So I'm curious if based on the linguistics of the languages in the area if numbers would be written High to Low (like we do today) or Low to High (as they were written in Arabic). I have heard that one major influence on our numeric system is how in Roman numerals, larger denominations came first so it was natural to carry that rule over. This was aided by the fact that Arabic Numerals we're written High - Low if you read Left to Right.

I'm curious what y'all think and what arguments you have.

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What’s the best way to find a big tiddy visigoth gf?

Basically what the title says. I was looking through a Gothic textbook (An Introduction to the Gothic Language, Thomas O. Lambdin) & on some of the first few pages, in Chapter 1 (page 3), it outright states that the word order of Gothic is determined by the underlying Greek. So this kind of peaked some interest. How does Gothic differ from Vandalic & Burgundian, along with the other East Germanic languages (if any), & how do they differ in general from the other Germanic branches?

Thank you in advance!

I (25) have several foreign family members, mostly from Germany and Scandinavia, we often speaking in their native languages but this story mainly involves the German members of my family.

One day I was shopping with cousins Karlotte and Günther (not their real names) at a shopping centre in my hometown, they don't speak English that well so we converse in German. While we were talking about filmmaking this woman (Entitled Mom) and two girls (9 and 13-ish, non-entitled kids) walk in, we kept with our conversation until the older girl approached us.

girl 1: "What are you talking about?

Me: "They don't speak English very well, so they are conversing in German."

Girl 1: "That's cool-"(she is cut of by Girl 2).

Girl 2: "Mom's gonna know about this"

She grabbed girl 1 by the arm and pulled her back to their mother, who was furiously shouting at girl 1 for just talking to us.

Günther: (confused)"Warum ist sie so wütend auf sie? Sie hat uns nicht gestört. (Why is she so angry at her? She didn't bother us.)

Karlotte: (Worried for the girls safety) "Diese Mutter ist wirklich psychotisch. (That mother is really psychotic.)"

At this point the mother then shouted at the girl just for asking us what we were talking about. You think she would stop shouting at the girl and go about her Merry way.

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

She comes back around the corner and in a very angry manner.

Entitled Mom: "Tell your Kraut cousins to speak English or I will get you thrown out, their language is evil and it is not welcome here in America!!!"

For those that don't speak stupid "Kraut" is an insulting remark directed at German people.

When "Kraut" left her mouth, I and Günther were angry. I responded.

Me: "they don't speak English, they only speak German, why do you have a problem with it?"

Entitled Mom: "Their languages are EVIL, they corrupt our children and turn them to heresy, and it's rude."

Before I respond, Karlotte tells her, in the thickest Pomeranian accent Ever.

Karlotte: "If Germanic languages are evil, what about English?"

Entitled Mom started to stutter her words trying to find a response.

Me: "Also, why would you scream at your kids in a store for no reason?"

Girl 1 was cracking a smile when Karlotte burned her that comment, I can tell we made her day. But the mom didn't want to look dumb and tried to call her husband who she claims is the owner of the store.

He arrives but no rules were broken and we weren't causing a scene. He then apologies for his wi

i read the history about vandal kingdom ruled in north Africa in ancient times i just want to know do the Berber languages and variety Arabic languages spoken in north Africa have loanwords from east Germanic origin like for example vandalic language?

The East Germanic languages are one of three branches in the Germanic family, and while their sister branches survived and grew with such large languages as German(West) and Icelandic/Norse(North), the East Germanic languages went extinct in the 900s AD. Gothic, the most famous EG language, had a sizeable corpus, with it's own writing system and translation of the Bible, but is about 600 years more archaic than other modern Germanic languages(the English name Bernard would have been Beornheard at this time, to give you an idea of how much language can change in a few centuries). However, a small dialect of Gothic survived into the 18th century, Crimean Gothic, and though it's only attested in a few dozen words, there aren't even any names recorded in the language(aside from one from the 5th century). But I dug up this old chat log from 2008 of a linguistics professor talking about the sound changes from Gothic, and using his analysis and the list of Crimean Gothic words, I was able to modernize some Gothic names into what they would probably have looked like in modern times if Gothic as a language survived:

My reconstruction of Gothic names in Crimean Gothic:

Maculine names:

