glimpse into humanity and events that shape our languages over time.
Joefnh wrote:
Overall languages are such rich as snapshot into the culture and how that culture has evolved and changed as a people over time. For me it's more than a hobby to study them, it's a glimpse into humanity and events that shape our languages over time.
Great post, thanks for sharing Monique!
Well, you have echoed my feelings about languages. It is a glimpse into humanity as you stated. And by unveiling my own humanity in this post, I am having a glimpse into all of you as you share your own stories and love for languages.
I am discovering that we are more than just people with colitis sharing coping mechanisms, we are more dimensional, multi-layered, intelligent caring people.
Thank you all for your support and for being such an amazing bunch. And I am grateful for having you as my family. And Tex, what can I say about you that hasn't already been said?
Love,
Monique
Martha--were you in a family of missionaries?
Jon---thanks for that. I won't do anything silly (too savvy for that) :-)
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
My father was stationed in Germany when I was a child, and got to the point I even thought in German. In junior high school I started on several years of French and became fairly conversant. My problem is that my brain is faultily-wired somehow, and when someone talks to me in German, my response comes back in French, and vice versa. I have the same trouble with right and left. People know me know to ask if I really mean left when I say left, etc.
I made/am making all my children study Latin in our homeschooling. Students who study Latin seem to do much better on standardized tests, including the SAT.
Marliss Bombardier
Dum spiro, spero -- While I breathe, I hope
Psoriasis - the dark ages
Hashimoto's Thyroiditis - Dec 2001
Collagenous Colitis - Sept 2010
Granuloma Annulare - June 2011
Monique wrote:And Tex, what can I say about you that hasn't already been said?
Well, let's see now . . . I've been called a lot of things, but never a monoglot. So I reckon you could say that I'm probably the only monoglot in the bunch.
Love,
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
A monoglot? What a great word! Did you just invent it?Never heard it before, I must google! Great word though. If it doesn't exist, you should just add it to wiki or something ...how 'bout a uniglot? that should describe you pretty well!
However, you're not the only monoglot in the bunch judging by the responses we got. Did you notice how the linguists hijacked this post? I was just looking for a husband and look where it ended up
Love,
Monique
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
I do know Ladino though but do not claim it as a language because it is comatose, if not completely dead. You may still hear it in some corners of Spain, maybe Toledo, in the ancient quarters where the most ancient synagogue in that part of the world still stands. 
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