Can you speak any language/s

[Unkraut]

And then wondered how you'd explain that joke to someone in French.

Arch - here is your French homework. Translate into French:

What are the three rings of marriage?

Engagement ring
Wedding ring
Suffering.

 

[Crackle]

I bought a cyling hat in a French bike shop once to keep the rain out my eyes. My French ain't great and it was sometime after I'd left and was cycling again that I realized what I'd said.

I'm pretty sure I said 'I desire you a hat' but I couldn't think of the word for hat straight away so there was a slight pause before I said hat. It would account for the slightly alarmed look on the old lady's face.

I speak enough German to get around but not enough to hold a conversation.

 

[Andy in Sig]

It is fascinating to think that a language like Cornish could be revived having fallen into disuse. Whether or not native fluency is possible is difficult to say, as being surrounded by native German speakers I am certainly not at mother tongue level. The difficulty with Cornish is not having a native speaker base to learn from and have 'mistakes' corrected. I assume AiS would agree with this experience.

The best hope is bilingual eduction, which seems to be halting the decline in Welsh.

Linguistics already has the indications of what is likely to happen. First you need to understand what happens with pidgins. A pidgin is a sort of mongrel language which typically emerges where speakers of two or more languages who do not know each others languages have to communicate e.g. traders in seaports. Pidgins have extremely primitive grammar and a limited vocabulary.

If children are raised in the pidgin as their mother tongue they will, in one generation, give it all the characteristics of a full blown language: syntax, more vocabulary etc i.e. a new, true language will be born.

Now clearly Cornish is known in a much more complete version than any pidgin but for some time no native speakers have been born. If Cornish kids are raised with Cornish as their native tongue or if they are raised as genuine Cornish/English bilinguals, they will, in a similar process to the that of the pidgins, fill in all the gaps of the language and make it complete. I imagine thought that it would have significant differences to previous versions of Cornish which is sort of inevitable given the temporal gap in the existence of native speakers.

 

[Andy in Sig]

He also explained... Dudder was a rather unkind nickname for the aforementioned Mr Mitchell, who had a stammer (and who I don't know at all).
"Didder" means "did you", as in 'did you over, beat you up' etc. "the final dudder (if you still care) is a question tag, as in "did he?".
I've waited 20 years to explain that to someone. Now I shall have to celebrate with a glass of vino.

I used to work with a Scotsman called Ken. I always longed for the day to have reason to enquire if he knew another bloke called Ken because then I could have asked him, "D'ye no ken Ken, Ken?"

Alas the opportunity never arose.

 

[Radius]

I used to work with a Scotsman called Ken. I always longed for the day to have reason to enquire if he knew another bloke called Ken because then I could have asked him, "D'ye no ken Ken, Ken?"

Alas the opportunity never arose.

Very good

 

[Arch]

Arch - here is your French homework. Translate into French:

What are the three rings of marriage?

Engagement ring
Wedding ring
Suffering.

Ok, and I promise to use the dictionary, not Babelfish, as that would be cheating.

 

[Arch]

Thinking of puns and so on, I gather the Asterix books are full of puns in French, and also in English in the English versions (but I think the puns are different ones). That's good translation for you.

 

[Unkraut]

Thinking of puns ....

We went to see The Pirates of Penzance in German(!) in our new local multi-purpose hall. I was wondering how they would translate the misunderstanding of confusing pilot with pirate, as the German for pilot bears no resemblance at all to the word pirate. They did it by using Privat tuition as against Pirat tuition, which I thought was very clever.

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

I can speak French, but I cannot understand the reply.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Thinking of puns and so on, I gather the Asterix books are full of puns in French, and also in English in the English versions (but I think the puns are different ones). That's good translation for you.

Yeah - the Asterix books are puntastix - I bought a big stack of French one's at a car boot sale a couple of years ago, to compliment my set of English ones, but haven't actually delved in to check the jokes.

Truth be told my French probably isn't good enough to get the gags

 

[Arch]

I can speak French, but I cannot understand the reply.

Me too. We could have a really laboured conversation with each other in French!

 

[Unkraut]

Anybody know the French for Croissant?

 

[Maz]

Ich kann auch ein bisschen Deutsch

You know a little German?

 

[Arch]

Anybody know the French for Croissant?

Viennoiserie,or something like that...

 

[mangaman]

Going back to your Cornish cheese for a moment, as it is matured in tin mines, couldn't claim it is 'the only cheese that comes to you tinned, nature's way'?

Sorry about the late reply - I've been out sourcing cheese and Cornish caves all day

I've bought 24 tonnes of crappy cheddar

That's a great idea - I wonder if you'd care to join our organisation (in the marketting area, obviously aiming at the crucial German market)

Cheers

Mangaman
c/o Cornish Puddleglum plc ™
purveyors of taditional Cornish cheeses since 1765