>Aþalafuns > Atalfuns

>Aiwareiks > Ewreich

>Alareiks > Alreich

>Batwins > Batwin

>Damjanus > Damian

>Friþugais > Fritzuges

>Friþureiks > Fritzureich

>Gaisalaiks > Geslech

>Gudilub > Gudlub

>Sunjaifriþas > Suniefritz

>Swinþila > Schwintila

>Ufitahari > Oftari

>Wērēka > Wiricha

>Wiljariþ > Wiliaritz

>Witireikz > Witreich

>Wulfila > Wulfila

Feminine names:

>Aileisabaiþ > Eleisabetz

>Amalaberga > Amalberga

>Amalafriþa > Amalfrida

>Amalaswinþa > Amalschwinda

>Audasinda > Oedsinda

>Ereliuba > Erlyba

>Erumanihilda > Ermanilda

>Goiswinþa > Goischwinda

>Gudagiba > Gudgiba

>Haþuwiga > Atwigna

>Ingund > Ingund

>Klaudoswinþa > Kloedschwinda

>Liudesinda > Lydsinda

>Mahtsihilda > Machilda

>Ragnagild > Ragnagild

A few notes:

The traveler who recorded these words was Dutch, and in the Dutch language there is no th sound, which may be the reason that þ changed to d, t, þ, or tz depending on case("tz" may even have been the recorder's attempt to write down the sound the "th" made).

Womens' names in Gothic don'

https://strawpoll.com/zprbf4zx

Team A (East Asia + ~Romance Language Europe + Israel):

China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Israel

Team B (Russia + India + Pakistan + ~Germanic Europe):

Russia, India, Pakistan, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway

Rules:

1. Takes place today in 2019
2. No nukes
3. I know that various countries could arguably be added to a team above or removed from a team above based on my descriptions of each team. Please go by the actual countries listed above.
4. No alliances are honored that would violate the teams set above.
5. I know that this would never happen IRL for various reasons including diplomatic and political reasons; but please ignore the reality that this would never happen and just assume it happens for the sake of the hypothetical.

Were the stories of Theodoric also present in Italian/Romance dialects or were they entirely Germanic? That is, if they were also present in Italian culture then the question I have about transmission is irrelevant because people were obviously translating them and spreading them, but if they aren't present in Romance then I think that would give more bearing to oral transmission from Goths->Germans?

Or were the legends of Theodoric/Dietrich through intermediaries i.e. German monk-types reading Latin chronicles -> telling other Germans because they saw some affinity with the Goths -> legends? With no direct cultural contact between people living in what is now Germany and Goths.

I’m interested in trying to learn Gothic, since it seems like a nice challenge, but are there any great sources that I can use?

How much is known of them? How widespread were they? Why did they become extinct?

As a (non-fluent, but functional) speaker of both Danish and Spanish, I always thought it was funny that “niveau” and “nivel” were such similar words for “level”, and figured they must have a common ancestor in there somewhere. I looked it up once, found out about Latin “libella” → Old French “nivel” → French “niveau” → Danish “niveau”, and assumed the story ended there. What I didn’t discover until yesterday is that apparently “niveau” exists, with minor spelling variations, in

• Dutch (“niveau”)
• German (“niveau”)
• Swedish (“nivå”)
• Norwegian (“nivå”)
• Serbo-Croatian (“nivo”)
• & Turkish (“nivo”)

and according to Wiktionary, at least, all of these are due to French influence specifically. How? Why?

Wikipedia says that the word dates back to the anglo-Saxon pagan period, and just some quick google translating shows pretty much every Germanic language from Icelandic to Frisian uses a variance of "hell" or "hell+punishment". Except Yiddish but that uses a word based on "Gehenna" which would only make sense.

Was this more a matter of Catholic missionaries having a set manner of talking to Germanic pagans in a certain way, or would the word have already been in everybody's mouths?

I was wondering about creole languages, like Pidgin and Patois, and whether they fall under the same language family as their "parent" language.

Zieth (Zieth: Þe Zeeþ Spraake [θɛ zeːθ ˈspɹɑːkə] or just Zeeþ [zeːθ]) is a Germanic language spoken in Ziethland, a Oculo-AlloGeo country. I based Zieth on mainly Germanic languages such as Dutch, Afrikaans, West Frisian, and some English. Zieth is written with a modified Latin alphabet.

