Challenge 52 in 52: Kurdish

Kurdish is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish languages belong to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. The main three dialects or languages of Kurdish are Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji), Central Kurdish (Sorani), and Southern Kurdish (Xwarîn). The majority of the Kurds speak Kurmanji, and most Kurdish texts are written in Kurmanji and Sorani. Kurmanji is written in the Hawar alphabet, a derivation of the Latin script, and Sorani is written in the Sorani alphabet, a derivation of Arabic script.

Omniglot article about Kurdish

Challenge 52 in 52: Romani

Romani is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to Ethnologue, seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their own. The largest of these are Vlax Romani (about 500,000 speakers), Balkan Romani (600,000), and Sinte Romani (300,000). Some Romani communities speak mixed languages based on the surrounding language with retained Romani-derived vocabulary – these are known by linguists as Para-Romani varieties, rather than dialects of the Romani language itself. The differences between the various varieties can be as large as, for example, the differences between the Slavic languages.

Speakers of the Romani language usually refer to the language as rromani ćhib "the Romani language" or romanes "in a Rom way". This derives from the Romani word rom, meaning either "a member of the (Romani) group" or "husband". This is also the origin of the term "Roma" in English, although some Roma groups refer to themselves using other demonyms (e.g. 'Kaale', 'Sinti').

Romani language in Omniglot

52 in 52: Lombard

The Lombard language belongs to the Gallo-Italic family and is a cluster of homogeneous dialects that are spoken by millions of speakers in Northern Italy and southern Switzerland. The language is also spoken in Santa Catarina in Brazil by Lombard immigrants from the Province of Bergamo, in Italy.

The most ancient linguistic substratum that has left a mark on the Lombard language is that of the ancient Ligures. However, available information about the ancient language and its influence on modern Lombard is extremely vague and limited. That is in sharp contrast to the influence left by the Celts, who settled in Northern Italy and brought their Celtic languages and culturally and linguistically Celticised the Ligures. The Celtic substratum of modern Lombard and the neighbouring languages of Northern Italy is self-evident and so the Lombard language is classified as a Gallo-Italic language (from the ancient Roman name for the Celts, Gauls).

Challenge 52 in 52: Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age.  Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting effect on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. 

Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda, a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from what is today Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language.

Challenge 52 in 52: Farsi

Persian also known by its endonym Farsi is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties, namely Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan, as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran. 

It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet, a derivative of the Arabic script, and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet, a derivative of the Cyrillic script.

Modern Persian is a continuation of Middle Persian, an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian, which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Pars (Persia) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages.

Challenge 52 in 52: Basque

Challenge 52 in 52: Greek

Challenge 52 in 52: Aragonese

Portuguese alphabet and pronunciation

Go to Omniglot page about Portuguese alphabet

my notes:
- the b and d are very, very, very soft, like a feather... the same with all the other consonants... I don't think any other language offers as much variation in the pronunciation as Portuguese.
- e is often [i], and disappears in the end of the word. In "bem"... it's almost Danish "ej". O is [u] and ou is [o] :-D
- some vowels sound like the Swedish ones - one must be very careful with the vowel sounds to get them right. Sometimes vowels are not pronounced, the bindings are interesting etc. There probably are rules, but I don't know them yet, so I need to struggle with them.
- m is sometimes almost n or ng
- r can be anything from the almost French r to the... er... there is a Swedish dialect that pronounces the R the Portuguese way, with a lot of roll and a bit of rock :-D (And every now and then there's a hint of L in the R, too...  Here's quite a good example. The rock-and-roll R is about 1:50 when she sings "Rolar no meio de tanta riqueza"

Tu achas que eu sou uma selvagem
E conheces o mundo
Mas eu não posso crer
Não posso acreditar
Que selvagem possa ser
Se tu é que não vês em teu redor (teu redor)

Tu pensas que esta terra te pertence
Que o mundo é um ser morto mas vais ver
Que cada pedra, planta ou criatura
Está viva e tem alma, é um ser

