T: So if it’s rare to be a catholic Albanian, which religion are most Albanians*?
Mim: I don’t know, probably orthodox or lutheran or coptic or something.
T: Septic?
Mim: No, not septic!

*For the record, it’s islam.

Afrikaans :  Geseënde Kersfees

Afrikander :  Een Plesierige Kerfees

African/ Eritrean/ Tigrinja :  Rehus-Beal-Ledeats

Albanian : Gezur Krislinjden

Arabic :  Milad Majid

Argentine :  Feliz Navidad

Armenian :  Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand

Azeri :  Tezze Iliniz Yahsi Olsun

Bahasa Malaysia :  Selamat Hari Natal

Basque :  Zorionak eta Urte Berri On!

Bengali :  Shuvo Naba Barsha

Bohemian :  Vesele Vanoce

Brazilian :  Feliz Natal

Breton :  Nedeleg laouen na bloavezh mat

Bulgarian :  Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo

Catalan :  Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou!

Chile :  Feliz Navidad

Chinese :  (Cantonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan’Gung Haw Sun

Chinese :  (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan (Catonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan’Gung Haw Sun

Choctaw :  Yukpa, Nitak Hollo Chito

Columbia :  Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo

Cornish :  Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth

Corsian :  Pace e salute

Crazanian :  Rot Yikji Dol La Roo

Cree :  Mitho Makosi Kesikansi

Croatian :  Sretan Bozic

Czech :  Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok

Danish :  Glædelig Jul

Duri :  Christmas-e- Shoma Mobarak

Dutch :  Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeast

English :  Merry Christmas

Eskimo :  (inupik) Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo!

Esperanto :  Gajan Kristnaskon

Estonian :  Ruumsaid juulup|hi

Ethiopian :  (Amharic) Melkin Yelidet Beaal

Faeroese :  Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar!

Farsi :  Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad

Finnish :  Hyvaa joulua

Flemish :  Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar

French :  Joyeux Noel

Frisian :  Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier!

Galician :  Bo Nada

Gaelic :  Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr!

German :  Fröhliche Weihnachten

Greek :  Kala Christouyenna!

Haiti :  (Creole) Jwaye Nowel or to Jesus Edo Bri’cho o Rish D’Shato Brichto

Hausa :  Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!

Hawaiian :  Mele Kalikimaka

Hebrew :  Mo’adim Lesimkha. Chena tova

Hindi :  Shub Naya Baras

Hausa :  Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!

Hawaian :  Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou!

Hungarian :  Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket

Icelandic :  Gledileg Jol

Indonesian :  Selamat Hari Natal

Iraqi :  Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah

Irish :  Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat

Iroquois :  Ojenyunyat Sungwiyadeson honungradon nagwutut. Ojenyunyat osrasay.

Italian :  Buone Feste Natalizie

Japanese :  Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto

Jiberish :  Mithag Crithagsigathmithags

Korean :  Sung Tan Chuk Ha

Lao :  souksan van Christmas

Latin :  Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!

Latvian :  Prieci’gus Ziemsve’tkus un Laimi’gu Jauno Gadu!

Lausitzian : Wjesole hody a strowe nowe leto

Lettish :  Priecigus Ziemassvetkus

Lithuanian :  Linksmu Kaledu

Low Saxon :  Heughliche Winachten un ‘n moi Nijaar

Macedonian :  Sreken Bozhik

Maltese :  IL-Milied It-tajjeb

Manx :  Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa

Maori :  Meri Kirihimete

Marathi :  Shub Naya Varsh

Navajo :  Merry Keshmish

Norwegian :  God Jul, or Gledelig Jul

Occitan :  Pulit nadal e bona annado

Papiamento :  Bon Pasco

Papua New Guinea :  Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu

Pennsylvania German :  En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!

Peru :  Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo

Philipines :  Maligayan Pasko!

Polish :  Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie

Portuguese : Feliz Natal

Pushto :  Christmas Aao Ne-way Kaal Mo Mobarak Sha

Rapa-Nui (Easter Island): Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi. Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua

Rhetian :  Bellas festas da nadal e bun onn

Romanche :  (sursilvan dialect): Legreivlas fiastas da Nadal e bien niev onn!

Rumanian :  Sarbatori vesele or Craciun fericit

Russian :  Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom

Sami :  Buorrit Juovllat

Samoan :  La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou

Sardinian :  Bonu nadale e prosperu annu nou

Serbian :  Hristos se rodi

Slovakian: Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce

Sami: Buorrit Juovllat

Samoan :  La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou

Scots Gaelic :  Nollaig chridheil huibh

Serbian: Hristos se rodi.

Singhalese :  Subha nath thalak Vewa. Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa

Slovak :  Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok

Slovene :  Vesele Bozicne Praznike Srecno Novo Leto or Vesel Bozic in srecno Novo leto

Spanish :  Feliz Navidad

Swedish :  God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År

Tagalog : Maligayamg Pasko. Masaganang Bagong Taon

Tami :  Nathar Puthu Varuda Valthukkal

Trukeese: (Micronesian) Neekiriisimas annim oo iyer seefe feyiyeech!