Consonants

• there is no Final-Obstruent-Devoicing, unlike many other Germanic languages

Vowels

Articles

DEFINITE

þe [θɛ] "the"

INDEFINITE

een [eːn] "one/a(n)"

Plural Nouns

Noun + (e)n

hond "dog" > honden "dogs"

Verbs

Verbs usually end in -n

Here is the verb eeten "to eat"

So that's the end! If you have any questions about Zieth, let me know! Bye!

I have tried to make one (my first ever) and is an utter mess, too much Latin and Greek vocubulary, too much German, Dutch, English and a lack of Norse vocab, the main goal was to make a Pangermanic language and make it as easy to undrstand for all Germanic Family speakers, but it ended up having way too much forgein and German vocubulary rather than Norse so it will be way harder for let's say danes to learn it. The pronouns for each gender have direct ties to german words "Broe/Brow" "Zvhe/Zvew" the nueter has been directly translated from english "Tie/Tiem" and even the other gender/pronoun used for if you don't know someones prefered pronoune is even taken from arabic "Al/Ali". Any way I can maybe save this language from being trash

Can learning Japanese be easier for dyslexic people than comparing to Latin and Germanic languages?

Hello I’m dyslexic, learning English, Spanish, and German has be hard for me. I’ve read some articles claiming learning Mandarin and Japanese can be easier to read for dyslexic people. Maybe somebody here who is dyslexic can help me confirm this.

I also enjoy learning and am curious about Japanese and Chinese culture, love the food too.

Mainly wanna learn for economics reasons, especially if I find it easier to read than English once I become more fluent. I am currently majoring in economics.

Maryanne Wolf directs the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice, UCLA, and is the editor of “Dyslexia, Fluency, and the Brain.” She says that the brain works differently when reading pictorial or Latin alphabets, and that because dyslexic people think visually and analyze patterns, they have an easier time learning Japanese.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2021/10/15/language/visual-elements-make-japanese-easier-language-dyslexic-people/

Wai Ting Siok of Hong Kong University has discovered that being dyslexic in Chinese is actually not the same as being dyslexia in English. Her team’s MRI studies showed that dyslexia among users of alphabetic scripts such as English versus users of logographic scripts such as Chinese was associated with different parts of the brain. Chinese reading uses more of a frontal part of the left hemisphere of the brain, whereas English reading uses a posterior part of the brain. http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/latest/dyslexia-in-chinese

Thank you

I'm a fairly new conlanger (if that term should indicate anything) but I've already started work on a few Conlangs, 4 I can properly remember with too much clarity. I'm currently investing time into an East Germanic language that I'm using Gothic as a good reference for.

I don't have too much in the ways of a lexicon but I do have the sounds it should make on the consonant and vowel charts

Consonants

Nasals: /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ /ŋ/

Stops: /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

Sib Aff: /t͡s/ /t͡ʃ/

Non-Sib Aff: /p̪͡ɸ/

Sib Fric: /s/ /z/ /∫/

Non-Sib Fric: /ɸ/ /β/ /f/ /v/ /θ/ /ð/ /x/ /ɣ/

Approx: /j/

Lat App: /l/

Co-Articulated Consonants: /w/ /ʍ/ /ɫ/

Vowels

Close: /i:/ /y:/ /u:/

Near-Close: /ɪ/ /ʏ/ /ʊ/

Close-Mid: /e:/ /ø:/ /ɘ/ /o:/

Open-Mid: /ɛ/ /ɛ:/ /œ/ /ɔ/

Near-Open: /ɐ/

Open: /a/ /a:/

That's the basis of my East Germanic conlang, rough but I think I found a good set of consonants and vowels so far. The language at the moment is called Kädhito, but I'm considering a possible change. I've opted out of any rhotics as Gothic essentially lacked them and lacked the Germanic rhotacism.

Any feedback will be much appreciated

Pardon for my inexcusably poor understanding of the Anglo-Frisian-Germanic language, and thus regional dialects, known by native speakers as "English". Indeed I do give my upmost effort to educate myself and better my understanding and thus comprehension of such an unusual yet widely used modern foreign language, but alas my efforts have so far encountered nothing but limited success. The combinations of both Latin and Germanic lexis have so far proved to be a serious tribulation for my progress.

