#weeklytongue

[wikitongues]

Maacisse! 

That’s ‘good morning’ in Afar, an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, which is this week’s #WeeklyTongue. Afar is spoken by approximately 1.4 million people and is in the Saho-Afar branch of Cushitic Afro-Asiatic languages.

Afar uses 17 consonant sounds and 5 vowel sounds. However, the vowels can be long or short, so you could say there’s 10 vowel sounds. Let’s go with 10!

The written form of Afar is interesting, as this varies from region to region. In Ethiopia, the Ge’ez script is used. However it can also be written in the Latin or Arabic scripts too.

Want to start speaking Afar?

Here’s some basics to get you started...

Maacisse - good morning to one person

Maacisseni - good morning to more than one person

Salaamata - goodbye

(Atu) maa migaq lito? - what’s your name?

Yi migaq .......  -my name is....

Anni'kkek temeete ? - where are you from?

....emeete. - I’m from ......

Intrigued?

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_language

Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/afar.htm

Free beginner materials: http://afaraf.free.fr/index.html

Are you a native Afar speaker? We’d love to hear from you! You can share your Wikitongues video speaking your native language here. Why not submit a video today?

[wikitongues]

Hey there! Welcome to this week’s #WeeklyTongue! It’s a short one this week as some languages just don’t have as much info documented about them unfortunately. 

The language in the video is Agotime, otherwise known as Adangbe. Remember last week’s #WeeklyTongue Adangme? Perhaps unsurprisingly given their similar names, the two languages are related and both in the Kwa language family. However they are different languages. 

One big difference is the number of speakers. Adangme is spoken by around 800,000 people, while Adangbe is spoken by just 4,000 roughly. 

For more info (there’s not much I’m afraid!) check these links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agotime_language

https://www.ethnologue.com/language/adq

Have you considered submitting a Wikitongues video? We’re always looking for new videos! Why not submit a video today?

[wikitongues]

Kwai!

That’s hello in Abenaki, this week’s #WeeklyTongue and the language in the video you just watched, Goldilocks. 

Abenaki is an almost extinct language spoken in Maine, USA and Quebec, Canada. The last speaker of Eastern Abenaki died in 1991 and it’s estimated that there’s just 14 native speakers of Western Abenaki left.

Despite the low number of speakers and initial seemingly bleak outlook, there are efforts being made to revitalise and preserve the language, which is always good news. 

Western Abenaki uses quite a small range of vowel and consonant sounds.

Abenaki verbs have 4 moods: indicative, conditional, subjunctive, and imperative. Verbs can also be categorised as animate substantive, possessive, adjective, objective, dubitative, passive, or relative. There are six tenses: present, past, past indefinite, pluperfect, future, and second future tense.

It’s possible that the word Skunk comes from the Abenaki word seganku.

Ready to learn some Abenaki?

Kwai! - hello

Nd'elewizi... - My name is...

Nia ojihila... - I come from...

Tôni kd'ôllôozi? - How are you?

Kzalmômek ônda tebakweniganal - to love someone without boundaries

Want to take it further?

Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/abenaki.php

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abenaki_language

Vocabulary lists: http://www.cowasuck.org/language.cfm

Resources links: http://www.native-languages.org/abna.htm

A great page with vocab audio recordings: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~abenaki/Wobanaki/index.htm

Are you a native speaker of Abenaki? We’re always looking for videos for Wikitongues. Why not submit a video today?

[wikitongues]

сальа́м!

That’s hello in Abaza, this week’s #WeeklyTongue and the language of the alphabet you just heard in the video above. 

Abaza is a language spoken primarily in parts of Russia and Turkey by around 48,000 people. It is a Northwest Caucasian language and is written using Cyrillic in Russia, and the Latin alphabet in Turkey. 

An interesting fact about Abaza is the amount of consonant sounds it has compared to the amount of vowel sounds - 63 consonant sounds and just 6 vowel sounds!

According to this article, Abaza is considered to be one of the more difficult languages to speak in the region. 

