Me a gomz brezhoneg

Minority Languages|Chinese|Romance languages|Serbocroatian

[beautiful-basque-country]

On a day like today, 50 years ago, there was the first official meeting to create Euskara Batua - unified or standard Basque.

Although some ignorant people still attack us by saying most of Basque people speak an invented language, Batua helped people learn Euskara a lot: inside Euskal Herria, new learners weren’t limited by their region’s dialect, unintelligible to other dialect speakers to a great extent; outside Euskal Herria, it gave foreign students the standards to learn Basque.

Although Batua has flaws and not everybody likes it - many people still prefer their own dialect - Basque has increased its number of speakers thanks to it…

[wtfduolingo]

[image transcription: a Portuguese phrase says “you need to get out of here before my husband arrives”]

[segledepericles]

Occitan, also known as Provençal, is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful languages in the world. The language of the troubadours, and the origin of most literature of the rest of Romace language-speaking nations.

Nowadays, Occitània is politically divided in 3 states: France, Italy and Spain (Catalonia), though most of its land and speakers are in the area in France. The UNESCO Red Book lists some of the dialects of Occitan as “seriously endangered.”

If you speak another Romance language, it will be a lot easier to learn Occitan from that language than from English. Occitan is very close to Catalan, so it will be considerably easier if you speak Catalan (in that case check out the Catalan gov’t’s website regarding Aranese. Full of resources!).

General resources:

Orbilat -  overview of the language and basic grammar. Page in English.

Occitan at Omniglot - general info about the language, pronunciation of the alphabet and difference among the dialects. In English.

occitanet.free.fr - you can access the website in English, French, or Occitan itself. Includes info on the language and a course from French.

Bàbel - basic grammar and pronunciation. Page in English.

PDF Els Elements Bàsics de la Llengua Occitana to learn Occitan from Catalan. Includes very good explanations and examples, grammar, vocabulary and everything you need. This is the best resource I’ve found so far.

Langoland - vocab lists in different dialects of Occitan (Auvergnac, Languedocien, Aranese…) with translation in English and French (click on the topic in the left margin).

Academia Occitana - website in Occitan and French. Includes vocabulary lists, verb conjugator, rules of the language, literature examples…

Occitània Online - vocabulary lists English-Occitan, Spanish-Occitan, French-Occitan, vocab about informatics E-O, explanations about the language and culture.

PanOccitan - website in Occitan and French. Includes flashcards for vocabulary on many different topics, a verb conjugator, and a course from French.

Viure a Catalunya versió en aranès - flashcards with drawings and the word in Aranese Occitan. They give you many topics to choose from and the pictures with and without the names. Useful for practise.

Provençal Phrasebook - useful sentences and vocabulary. English-Langedocian Occitan.

Verbix - verb conjugator

Diccionri infantil - flashcards with the word in Aranese Occitan and the translation to Catalan.

Forvo - words pronounced by native Occitan speakers (Provençal dialect)

Dictionaries and translators:

Glosbe - dictionary English-Occitan and viceversa

Freelang - same as above

Freelang Fr - dictionary Occitan-French and viceversa

itranslate4.eu - automatic translator with 39 languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, etc

Softcatalà - automatic translator to/from English, Catalan, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Aragonese. (The translations to English sometimes have the sentence structure messed up, but it works well with the other languages)

Traductor Gencat - automatic translator to/from Catalan and Spanish (based on the Aranese dialect of Occitan)

PanOccitan - dictionary French-Occitan and Occitan-French

Immersion:

Occitan Wikipèdia

Aran TV - television from Val d’Aran. All in Aranese (Gascon) Occitan

Viure al País - TV programmes about Occitania in Occitan made by France 3-Occitanie, interviewing people from diffeent areas of Occitania an dover a wide variety of cultural and historical topics

TV3 en aranès - Programmes in Aranese Occitan from the Catalan TV

Info occità aranès - a TV programme from Barcelona Televisió all in Aranese Occitan

Info occità llenguadocià - same programme but in Languedoccian dialect (with subs in Catalan)

Lo Jornalet - digital newspaper

Sapiéncia.eu - online magazine about science, history, linguistics, and geogrphy

Ràdio Lenga d’Òc - radio station fully in Occitan

Lingüistica Occitana - academic online magazine about the Occitan language, written fully in Occitan

Meddia Aranès - radio show in Aranese Occitan

La Setmana - weekly online newspaper

Fabrica - website in Occitan, French, and Catalan. Here you can find a lot of Occitan music, though part of the info is only accessible in French.