Tu dás valor apenas às pessoas
Que acham como tu sem se opôr
Mas segue as pegadas de um estranho
E terás mil surpresas de esplendor

Já ouviste o lobo a uivar sob a lua azul
Ou porque ri o lince com desdém
Sabes vir cantar com as vozes da montanha
E pintar com quantas cores o vento tem
E pintar com quantas cores o vento tem

Vem descobrir os trilhos da floresta
Provar a doce amora e o seu sabor
Rolar no meio de tanta riqueza
E não querer indagar o seu valor

Sou a irmã do rio e do vento
A garça, a lontra são iguais a mim
Vivemos tão ligados uns aos outros
Neste arco, neste círculo sem fim

Que altura a árvore tem
Se a derrubares não sabe ninguém

Nunca ouvirás o lobo sobre a lua azul
O que é que importa a cor da pele de alguém
Temos que cantar com as vozes da montanha
E pintar com quantas cores o vento tem
Mas tu só vais conseguir
Esta terra possuir
Se a pintares com quantas cores o vento tem

Silêncio e tanta gente...

One of the most beautiful Eurovision song contest songs EVER. It got 38 points and become #11.
On the other hand, Italian Il treni di Tozeur competed the same year and didn't win. 8-o
Sweden won with "Diggiloo, Diggilei".

Europeans are stupid.

Às vezes é no meio do silêncio
Que descubro o amor em teu olhar
É uma pedra
Ou um grito
Que nasce em qualquer lugar

Às vezes é no meio de tanta gente
Que descubro afinal aquilo que sou
Sou um grito
Ou sou uma pedra
De um lugar onde não estou

Às vezes sou também
O tempo que tarda em passar
E aquilo em que ninguém quer acreditar

Às vezes sou também
Um sim alegre
Ou um triste não
E troco a minha vida por um dia de ilusão
E troco a minha vida por um dia de ilusão

Às vezes é no meio do silêncio
Que descubro as palavras por dizer
É uma pedra
Ou um grito
De um amor por acontecer

Às vezes é no meio de tanta gente
Que descubro afinal p'ra onde vou
E esta pedra
E este grito
São a história d'aquilo que sou 

--------------------------------------------------

Even when there is nothing left but silence
I often see the loving in your eyes
Sometimes happy, sometime tearful
Never tiring, full of life

I see the same among so many people
Their silence helps me understand
Sometimes happy, sometimes tearful
Making me what I am

I'm living in a time that slowly goes by
I need to feel alive, but I don't know why
And sometimes in my mind, I never know when to laugh or cry
Now and then I feel as if I'm living in a dream
Now and then I feel as if I'm living in a dream

Even when there is nothing left but silence
I always seem to find the words to say
Sometimes happy, sometime tearful
No two words can mean the same

I hear what's said among so many people
Their silence can be heard in many ways
Sometimes happy, sometimes tearful
Every story is here to stay

I'm living in a time that slowly goes by
I need to feel alive, but I don't know why
And sometimes in my mind, I never know when to laugh or cry
Now and then I feel as if I'm living in a dream
Now and then I feel as if I'm living in a dream

I'm living in a time that slowly goes by
I need to feel alive, but I don't know why
And sometimes in my mind, I never know when to laugh or cry
Now and then I feel as if I'm living in a dream
Now and then I feel as if I'm living in a dream

Challenge 52 in 52: Portuguese

I want to learn Portuguese. I think it is one of the most beautiful languages of the world, I love how it sounds. :-)

But I want to learn the European Portuguese. Not the Brazilian one. It is because I'm European and my focus is in the European languages, not in "what is the most useful language" or "how will I be understood by the most people of the world".

The problem is that most resources of learning a language on-line are for Brazilian Portuguese.
I know it's basically the same language, but... I want to learn the European Spanish, too, and not the American Spanish. I assume the difference is about the same.

Challenge 52 in 52: Castilian

Spanish is the world's second biggest native language and #4 in most spoken languages. There's almost half a billion people who speak Spanish as their native language.