Want to know more? 

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaza_language

Abaza YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmDMobJKkh2BoIdOXH9ZBDdSfQXHiQbUS

Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/abaza.htm

The Abaza alphabet: http://www.eki.ee/knab/lat/kblabq.pdf

Abaza to Russian dictionary: http://www.abazinka.ru/

Do you speak Abaza? We’re always looking for native speaker video submissions! Why not submit a video today?

[wikitongues]

Jae, sakiric!

Eso es buen día en la #WeeklyTongue de esta semana, Quiché.

El quiché es un lengua mayense hablada por alrededor de 2 millones de personas en Guatemala, de las cuales alrededor de 300.000 son monolingües.

Existen 5 dialectos principales del quiché. En lo referido a la pronunciación, algunos dialectos aún usan el sistema de 10 vocales utilizado en variedades más antiguas del idioma, mientras que otras usan solo 6 vocales. Interesante ¿no?

Los verbos en quiché pueden ser bastante complejos, ya que cuentan tanto con sufijos como prefijos para denotar sujeto, aspecto, modo y estatus (por ejemplo ¿es el verbo transitivo o intransitivo? ¿Indicativo o imperativo?).

El orden gramatical tradicional es verbo-objeto-sujeto, y, aunque los puristas intentan mantener esto, la influencia del español (sujeto-verbo-objeto) ha hecho que muchos alternen entre ambos.

¿Quieres comenzar a aprender quiché?

Jae, sakiric - Buen día

Sakiric, nan - Buen día (a una mujer)

Sakiric, tat - Buen día (a un hombre)

A utz a wach? - ¿Cómo estás?

Utz ya, maltiox chawe. E ri awe, a utz a wach? - Estoy bien, gracias. Y tú ¿cómo estás?

Chwek chic - Nos vemos mañana

Ch’abej chic - Hablamos más tarde

Cawil awib - Cuidate

Y si aún no estás satisfecho...

Algunas frases en quiché: http://www.mission.net/guatemala/quetzaltenango/page.php?lang=eng&pg_id=1894

Información sobre la gramática quiché: http://aboutworldlanguages.com/kiche

Diccionario, gramática, alfabeto: http://www.iglesiacatolica.org.gt/bibliakiche/idioma.htm

Diccionario quiché-español:

http://www.iglesiacatolica.org.gt/bibliakiche/BKiche_DiccioKE.pdf

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27iche%27_language

¿Hablas quiché? Siempre estamos a la espera de nuevos vídeos de hablantes nativos ¿Porqué no nos envías el tuyo hoy?

[wikitongues]

 Jae, sakiric!

That’s good morning in this week’s #WeeklyTongue: K’iche’ Mayan. 

K’iche’ is a Mayan language spoken by over 2 million people in Guatemala, around 300,000 of whom are monolingual. 

There are 5 main dialects of K’iche’. When it comes to pronunciation, some dialects still use the 10 vowel sound system of previous varieties of the language. However, other dialects use a 6 vowel sound system. Interesting, huh?

Verbs in K’iche’ can be quite complex, with both possible prefixes and suffixes to denote subject, aspect, mood, and status (for example, is the verb transitive or intransitive? Indicative or imperative?).

The traditional word order of the language is verb-object-subject, and despite language purists attempts to maintain this, the influence of Spanish (subject-verb-object) means that many speakers alternate between different word orders.

Want to start speaking K’iche’ Mayan?

Jae, sakiric - good morning

Sakiric, nan - good morning (to a woman)

Sakiric, tat - good morning (to a man)

A utz a wach? - How are you?

Utz ya, maltiox chawe. E ri awe, a utz a wach? - I’m doing well thanks. How are you?

Chwek chic - see you tomorrow

Ch’abej chic - speak later

Cawil awib -take care (informal)

Taking it further...