Òc Revista - magazine (also have the page in English, French, and Catalan)

Also, since Occitan was the main language of culture in the Middle Ages, it’s possible that your uni or city’s library has some books on it. And if you live in Catalonia check out Cercle d’Agermanament Occitano-Català if you’re interested in presential courses.

I also recommend checking out this page where you can find a lor of info about Occitan’s history, comparison to other languages/cultures, the oppression it went through, popular sayings, and many more.

[commemorativefashionshoes]

[sprachtraeume]

@whomannoman

[langbr-e-brezhoneg-blog]

relatable

[culmaer]

10 iconic South African songs (from the 00s)

Iconic Mzansi (2000s), a playlist by ia on Spotify

A playlist featuring Brenda Fassie, Mandoza, Karen Zoid, and others

Vulindlela — Brenda Fassie

Nkalakatha — Mandoza

Afrikaners is plesierig — Karen Zoid

Loslappie — Kurt Darren

Ndihamba nawe — Mafikizolo

Nomvula (After the rain) — Freshlyground

The Clap Song — Skwatta Kamp

Destiny — Malaika

Show dem (Make the circle bigger) — Jr, ft. HHP

Tussen stasies — Jack Parrow, ft. Die Heuwels Fantasties

[languagessi-deactivated20210423]

European Day of Languages Asks

1. Do you celebrate The European Day of Languages? If yes, how?   2. Do you speak any European languages? Which ones?   3. Are you studying any European languages? Which ones?   4. Which European languages would you like to learn eventually?   5. What is your favourite European language family? 6. What is your favourite Romance language?   7. What is your favourite Germanic language?   8. What is your favourite Slavic language?   9. What is your favourite Baltic language?   10. What is your favourite Celtic language?   11. What is your favourite Uralic language? 12. What is your favourite Turkic language? 13. What is your favourite language spoken in Europe that doesn’t belong to any of the language families mentioned? 14. What is your favourite non-European language? 15. How do you say “Happy European Day of Languages” in the languages you know?

[langbr-e-brezhoneg-blog]

1. We used to do stuff for it in school but nowadays I dont have a specific way to celebrate it 2. I speak French German and English 3. I study Portuguese, Catalan, Serbocroatian and Breton 4. Slovene, Spanish, Danish, Georgian 5. Romance (You didnt expect a Breton to say this did you =)) 6. Catalan 7. English 8. Serbocroatian 9. Samogitian (thats what my great grandpa spoke to rant about nazis in the 30s check it out) 10. Breton (obviously,just look at my blog) 11. Hungarian 12. Turkish (I love hearning it here in Berlin) 13. Basque 14. Mandarin (I mean hey I’m starting a sinology major in two-ish weeks I gotta like it) 15. Joyeuse Journée Européene des Langues, einen frohen Europäischen Tag der Sprachen

[hownottolearnalanguage]

Welsh and Irish Mutations Following Possessive Pronouns

Source:  Ball, Martin, and Nicole Muller, editors. The Celtic Languages. Routledge, 2009.

[langbr-e-brezhoneg-blog]

Some Occitan fun

So I’ve been doing a bit of occitan this summer, lengadocian occitan to be precise, and I wanted to share a few things that i find make the language Special that I noticed about the language:

*the feminine forms of words often end in -a but are pronounced o *the Negation of verbs is not made with a word descending from Latin non as in spanish, portuguese or catalan but using pas similarly to French ne...pas *the liaison is hell and I’m saying that as a French native speaker (Maybe I’ll make a post about it when I understand it better) *in the composite past the participle agrees with the object not the subject *Occitan has tonic and atonic possessive pronouns and the tonic ones use the definite article while the atonic ones do not

[mercigracies]

10 Catalan expressions with “Tot”

tot i així/això = however, even so

tot i que = although, even though

tot i (alguna cosa) = despite (something)

tot just = only, solely

tot d’una = suddenly, all of a sudden

tot plegat = in short, in total

fins i tot = even

ésser tot ulls = to be all eyes

ésser tot orelles = to be all ears

del tot = completely

[remscheid-official]

Wenn you use 😛😜😝🤣 to text your Mutti, you become the Mutti yourself.