Spanish is a Romance language. Its closest (bigger) relatives are Portuguese and Italian. It's relatively possible for a Spanish speaker to understand some Portuguese and Italian, at least in written form.
French is also a Romance language, but it's very different from Spanish. Interestingly enough it's easier for French speakers to understand Spanish than for Spanish speakers to understand French.
The relation is a bit like with Danish and Swedish. Danes and Norwegians understand both, but Swedish people find it hard to understand Danish.

As with Portuguese, I want to learn the European version of this language. Now, my Spanish speaking friend speaks Chilean Spanish, but the language itself is the same. Sort of. It's like with any language that has a European and an American version.
Also, as with Portuguese, the European version is a bit hard to find. There's a lot of information about Spanish, but most of it is in American Spanish. After all, some 80% of Spanish speakers live in Americas. :-D

There are some slight differences in the alphabet. I think the European Spanish is softer and just nicer. If I have understood it correctly, the rest of the world think it's too soft.

Here's the numbers

It's really easy to find the frequency lists, Spanish radio and music, Spanish tv shows and movies, and Spanish texts of all kinds online, so the world is your oyster there.

Challenge 52 in 52: Catalan

Challenge 52 in 52: Romansch

Challenge 52 in 52: Romanian

"The spirit of linguistic discovery spurred me on and led me next to learn Romanian. To this day, I find Romanian very fetching. It has more of a country flavor than French and is more “manly” than Italian and more interesting than Spanish, due to its Slavic loanwords."
- Kató Lomb

Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 million people as a native language, primarily in Romania and Moldova, and by another 4 million people as a second language.

Romanian is a part of the Balkan-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin separated from the Western Romance during the 5th-8th centuries. To distinguish it within that group in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, respectively.

Challenge 52 in 52: Occitan

I have wanted to learn Occitan since I read The Three Musketeers.
Because d'Artagnan is Occitan.
(BTW, Athos, Porthos and Aramis were also Occitans. I didn't know that before now. Athos is one of my first literary crushes *blush* It is quite a lot due to him I wanted to learn French in the first place...)

 Occitan, also known as lenga d'òc, is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania. It is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese (Calabria, Italy). Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as the Gascon language) is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative.

Across history, the terms Limousin (Lemosin), Languedocien (Lengadocian), Gascon, and later Provençal (Provençal, Provençau or Prouvençau) have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence, in southeast France.

Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no single written standard language called "Occitan", and Occitan has no official status in France, home to most of Occitania. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, whereas others are based on particular dialects. These efforts are hindered by the rapidly declining use of Occitan as a spoken language in much of southern France, as well as by the significant differences in phonology and vocabulary among different Occitan dialects.

In particular, the northern and easternmost dialects have more morphological and phonetic features in common with the Gallo-Italic and Oïl languages (e.g. nasal vowels; loss of final consonants; initial cha/ja- instead of ca/ga-; uvular ⟨r⟩; the front-rounded sound /ø/ instead of a diphthong, /w/ instead of /l/ before a consonant), whereas the southernmost dialects have more features in common with the Ibero-Romance languages (e.g. betacism; voiced fricatives between vowels in place of voiced stops; -ch- in place of -it-), and Gascon has a number of unusual features not seen in other dialects (e.g. /h/ in place of /f/; loss of /n/ between vowels; intervocalic -r- and final -t/ch in place of medieval -ll-). There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates (maison/casa "house", testa/cap "head", petit/pichon "small", achaptar/crompar "to buy", entendre/ausir "to hear", se taire/se calar "to be quiet", tombar/caire "to fall", p(l)us/mai "more", totjorn/sempre "always", etc.). Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility.

The long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat, Limousin and Languedocien) are considered severely endangered, whereas the remaining two (Gascon and Vivaro-Alpine) are considered definitely endangered.

Occitan at Omniglot

Challenge 52 in 52: French

Well... French is French, nothing to say about that. Plenty of information about it all over the internet. BUT - here's another Romance language spoken in France, and in Britanny.