Thai :  Sawadee Pee Mai or souksan wan Christmas

Turkish :  Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun

Ukrainian :  Srozhdestvom Kristovym or Z RIZDVOM HRYSTOVYM

Urdu :  Naya Saal Mubarak Ho

Vietnamese :  Chuc Mung Giang Sinh

Welsh :  Nadolig Llawen

Yoruba :  E ku odun, e ku iye’dun!

*************************************

Photographed by CharlesFred

A selection of people from the streets of Tirana

– License

Caution: This post is very long! It runs to 56 pages on the Web.

We did a post on this earlier, but it looks like we only scratched the surface. There are tons of webpages on this topic, and I suppose one could read away on the subject for some time, but after a while, things start getting repetitive. This post is very good. They did a survey, and this is what they came up with. This post is also very good. There are more in various places on the Web.

The nine hardest languages to learn overall were:

Mandarin, Hungarian, Finnish, Polish, Arabic, Hindi, Icelandic, German and Swedish. I would just leave Swedish off the list altogether, as it’s actually a pretty easy language to learn.

The eight hardest languages to speak (or to pronounce correctly, specifically) were French, Mandarin, Polish, Korean, Hungarian, Arabic, Basque and Hindi.

The hardest languages to write were Arabic, Mandarin, Polish, French, Serbo-Croatian, Japanese, Russian, Basque and English.

Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese and Russian of course use different alphabets.

Ratings: Languages are rated 1-5, easiest to hardest. 1 = easiest, 2 = moderately easy, 3 = moderately difficult, 4 = very to extremely difficult, 5 = most difficult of all.

Time needed: Time needed to learn the language “reasonably well”: Level 1 languages = 3 months to 1 year. Level 2 languages = 6 months to 1 year. Level 3 languages = 1 to 2 years. Level 4 languages = 2 years. Level 5 languages = 3-4 years of study, but some may take longer.

Indo-European

Indo-Aryan

Indian languages like Kashmiri, Hindi and especially Sanskrit are also quite hard, and Sanskrit is legendary in its extreme complexity. Sanskrit grammar is very complicated. There are 8 cases. However, Sanskrit has one of the most regular grammars on Earth. Sinhala is also difficult.

The Hindi script is quite opaque to Westerners, some of whom say that Chinese script is easier. You speak one way if you are talking to a man or a woman, and you also need to take into account whether you as speaker are male or female. In addition, Hindi has many long words.

Hindi is rated 3, moderately difficult.

Kashmiri, Sinhala and Sanskrit are rated 4, extremely difficult.

Iranian

Persian is also said to be a hard language to learn, but I am not sure why. On the plus side, Persian has a very simple grammar.

Nonetheless, Persian only gets a 3 rating as moderately difficult.

Romance

French is pretty easy to learn at a simple level, but it’s not that easy to get really good at it. For instance, there are idioms everywhere, and it’s often hard to figure them out. There are many genders, but they are not much used anymore. French has a grammar that is neither simple nor difficult; that, combined with a syntax is pretty straightforward and a Latin alphabet make it pretty easy to learn for most Westerners.

One problem is pronunciation. There are many nasal vowels, similar to Portuguese. There is also a strange uvular r. The orthography is also difficult, since there are many sounds that are written but no longer pronounced, as in English. Also similar to English, orthography does not line up with pronunciation. For instance, there are 13 different ways to spell the o sound: o, ot, ots, os, ocs, au, aux, aud, auds, eau, eaux, ho and ö.

The English language, having no Language Committee, at least has an excuse for the nonsensical nature of its spelling. The French have no excuse, since they have a committee that is set up in part to keep the language as stupid as possible. One of their passions is refusing to change the spelling of words even as pronunciation changes, which is the opposite of what occurs in any sane spelling reform. So French is, like English, frozen in time. Furthermore, to make matters worse, the French are almost as prickly about writing properly as they are about speaking properly, and you know how they are about foreigners mangling their language.

A good case can be made, though, that French is harder to learn than English. Verbs change much more, and it has grammatical gender.

French is one of the toughest languages to learn in the Romance family, and it gets a 3 rating for moderately difficult.

Italian is said to be easy to learn, especially if you speak a Romance language or English, but learning to order a pizza and really mastering it are two different things.

For instance, Italian three types of tenses, simple tenses, compound tenses, and indefinite tenses. There are also various moods that combine to take tense forms – 4 subjunctive moods, 2 conditional moods, 2 gerund moods, 2 infinite moods, 2 participle moods and 1 imperative mood.

There are 8 tenses in the indicative mood – recent past, remote pluperfect, recent pluperfect, preterite (remote past), imperfect, present, future, future perfect. There are 4 tenses in the subjunctive mood – present, imperfect, preterite and pluperfect. There are 2 tenses in the conditional mood – present and preterite. There is only 1 tense in the imperative mood – present. Gerund, participle and infinite moods all take only present and perfect tenses.

