I've recently commenced in learning Italian, and it's great fun to see just how many words are similar to he words of my mother language Swedish and/or English, which I'm fluent in. (I actually use English a lot more than Swedish, given that I'm a member of so many international forums, and I even find myself thinking in English more often than not... )

Swedish is very similar to Norwegian and Danish, but while I can quite easily understand both spoken and written Norwegian there's no way I can understand spoken Danish! And then I'm still from the southern parts of Sweden, born in a city that's 20 minutes from Denmark if you step on a ferry. It's just so... Slurry...

Another language I sorta understand is Finnish, and that's 'cos both my parents are Finns. (I'm born here in Sweden though.) My papa and all my relatives (except my aunt) lives in various parts of south Finland, and I visit them relatively often. I understand some important words (such as "suklaa" and "jäätelö" ) and I usually "get the gist" when someone's talking. And when I go there I understand more the longer I'm there.

As for Italian, well, I'm (hopefully) going to work as a volunteer during the Winter Olympics in Torino, so I decided I needed to learn at least a bit of Italiano. I've only had a few lessons so far, but my teacher, Luigi, is great and I feel like I'm learning pretty fast. (I feel like I'm already ahead of the other people in my group even though they've had a few more lessons, but then again I'm better at Swedish then some of them too...)

I've taken french lessons too. Three years, didn't learn a squat. Prolly 'cos I didn't give a squat...

I love languages too, Sofia. I learned Medical Terminology years ago and noticed that heaps of the latin suffixes, prefixes and root words were similar to what we use today in everyday life. Also, there are so many different words to describe the same thing and they do actually derive from a different region of Europe.

Of course the conquests of past times could contribute to a great majority of the similarities. However I can see that, even though Europe has seperate countries now, it would have evolved by village to village, and the language changes ever-so-slightly with each village, spreading right across the whole of Europe, to Asia, then possibly even down to Australia. Also, cultural similarities is another fascination of mine. The artic circle is sparsely populated but populated non the less. Then the language/culture can pass from the European continent down into the Americas and vise versa. That would also explain the similarities in animal/plant life in those 2 seemingly distant continents.

What do you think?

I dunno so much about the history of languages, but it sure makes it easier to learn new ones when they've got words that are similar to the lingos you already know.

You must be kidding me..? Have you ever tried listening to a drunken Irish man..?

I speak write and read : Dutch, English, German, Bit French, Spanish and some Gealic.

Danish people don't have to be drunk to to be un-understandable...

ha ha ^ I was on holiday once and I became freindly with a danish guy called Per and his family and he thought I was german cuz I have a slight Geordie/scottish accent..? But he could certainly hold his beer...!!!

I met a drunk Danish guy once. He was asking me something, but there was no way I could decipher a single word of it...

Ye äron åscño b@n@n@$.

I've been kind of an international vagabond all of my life and picked up languages by necessity. Lived in Europe nine years and now in Mexico with jaunts to Central and South America. I can converse in five.

Cool!
I'm a vagabond at heart, but so far I haven't been able to just go where I want to go... I'm thinking about trying to get into some university in Russia once I'm done with the school I'm in now...