Gallo

Gallo is a regional language of eastern Brittany. It is today far less commonly spoken than was once the case, the standard form of French now predominating in this area. Gallo is classified as one of the langues d'oïl.

Gallo was originally spoken in the Marches of Neustria, an area now corresponding to the border lands between Brittany, Normandy, and Maine. Gallo was a shared spoken language among many of those who took part in the Norman conquest of England, most of whom originated in Upper (i.e. eastern) Brittany and Lower (i.e. western) Normandy, and thus had its part, together with the much bigger role played by the Norman language, in the development of the Anglo-Norman variety of French which would have such a strong influence on English.

Gallo continued as the everyday language of Upper Brittany, Maine, and some neighbouring portions of Normandy until the introduction of universal education across France, but is spoken today by only a small (and aging) minority of the population, having been almost entirely superseded by standard French.

As a langue d'oïl, Gallo forms part of a dialect continuum which includes Norman, Picard, and the Poitevin dialect among others. One of the features that distinguish it from Norman is the absence of Old Norse influence. There is some limited mutual intelligibility with adjacent varieties of the Norman language along the linguistic frontier and with Guernésiais and Jèrriais. However, as the dialect continuum shades towards Mayennais, there is a less clear isogloss. The clearest isogloss is that distinguishing Gallo from Breton, a Brittonic Celtic language traditionally spoken in the western territory of Brittany.

In the west, the vocabulary of Gallo has been influenced by contact with Breton, but remains overwhelmingly Latinate. The influence of Breton decreases eastwards across Gallo-speaking territory.

English	Gallo	Old French	French
afternoon	vêpré	vespree	après-midi (archaic: vêprée)
apple tree	pommieu	pomier	pommier
bee	avètt	aveille	abeille
cider	cit	cidre	cidre
chair	chaérr	chaiere	chaise
cheese	fórmaij	formage	fromage
exit	desort	sortie	sortie
to fall	cheir	cheoir	tomber (archaic: choir)
goat	biq	chievre, bique	chèvre (slang: bique)
him	li	lui, li	lui
house	ostèu	hostel	maison (hôtel)
kid	garsaille	same root as Old French gars	Same root as gars, garçon
lip	lip	levre	lèvre (or lippe)
maybe	vantiet	puet estre	peut-être
mouth	góll	goule, boche	bouche (gueule = mouth of an animal)
now	astour	a ceste heure	maintenant (à cette heure)
number	limerot	nombre	numéro
pear	peirr	peire	poire
school	escoll	escole	école
squirrel	chat-de-boéz (lit. "woods cat")	escurueil	écureuil
star	esteill	esteile, estoile	étoile
timetable	oryaer	horaire	horaire
to smoke	betunae	fumer	fumer (archaic: pétuner)
today	anoet	hui	aujourd'hui
to whistle	sublae	sibler, sifler	siffler
with	ô or côteu avek	o/od, avoec	avec

150 basic Italian phrases

Challenge 52 in 52: Italian

Italian, I discovered, was Latin with all the difficulty removed. Much as a skilled chef fillets the whole skeleton out of a fish, some friendly folks somewhere had lifted all that grammar (at least, most of it) out of Latin and called the remainder Italian!
There was no nominative-genitive-dative-accusative in Italian. Not a trace, except in a few pronouns which I knew I could easily take prisoner because we had the same thing in English (me is the accusative of I). Italian verbs did misbehave a little, but not to the psychedelic extent of Latin verbs. And Italian verbs were a lot easier to look at.

- Barry Farber; How to Learn Any Language

Italian is a Romance language.
It is the second-closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary, after Sardinian.
Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City and Istria (in Slovenia and Croatia) and used to have official status in Albania, Malta, and Monaco, all countries where it is still widely spoken, and in former Italian East Africa and Italian North Africa, regions where it plays a significant role in various sectors.
Italian is spoken by large expatriate communities in the Americas and by small minorities in areas such as Crimea, Corsica and Montenegro.
Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardised Italian and other regional languages.

