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#31
Right, we once met people from Tenn in France. We tried to talk to them but it was impossible. Even my wife who is a NY native did not understand them. All we did is nod our heads.
Try Welsh ....
We have 28 letters in the alphabet
a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y
eight are treated as single letters for collation "dd" is pronounced "th"
We have a tendency of putting the first words at the end of a sentence and sometimes repeating it again at the end ... Good morning!: Bore da! (bo-re da) ... Good night!: Nos da! (no:s da) .... or (english) "Do you have a dog? No." (Welsh) "Oes ci gyda chi? Nag oes" which literally means "Is there a dog with you? There is not"
In my job I deal a lot with software engineers from India. I have communicated with them for months via email without any problem understanding them as most know English very well. However, when I finally have the opportunity to meet one of them face-to-face, I find I can't understand anything they say due to their accent.
As I recall, Spanish has 27 letters in its alphabet:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, L, LL, M, Ñ, O, P, Q, R, RR, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z
One of you Spanish speakers please correct me if necessary. It's been a few years since I took Spanish in school and I didn't keep up with it.
I couldn't help but notice that the reply to the question in Welsh wasn't answered with no. Irish Gaelic (and, I assume, Scottish Gaelic since it originated with Irish and is still very similar) has no words for yes or no. One has to reply similar to the way Nick did. Anyone here speak Cornish, Breton or any other of the Celtic languages? It be interesting to know if they were the same as Gaelic and Welsh (which are also Celtic) with yes and no.
Languages are indeed fascinating. In Germany I live in the southwest of the country which was originally settled by the Alemani tribes. They also settled in the east of France (Alsace) and in what is today the German speaking part of Switzerland.
All these people think they speak German, but they really don't. They have completely different words for things and what complicates the matter is that there were many subtribes that had their own Alemani dialects.
When I moved to the area, I understood very little at first. In the meantime after more than 25 years I understand at least the people in my area. But a bit to the east, west or south I still do not follow.
People that come from other parts of Germany are completely lost and vice versa. There are hundreds of dialects in Germany and many are really like foreign languages. Or how would you figure that Kartoffeln (potatos) are Krummbeeren or Tomaten (tomatos) are Paradeiser.