Some K’iche’ phrases: http://www.mission.net/guatemala/quetzaltenango/page.php?lang=eng&pg_id=1894

Info about the grammar of K’iche’: http://aboutworldlanguages.com/kiche

Dictionary, grammar, alphabet: http://www.iglesiacatolica.org.gt/bibliakiche/idioma.htm

K’iche’ to English dictionary:

 http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/quidic_complete.pdf

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27iche%27_language

Do you speak K’iche’? We’re always open to new submissions of native speakers speaking their languages! Why not submit a video today?

[wikitongues]

Saluton! La #WeeklyTongue de esta semana es Esperanto. Aquí podemos ver a nuestro embajador Teddy hablándolo.

Esperanto es una lengua auxiliar creada por el doctor polaco Ludwig Zamenhof en 1887. El primer nombre del esperanto fue “La Internacia Lingvo”, o La Lengua Internacional, pero se cambió a esperanto que significa “el que espera”.

Zamenhof vivió en Bialystok, una ciudad polaca hogar de polacos, rusos, judíos, lituanos y alemanes. Él creó un idioma para romper las barreras lingüísticas y convertirla en una lengua franca.

Hay alrededor de 10 millones de personas que han estudiado esperanto, y 1 millón que lo pueden entender. Hay cerca de 1000 personas que lo han aprendido de forma nativa.

Gramática Aunque el alfabeto es similar al polaco, Zamenhov introdujo algunas letras nuevas como Ĉĉ, Ĝĝ, Ĥĥ, Ĵĵ, Ŝŝ, y Ŭŭ. Estas solo aparecen en el esperanto pero a veces cambian a ch, gh, jh or cx, gx, jx, o c’, g’, j’, si la letra anterior no se puede escribir.

Prefijos, raíces y sufijos son combinados para crear palabras en esperanto. De esta manera la gente puede crear palabras cuyo significado es comprensible. Todos los sustantivos terminan en -o, adjetivos en -a y verbos derivados en -e. Los sustantivos en plural usados como sujetos terminan en -oj mientras que su forma singular terminan en -on.  

Frases básicas Hola - Saluton Sí - Jes No - Ne ¿Cuál es tu nombre? - Kio estas via nomo? Mi nombre es... - Mia nomo estas ~. ¿Hablas esperanto? - Ĉu vi parolas Esperante? Te amo - Mi amas vin !Paz! - Pacon! Soy un principiante de esperanto - Mi estas komencanto de Esperanto.

¿Sabías qué...? En febrero de 2012 el esperanto fue añadido al traductor de google como su lengua número 64. La Academia Internacional de Ciencias en San Marino usa el esperanto como un idioma en el que se enseña. Tanto la Biblia como el Corán fueron traducidos al esperanto.

¡Links! Curso de Duolingo: http://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/eo/en/status Esperanto USA - Aprende Esperanto; https://www.esperanto-usa.org/en/content/getting-started-learning-esperanto Lernu http://en.lernu.net/ ¡Un montón de links! http://www.esperanto.net/info/index_en.html La página de Omniglot en Esperanto http://www.omniglot.com/writing/esperanto.htm

[wikitongues]

There’s this notion that Esperanto is culturally neutral, and it’s absolutely not. It’s politically neutral, in that it is not used by any government, but it is based on only a few languages from a specific culture and time period (Industrial Pre-War Europe), and the original vocabulary reflects that. Esperanto was, for its time, a fantastic language and a marvelous invention. But Esperanto is a remnant of an imperial, colonial society, and we know so much more about the world now and so much more about linguistics and language. There’s less of a need for an auxlang now. I’m not advocating against people learning Esperanto. By all means, there’s a great and diverse community these days that has nothing to do with the original colonial ideals. But the misinformation/ignorance of what it is, its history, and the structure of the language itself is what bothers me. Understand what you are learning. Read Zamenhof’s Unua Libro. BUT! All that said, the cool thing is that Esperanto is beginning to develop its own culture, distinct from its roots in Europe, and I think that’s fascinating.

www.adventurewithben.tumblr.com Some opinions on our #WeeklyTongue that is Esperanto. What do you think?