The Italian language adopted by the state after the unification of Italy is based on Tuscan, which beforehand was a language spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was also influenced by other Italian languages and by the Germanic languages of the post-Roman invaders. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latin's contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive.

Challenge 52 in 52: Monegasque

Monégasque is a variety of Ligurian, a Gallo-Italic language spoken in Monaco as well as nearby in Italy and France.

Ligurian is a Gallo-Italic language spoken in Liguria in Northern Italy, parts of the Mediterranean coastal zone of France, Monaco and in the villages of Carloforte and Calasetta in Sardinia. It is part of the Gallo-Italic and Western Romance dialect continuum. Although part of Gallo-Italic language, it exhibits several features of the Italo-romance group of central and southern Italy. The Zeneize (literally for Genoese), spoken in Genoa, the capital of Liguria, is the language's prestige dialect on which the standard is based.

Monegasque on Omniglot and Ligurian on Omniglot

Challenge 52 in 52: Latin

"When you’ve pumped heavy iron, lifting a salad fork seems easy. When you’re thrown into a grammar as complex as Latin’s at the age of fourteen, just about any other language seems easy. I never quit thanking Spanish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Romanian and Yiddish just for not being Latin."
- Barry Farber: How to Learn Any Language

Sounds like a language designed for me!

Challenge 52 in 52: Manx

Manx (Gaelg or Gailck), is a member of the Goidelic language branch of the Celtic languages of the Indo-European language family; it was spoken as a first language by some of the Manx people on the Isle of Man until the death of the last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, in 1974. Despite this, the language has never fallen completely out of use, with a minority having some knowledge of it; in addition, Manx still has a role as an important part of the island's culture and heritage. Manx has been the subject of language revival efforts; in 2015, around 1,800 people had varying levels of second language conversational ability. Since the late 20th century, Manx has become more visible on the island, with increased signage, radio broadcasts and a Manx-medium primary school. The revival of Manx has been made easier because the language was well recorded: for example, the Bible had been translated into Manx, and audio recordings had been made of native speakers.

https://omniglot.com/writing/manx.htm

 

Challenge 52 in 52: Scots Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as both Modern Irish and Manx, has developed out of Old Irish. It became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century in the Middle Irish period, although a common literary language was shared by Gaels in both Ireland and Scotland down to the 16th century. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced especially by Gaelic-language place names.

In the 2011 census of Scotland, 57,375 people (1.1% of the Scottish population aged over 3 years old) reported as able to speak Gaelic, 1,275 fewer than in 2001. The highest percentages of Gaelic speakers were in the Outer Hebrides. Nevertheless, there are revival efforts, and the number of speakers of the language under age 20 did not decrease between the 2001 and 2011 censuses.

Outside Scotland, a dialect known as Canadian Gaelic has been spoken in eastern Canada since the 18th century. In the 2016 national census, nearly 4,000 Canadian residents claimed knowledge of Scottish Gaelic, with a particular concentration in Nova Scotia.

Scottish Gaelic is not an official language of the United Kingdom. However, it is classed as an indigenous language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which the UK Government has ratified, and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 established a language-development body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig.

Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig)

 

Challenge 52 in 52: Irish

Irish (Gaeilge) is a Goidelic language of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Irish originated in Ireland and was historically and still is spoken by Irish people throughout Ireland. Although English is the more common first language elsewhere in Ireland, Irish is spoken as a first language in substantial areas of counties Galway, Kerry, Cork and Donegal, as well as smaller areas of Waterford, Mayo and Meath. It is also spoken by a much larger group of habitual but non-traditional speakers across the country, mostly in urban areas where the majority are second language speakers.

Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people for most of their recorded history, and they took it with them to other regions, notably Scotland and the Isle of Man, where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx respectively. It has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe.

Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland. It is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland.

