The Strangest Language

[Meryuma]

Georgian, seriously so many consonant clusters, how the hell are you ever supposed to normally pronounce žblnknutie?

hebrew has no vowels at all...

It doesn't usually write the vowels, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

[Ayreonia]

in europe the strangest mainstream language is finnish

Yes. I'm part Finn, and Finnish is weird even to me.

[Jagalonia]

English. Seriously; it's a mishmash of everything else.

They even stole Smithereens from Irish "smidiríní." How uninspired!

Both words derived from Latin...Hmmmm...

[Breitkreuzonia]

the african click languages

[NewHyperborea (Ancient)]

Српски је онако ,није баш да је чудан али ако га не 3наш тешко се снађеш

Very nice, I'm sure. So what exactly does "Srpski ye onako, niye basch da ye chudan ali ako ga ne znasch teschko se cnadjesch" mean? And shouldn't that "3" be a "з", or is it a proper noun?

It means ,serbian is not strange but if you dont know it(or cyrillic) it can be confusing.

and yes that 3 should be a letter z in cyrillic but it seems my keeyboard is having some problems so i improvised

[Maltropia]

English. Seriously; it's a mishmash of everything else.

They even stole Smithereens from Irish "smidiríní." How uninspired!

Both words derived from Latin...Hmmmm...

Derivations are at least better than open theft.

[Howling Spears]

In shock i have to agree, im English myself, but sometimes i get soo confused....

In an combination of scotish and irish, with a hint of London cockney: Come laddies, time to go down the apples and pairs to feel us out some Fiddlesticks!

I don't see what of that was Irish.

Exactly my point Dear Fellow!!!

Actually, im changing my mind to American..

Damm those Yanks!

[Esternial]

Xhosa seems rather peculiar...

Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said with a rising or falling or high or low intonation. One of the most distinctive features of the language is the prominence of click consonants; the word "Xhosa", the name of the language itself, begins with a click.

[Jagalonia]

Both words derived from Latin...Hmmmm...

Derivations are at least better than open theft.

If you'll be kind enough to search around, you'll notice that most languages in the westtern world derive from Latin...Mainly because Rome had it's cock all over Europe.

[Luna Amore]

Afrikaans strikes me as strange. It just sounds so damn unpleasant.

[Maltropia]

Derivations are at least better than open theft.

If you'll be kind enough to search around, you'll notice that most languages in the westtern world derive from Latin...Mainly because Rome had it's cock all over Europe.

I study Latin, so I know enough about the Romance languages. No need to think I don't.

[Novograd IV]

Novan (2^nd Family Text), because it's a half created Conlang with 40 characters, 30 of which actually have assigned sounds. It does, however, look like I can make it into something

[Cyborg Holland]

I think the Wierdest language is Basque (Andorra & Pyrennees) It has no roots in any other language and their are only about 100 speakers who aren't natives

[Sun Aut Ex]

If it is, the clicks definitely aren't. If they were primordial, they'd probably be a lot more common instead of being nearly exclusive to Africa.

Actually, languages that are more complex are generally older.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I'm disappointed. So far, I regret to say, most the choices in this thread (at least when I started writing this post) have been fairly uninspired - largely restricted to mainstream European and Asian languages; though I'll give Angleter mod cookies for Manchu (Islamic Hazarastan only gets half a mod cookie, for failing to recognise that there are at least nine distinct living Sami languages, even if only two of them have over 1000 speakers, and only one has over 10,000 speakers).

But one of the strangest languages has to be Hixkaryana. Spoken by some 500 indigenous Brazilians deep in the Amazon rainforest, it was the first Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) language ever described. In other words, where English speakers say "the jaguar ate the man", Hixkaryana has to take the word order "the man ate the jaguar" (or rather "toto yonoye kamara" - male person eat [past tense] jaguar); but with the same meaning as in English.

OVS is the rarest of possible sentence word orders. There are other languages which occasionally permit OVS (though even highly inflected languages with complex case systems that can hypothetically permit any word order often prefer a more common specific order - see Russian), but the number which require OVS is vanishingly small, limited to three or four indigenous languages of the Americas, none of which have over 5000 speakers.