Before we continue, it is of upmost importance that I state my location of residence as to clarify why my linguistic skills are so substandard. I reside in the sovereign state recognised by the United Nations, and thus the international diplomatic sphere, as "The French Republic", colloquially our title is simplified to just "France" for ease of use purposes. Now you may be considering the stereotype that us Frenchmen are reluctant to undertake the studying of languages, and indeed you are in fact correct, the opposite is true of our neighbours to the North East of Alsace and Lorraine, called Germans.

Now you are probably considering the, lets face it, obvious possibility that English isn't my first Language. This is also a correct statement, quite predictably, my mother tongue is in fact in "French" language, though I can also competently converse in the languages known in the Anglo sphere as: "German", "Mandarin", "Korean", "Latin", "Old Norse", "Hanajii" and "Proto-Luganian Celtic" The latter of which I take great pride in understanding.

However, I do not share such linguistic capabilities and expansive lexicon in my understanding of "English", so therefore I must once again profusely apologise for my such poor use of the vocabulary, Grammar and other such linguistic factors that one must consider in this context. Anyways here's the comment i wanted to make:

lmao

I purposely excluded German because that would've been the top answer.

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Full abreasting: I'm not an Anglish speaker at all, but I’m interested ??? whether Anglish leaves un-Germanish words in, if enough other Germanish tongues say an evenmatch un-Germanic word. (as a bisen, whether “interest” would be left in, owing to German Interesse, Dutch interesse (although belangstelling exists), Danish interesse, Swedish intresse, and Norwesian interesse, even though it comes from Old French.) And if not, would that be worthwhile to think about?

Especially considering English isn’t as much of a help as you’d expect, given how little Germanic vocabulary it actually has.

All Germanic languages borrowed quite a bit from Latin and Romance languages. English especially.

However, what are some examples of the other way, where Romance languages borrowed words from different Germanoc languages? Those aren't as well known, I think.

Emeś: Hund ar net sjnel. [hund] [ɑɾ] [net] [L̝̥nel]
English: The dog is not fast. [ðə] [dɔg] [əz] [nɑt] [fæst]
German: Der Hund ist nicht schnell. [de:ɐ̯]  [hʊnt]  [ɪst]  [nɪçt]  [ʃnɛl]
Dutch: De hond is niet snel. [də] [hɔnt] [ɪs] [nit] [snɛl]
Swedish: Hunden är inte snabb. [hun: den] [ä: r] [²ịn: te] [snab:]

Hello r/linguistics! Today my partner made a joke about the double meaning of "free" in the English language which leads me to this question. I noticed that despite of the fact that "free" could also mean "out of bondage" in other germanic languages, at least in the Continent, most Germanic speaking countries use "gratis" instead. Clearly it should be some Roman influence since it is a Latin word and inherited by the Romance languages. So, why do we use "free" instead of "gratis" more frequently in the English language?

It might be a silly question for this forum but after done some basic researches I did not find a good answer to it. I hope you could help me on this one, thank you!

https://strawpoll.com/zprbf4zx

Team A (East Asia + ~Romance Language Europe + Israel):

China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Israel

Team B (Russia + India + Pakistan + ~Germanic Europe):

Russia, India, Pakistan, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway

Rules:

1. Takes place today in 2019
2. No nukes
3. I know that various countries could arguably be added to a team above or removed from a team above based on my descriptions of each team. Please go by the actual countries listed above.
4. No alliances are honored that would violate the teams set above.
5. I know that this would never happen IRL for various reasons including diplomatic and political reasons; but please ignore the reality that this would never happen and just assume it happens for the sake of the hypothetical.

Pardon for my inexcusably poor understanding of the Anglo-Frisian-Germanic language, and thus regional dialects, known by native speakers as "English". Indeed I do give my upmost effort to educate myself and better my understanding of such an unusual yet widely used modern foreign language, but alas my efforts have so far encountered nothing but limited success. The combinations of both Latin and Germanic lexis have so far proved to be a serious tribulation for my progress.