Irish at Omniglot

Challenge 52 in 52: Cornish

Cornish (Kernewek) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a revived language that became extinct as a first language in Cornwall in the late 18th century. A revival began in the early 20th century. Some have expressed the opinion that the language is an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage. Cornish is currently recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. It has a growing number of second language speakers. A few parents are inspired to create new first language speakers, by teaching their children the language from birth.

Along with Welsh and Breton, Cornish is descended directly from the Common Brittonic language spoken throughout much of Great Britain before the English language came to dominate. It was the main language of Cornwall for centuries until it was pushed westwards by English, maintaining close links with its sister language Breton, with which it was mutually intelligible until well into the Middle Ages. Cornish continued to function as a common community language in parts of Cornwall until the mid 18th century. There is some evidence of knowledge of the language persisting into the 19th century, possibly almost overlapping the beginning of revival efforts.

A process to revive the language was begun in the early 20th century, with a number of orthographical systems still in use, although an attempt was made to impose a Standard Written Form in 2008. In 2010, UNESCO announced that its former classification of the language as "extinct" was "no longer accurate". Since the revival of the language, some Cornish textbooks and works of literature have been published, and an increasing number of people are studying the language. Recent developments include Cornish music, independent films and children's books. A small number of people in Cornwall have been brought up to be bilingual native speakers, and the language is taught in schools. The first Cornish language day care opened in 2010.

Cornish at Omniglot

I am Autistic

I suffer from selective mutism - or involuntary mutism, or situationational mutism, as it's also called, because "selective" makes people think I choose to not speak, and that's not it at all. I am physically incapable of speaking in specific situations.

My husband and I have been discussing about the option of sign language.

So, here's some words and sentences I think would be helpful for me in those situations :-)

puhua








nyt

auttaa apu












Tarvita

 saanko?

 paperi

kynä

 

Sign language - teckenspråk - viittomakieli

American Sign Language alphabet

Swedish Sign Language alphabet

Finnish Sign Language alphabet

French sign language alphabet

Isn't it interesting that they don't have even an agreed alphabet in all the countries?

This alone is enough to tell one that if you know a sign language, you know one sign language,

and need to update your signs for all the other languages.

Such a pity they didn't think about that before they started creating these different languages.

From Wikipedia:

Sign languages are typically transcribed word-for-word by means of a gloss written in the predominant oral language in all capitals; for example, American Sign Language and Auslan would be written in English. Prosody is often glossed as superscript words, with its scope indicated by brackets.

    [I LIKE]NEGATIVE [WHAT?]RHETORICAL, GARLIC.
    "I don't like garlic."

Pure fingerspelling is usually indicated by hyphenation. Fingerspelled words that have been lexicalized (that is, fingerspelling sequences that have entered the sign language as linguistic units and that often have slight modifications) are indicated with a hash. For example, W-I-K-I indicates a simple fingerspelled word, but #JOB indicates a lexicalized unit, produced like J-O-B, but faster, with a barely perceptible O and turning the "B" hand palm side in, unlike a regularly fingerspelled "B".

Challenge 52 in 52: Welsh

Welsh at Omniglot

Welsh (Cymraeg) is a Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it has also been known in English as "British", "Cambrian", "Cambric" and "Cymric".


Some resources to help you learn:
Duolingo
Learn Welsh (some 20 hours of material)
BBC Welsh courses etc.
Croeso!
Learn Welsh
Welsh language resource list
taster courses

Challenge 52 in 52: Breton

Breton (brezhoneg) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family, spoken in Brittany.

Breton was brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages, making it an Insular Celtic language. It is closely related to the Continental Celtic Gaulish language, which was spoken in pre-Roman Gaul. Breton is most closely related to Cornish, another Southwestern Brittonic language. Welsh and the extinct Cumbric, both Western Brittonic languages, are more distantly related.

Having declined from more than 1 million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.

At Omniglot

Challenge 52 in 52: Ukrainian

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language. It is the official state language of Ukraine and one of the three official languages in the unrecognized state of Transnistria, the other two being Romanian and Russian. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script (see Ukrainian alphabet).