I think I recall you mentioning Hixkaryana not too long ago, on another thread about languages too. For me, one of the strangest is Piraha, believed to be the only surviving example of the Mura (Muran) language family. Funny enough, Piraha is also spoken by indigenous people in Brazil, along the Maici River.

[Anogen Dys]

Agreed. And it borrows from every language it's ever come in contact with. Someone sais something along the line of "Some languages borow from other languages. English follows them down the alley, mugs them and rifles through their pockets." Oscar Wilde, maybe?

In shock i have to agree, im English myself, but sometimes i get soo confused....

In an combination of scotish and irish, with a hint of London cockney: Come laddies, time to go down the apples and pairs to feel us out some Fiddlesticks!

If you think English is a hard language, then you ain't seen nothing.

[Angleter]

I'm disappointed. So far, I regret to say, most the choices in this thread (at least when I started writing this post) have been fairly uninspired - largely restricted to mainstream European and Asian languages; though I'll give Angleter mod cookies for Manchu (Islamic Hazarastan only gets half a mod cookie, for failing to recognise that there are at least nine distinct living Sami languages, even if only two of them have over 1000 speakers, and only one has over 10,000 speakers).

But one of the strangest languages has to be Hixkaryana. Spoken by some 500 indigenous Brazilians deep in the Amazon rainforest, it was the first Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) language ever described. In other words, where English speakers say "the jaguar ate the man", Hixkaryana has to take the word order "the man ate the jaguar" (or rather "toto yonoye kamara" - male person eat [past tense] jaguar); but with the same meaning as in English.

OVS is the rarest of possible sentence word orders. There are other languages which occasionally permit OVS (though even highly inflected languages with complex case systems that can hypothetically permit any word order often prefer a more common specific order - see Russian), but the number which require OVS is vanishingly small, limited to three or four indigenous languages of the Americas, none of which have over 5000 speakers.

I think I recall you mentioning Hixkaryana not too long ago, on another thread about languages too. For me, one of the strangest is Piraha, believed to be the only surviving example of the Mura (Muran) language family. Funny enough, Piraha is also spoken by indigenous people in Brazil, along the Maici River.

Hoí+Hói=Hoí?

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I think I recall you mentioning Hixkaryana not too long ago, on another thread about languages too. For me, one of the strangest is Piraha, believed to be the only surviving example of the Mura (Muran) language family. Funny enough, Piraha is also spoken by indigenous people in Brazil, along the Maici River.

Hoi+Hoi=Hoi?

Pretty much. It is very simple phonologically too.

[Meryuma]

If it is, the clicks definitely aren't. If they were primordial, they'd probably be a lot more common instead of being nearly exclusive to Africa.

Actually, languages that are more complex are generally older.

I know that, I study linguistics as a hobby. I don't see how that's relevant, seeing as clicks aren't "complex" in any real way.

[Antilon]

Latin. Noun conjugation? How strange....

[Johz]

Polish. Crazy stuff there.

Although, obviously, English. But that's just 'cos I am English...

[UCUMAY]

Latin. Noun conjugation? How strange....

You have a point Latin is a lil strange.

[Risottia]

I'd have to say Russian. It's words are really long and it sounds very alien to my ears. Behind that is Mandarin, because it is very off base comparted to European languages.

Russian, at least, is an Indoeuropean language... I'd guess it would sound more familiar to an Indoeuropean-speaker than Chinese. Weird.

Anyway, of those I've heard, Basque.

[Astralsideria]

Latin. Noun conjugation? How strange....

Declension is used in many other languages, such as German, Romanian, Hungarian. Indeed, I would say it could be argued that the difference between "I", "me", and "my" are a vestigial form of English declension, and the same with French "je"/"moi"/"mon/ma/mes", and their cognates in many languages. We are more dependent on word order, but it's still there. Just my view on it; other "gentlemen philologists", or whatever hobby-studiers of language like to call themselves, feel free to shoot me down in flames

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I'd have to say Russian. It's words are really long and it sounds very alien to my ears. Behind that is Mandarin, because it is very off base comparted to European languages.

Russian, at least, is an Indoeuropean language... I'd guess it would sound more familiar to an Indoeuropean-speaker than Chinese. Weird.

Anyway, of those I've heard, Basque.

That's an odd one too, euskera.

Kaixo, Ris. Zer moduz?