[animestan69]

ich will nicht lügen, ich hatte zunächst angenommen, dass ich der Adressat dieses Posts bin

[domhnall-na-feannaig]

So, the main take away from this BBC article on ‘Còsagach’ is that near the end a guy from Visit Scotland is telling Gaelic speakers what a Gaelic word means and how it’s evolved. Apparently all the Gaelic speakers are wrong about what words in their own language means.

Not at all taking on board criticism but instead telling pretty much all Gaels that we’re wrong. Feck off.

[languagessi-deactivated20210423]

How I’m going to choose my next target language:

[firstnonbinarypresident-deactiv]

Trans kid tips

When a sub teacher calls your birth name out, just say they wrote the wrong name into the system in freshman year and haven’t changed it yet. This happened to a cis friend of mine. In fact, tell all the regular teachers that as well if you aren’t comfortable being outed to them.

[autistic-answers]

Okay, I love how this is 

Really practical and helpful for trans kids

Also technically a 100% true thing to say, like no lying needed, this is just a short version of the truth

[langbr-e-brezhoneg-blog]

Breton Mutations

Mutations are one of the typical features of celtic languages. They are called Kemmadur in Breton. Mutations are consonant changes at the beginning of a word that are initiated by the word in front of the word that does the mutation.

There are four types of mutations in breton: soft mutation (kemmadurioù dre vlotaat), hard mutation (kemmadurioù dre galetaat), spirant mutation (kemmadurioù c'hwezhadenniñ) and mixed mutation (kemmadurioù mesket).

So now the big question is when do we use these mutations.

The soft mutation is the most common mutation. It is used with: -many prepositions: da, dre, a, war, dindan, eme, en ur -the question word pe -the articles al, ar, an, ul, ur, un before feminine singular nouns and masculine plural nouns that denote a people (the French, the Breton...) -the possessive pronouns da and e -the verbal particles a, ne, na, ez, ra -the numerals daou and div -the conjunctions pa, pe, tra -the adverb re -the pronouns holl, re, hini -adjectives following feminine singular nouns and masculine plural nouns that denote a people

The spirant mutation is used with: -the possessive pronouns he, o, ma -the numerals tri, teir, pevar, peder, nav

The hard mutation is used for: -the possessive pronoun ho

The mixed mutation is used with: -the verbal particles e and o -the conjunction ma

Learning the mutations: Ideally you learn the table of the sound changes and then when you learn a word that introduces a mutation you learn which change it introduces with the word. When making flashcards write the mutation with the word.

This is an overview to breton mutations, it is not intended to contain all the information there is about the subject but to give an overview. Please note that I myself am a learner and not a fluent or native speaker.

[langbr-e-brezhoneg-blog]

Reviving this langblr

Hey so after a long break im back, i intend to engage in the langblr community and contribute by sharing my knowledge on european minority languages (mainly Breton). I hope you like this Tumblr, I will try to find time to invest in it

[blackerinapendleton]

Today in art history class we learned about Victorian weeaboos.

That is, people in the Victorian era who were obsessed with Japan. It was called Japonisme. 

I had to try really hard to not die in class.

[daphnis-is-screaming]

I fucking had to OK?

[kurosae]

Wtf

[cisnowflake]

Weebs are a god damn tradition.

[parkersrevenge]

Yeah, Victorian weebs were very much a thing.

[jhonny-manic]

You learn something new everyday.

[interretialia]

Ecce viabua Victoriana!

[anxiousgoldengirl]

Tips to start reading a book in your target language

● Choose easy books Shorts and easy books are the best option for starters. For sure you don’t wanna read Game of Thrones in your target language.

● Read books that you’ve already read A known-story facilitates the reading of a non-fluent language.

● Read in e-readers It’s great ‘cause you can use dictionary and translator by one touch. I’d recommend Kindle and Moon Reader.

● Don’t translate every word Try to find the context of the word, if you don’t, translate. Don’t make your reading massive.

● Make the lecture a habit Read everyday anytime you can, just as your native language.

● Don’t wait! Don’t way to be in a intermediate level, you can start the reading being a beginner (there’s tales and short stories for beginners)

● Think in your target language It’s kinda hard, I know, but it’s necessary. Think on that language while reading, otherwise it won’t help that much.

Bonus: WordReference - a great online/app dictionary-translator My dictionary - a great site/app where you can add learned words and do exercises with ‘em.

Glad to help, any doubts you can totally ask me! Greetings from Brazil! =D