Historical linguists trace the origin of the Ukrainian language to the Old East Slavic of the early medieval state of Kievan Rus'. After the fall of the Kievan Rus' as well as the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, the language developed into a form called the Ruthenian language. The Modern Ukrainian language has been in common use since the late 17th century, associated with the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate. From 1804 until the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian language was banned from schools in the Russian Empire, of which the biggest part of Ukraine (Central, Eastern and Southern) was a part at the time. It has always maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine, where the language was never banned, in its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors.

The standard Ukrainian language is regulated by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU), particularly by its Institute for the Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian language-information fund, and Potebnya Institute of Language Studies. The Ukrainian language retains a degree of mutual intelligibility with Belarusian and Russian.

Challenge 52 in 52: Russian

Когда не повезло,
И нервом бьётся боль,
И во всех ты видишь зло,
И шаг не в такт.

Узнать своё лицо,
Взгляд разъедает соль.
Мир твой хрупок как стекло,
Ну как же так?

Голоса во мне, кошмары во сне!
Манит меня на край, в бездну, в бездну толкают...
Я знаю этот план, мне в руки мяч дан,
Я биться буду сам, я знаю, как я сыграю.

Крутится земля...
И нет мне места, как мне жить без тебя не знаю.

Всё равно, мне на дно, рано знайте
Удачи, близок миг, но давит горло КРИК!
Я дождусь, я пробьюсь, это мой мир
Мечту почти достиг, но режет горло КРИК!

В глухие стены бьюсь, разрушить их стремлюсь.
Бой с самим собой, мой выдох, дальше и больше.
Свой поймать успех, но не ради всех,
Хочу стать собою, только, только собою

Выбрать, знать давно...
Выбрать свою…

Challenge 52 in 52. Slovenian (Slovene)

Slovene is an Indo-European language belonging to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, together with Serbo-Croatian. It is close to the Chakavian and especially Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian, but further from the Shtokavian dialect, the basis for the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard languages. Furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages, including those of the Eastern subgroup, such as Bulgarian.

Although Slovene is almost completely intelligible with the Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian (especially the variant spoken in Hrvatsko Zagorje on the border with Slovenia), mutual intelligibility with other varieties of Serbo-Croatian is hindered by differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. The Slovene language also has many commonalities with the West Slavic languages.

Standard Slovene is the national standard language that was formed in the 18th century, mostly based on Upper and Lower Carniolan dialect groups, the latter being a dialect spoken by Primož Trubar. Unstandardized dialects are more preserved in regions of the Slovene Lands where compulsory schooling was in languages other than Standard Slovene, as was the case with the Carinthian Slovenes in Austria, and the Slovene minority in Italy. For example, the Resian and Torre (Ter) dialects in the Italian Province of Udine differ most from other Slovene dialects.

The distinctive characteristics of Slovene are dual grammatical number, two accentual norms (one characterized by pitch accent), and abundant inflection (a trait shared with many Slavic languages). Although Slovene is basically an SVO language, word order is very flexible, often adjusted for emphasis or stylistic reasons. Slovene has a T–V distinction: second-person plural forms are used for individuals as a sign of respect.

Slovene and Slovak are the only two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean "Slavic".

Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin alphabet

These are the letters Serbocroatian was written during the Ottoman empire

It is not being used anymore, but I like it.

 These are the Bosnian Latin and Cyrillic letters.

Croatian and Serbian Latin alphabet looks the same.

Serbian Cyrillic alphabet has different order from the Bosnian one, and this has also the cursive.

Montenegrin adds one extra Z

Challenge 52 in 52: Serbo-Croatian

 "By Wednesday I was attending sessions of a spirited Tito propaganda fiesta called the Zagreb Peace Conference and enjoying my first immersion in a language the mere mention of which impresses people even more than Chinese: Serbo-Croatian!
To my delight, I understood entire phrases from it from my university Russian. I became aware of “families” of foreign languages, something that doesn’t occur automatically to Americans because English doesn’t resemble its cousins very closely. It’s something of a black sheep in the Germanic language family. They say the closest language to English is Dutch. Dutch is about as close to English as Betelgeuse is to Baltimore!
I’d noticed the summer before that Norwegian is usefully close to Swedish and Danish. Serbo-Croatian sounded to me like a jazzier, more “fun” kind of Russian. They use the Roman alphabet in western Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Slovenia, and in Serbia to the east they use the Cyrillic alphabet, with even more interesting letters in it than Russian uses.
Some of the mystique I’d always imputed to multilingual people began to fade. If you meet somebody who speaks, say, ten languages, your instinct is to be impressed to the tune of ten languages worth. If, however, you later learn that six of those languages are Russian, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, Polish and Ukrainian – I’m not suggesting that you dismiss him as illiterate, but you ought to be aware that he got six of those languages for the price of about two and three fourths! They’re all members of the Slavic family.
The Yugoslav university students, my hosts, sent me back home aboard a Yugoslav ship, leaving me sixteen days with nothing to do but practice Serbo-Croatian with the other passengers."

- Barry Farber; How to Learn Any Language

(I am a native Finnish speaker. English is as close to Dutch as French is to Spanish. I would say Estonian is "nothing like" Finnish, but I know I'm wrong about that :-D You can't estimate the likeness of your mothertongue to any other language. Nothing is like the language into which you grew.)

Until the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin were treated as a unitary Serbo-Croatian language. Nevertheless, using this name of this (these) languages today is controversial for the speakers of Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin, so other paraphrases such as "Serbo-Croato-Bosnian" (SCB) or "Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian" (BCS) or even "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian" are therefore sometimes used instead, especially in diplomatic circles, and the national standards are treated as different languages inspite of the the common base (vocabulary, grammar and syntax).
 
Here's a great article about the Serbo-Croatian language issue talking about the differences which exist, even when to foreigners they might be ignorable... so far. Perhaps in a lifetime these languages will be different.

Bosnian is the standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian mainly used by Bosniaks. Bosnian is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Croatian and Serbian, and also an officially recognized minority or regional language in Serbia, Montenegro, and the Republic of Kosovo.

Bosnian uses both Latin and Cyrillic alphabet, with Latin in everyday use. It is notable among the varieties of Serbo-Croatian for a number of Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and Persian loanwords, largely due to the language's interaction with those cultures through Islamic ties.

Bosnian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian.

Croatian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries. It is the official and literary standard of Croatia and one of the official languages of the European Union. Croatian is also one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a recognized minority language in Serbia, and neighbouring countries.

Standard Croatian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian. In the mid-18th century, the first attempts to provide a Croatian literary standard began on the basis of the Neo-Shtokavian dialect that served as a supraregional lingua franca pushing back regional Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian vernaculars. The decisive role was played by Croatian Vukovians, who cemented the usage of Ijekavian Neo-Shtokavian as the literary standard in the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, as well as designed a phonological orthography. Croatian is written in Gaj's Latin alphabet.

Besides the Shtokavian dialect on which Standard Croatian is based, Croats also speak Chakavian and Kajkavian.

Serbian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used chiefly by Serbs in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a recognized minority language in Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

Standard Serbian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian (more specifically on Šumadija-Vojvodina and Eastern Herzegovinian dialects). The other dialect spoken by Serbs is Torlakian in southeastern Serbia, which is transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian.

Serbian is practically the only European standard language with complete synchronic digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830.

Montenegrin is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used as the official language of Montenegro. Standard Montenegrin is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian.

Montenegro's language has historically and traditionally been called Serbian. The idea of a Montenegrin standard language separate from Serbian appeared in the 2000s after Serbia and Montenegro broke up, via proponents of Montenegrin independence. Montenegrin became the official language of Montenegro with the ratification of a new constitution on 22 October 2007.

The Montenegrin standard is still emerging. Its orthography was established on 10 July 2009 with the addition of two letters to the alphabet.