All of these forms are used regularly. Altogether, using these mood-tense combinations, any Italian verb can decline in up to 21 different ways.

Foreigners usually do not learn Italian at anywhere near a native level.

Italian has many irregular verbs. There are many combinations just to make articles and prepositions and 600 irregular verbs with all sorts of different irregularities. Nevertheless, it is a Romance language and Romance has gotten rid of most of its irregularity. The Slavic languages are much more irregular than Romance.

Counterintuitively, some Italian words are masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural or vice versa. There are many different ways to say the – il, i, lo, gli , l’ (masculine); la, le, l’ (feminine). Few Italians even write Italian 100% correctly. A problem with Italian is that meaning is inferred via intonation. If you mess up the intonation of your utterance, you’re screwed and will not be understood. However, there is no case in Italian, as in all of Romance.

Italian is still probably easier to learn than French and it gets a 2 rating, moderately easy.

Surprisingly enough, Romanian is said to be one of the harder Romance languages to speak or write properly. Even Romanians often get it wrong. One strange thing about Romanian is that the articles are attached to the noun as suffixes. In all the rest of Romance, article are free words that precede the noun. English: telephone and the telephone; Romanian: telefon and telefonul. Romanian is harder to learn than Spanish or Italian, and possibly harder than French. It has considerable Slavic influence.

Romanian gets a 3 rating as moderately hard to learn.

Spanish is often said to be one of the easiest languages to learn, though this is somewhat controversial. Personally, I’ve been learning it off and on since age 6 and I still have problems, though Spanish speakers say my Spanish is good, but Hispanophones, unlike the French, are generous about these things.

It’s quite logical, though the verbs do decline a lot with tense and number, and there are many irregular verbs, similar to French. Nevertheless, Romance grammar is much more regular than, say, Polish, as Romance has junked most of the irregularity. It has the good grace to lack case though, spelling is a piece of cake, and words are spoken just as they are written. Nevertheless, Hispanophones say that few foreigners end up speaking like natives.

Rated 1 as easiest of all.

Portuguese, like Spanish, is also very easy to learn, though Portuguese pronunciation is harder due to the odd vowels such as nasal diphthongs and the strange l . Writing it is a bit harder, since there are consonants that are written but not spoken.

Portuguese gets a 1 rating, easiest of all.

Hellenic

Greek is said to be a pretty difficult language to learn and oddly enough, it’s rated the second hardest language to learn by language professors. It’s easy to learn to speak simply, but it’s quite hard to get it down like a native. It’s the rare second language learner who attains native competence. Greek grammar is dead simple, but there are problems with writing Greek. Like English, the spelling doesn’t seem to make sense, and you have to memorize many words. Further, there is the weird alphabet.

Greek gets a 4 rating, extremely difficult to learn.

Classic Greek is worse, with a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants, a pitch accent system and a truly convoluted system of noun and verb inflection.

Classic Greek gets a 5 rating, hardest of all.

Germanic

People often say that English is easy to learn, but that is deceptive. For one thing, English has anywhere from 500,000-1 million words (said to be twice as much as any other language – but there are claims that Dutch and Arabic each have 4 million words) and the number increases by the day, furthermore, most people don’t understand more than 50,000. Yet they only use 5,000 at most.

Actually, it is said that the average American or Brit uses a mere 2,500 words. As we might expect, our cultivated Continentals in Europe, such as Spaniards and French, probably have twice the regular vocabulary of English speakers and far more colloquial expressions.

In addition, verbal phrases are a nightmare. The spelling is insane and hardly follows any rules at all. There are figures of speech everywhere and it seems impossible to learn them all. In fact, few second language learners seem to get all the idioms down pat.

The rules governing the use of the indefinite, definite and zero article are opaque and possibly don’t even exist. There are synonyms for almost every word in a sentence and the various shades of meaning can be difficult to discern. In addition, many words have many different meanings. There are strange situations like read and read, which are pronounced differently and mean two different things.

There are various different levels of the infinitive, though they are not used that much – to take, to be taking, to be taken, to have taken, to have been taken. There are actually 12 different verb tenses in English, and foreigners often have problems with them. There are over 200 irregular verbs.

There are quite a few dialects – over 100 have been recorded in London alone. Letters can make many different sounds (a consequence of the insane spelling system) – one vowel can be pronounced 26 different ways. English prepositions are notoriously hard, and it’s said that few second language learners really get them down right. This is probably because it often seems that many English prepositions obey no discernible rules.

While English seems simple at first – past tense is easy, little or no case, no grammatical gender, little mood, etc. – that can be quite deceptive. In European countries like Croatia, it’s hard to find a person who speaks English with native speaker competence.

The problem with English is that it’s a mess! There are languages with very easy grammatical rules like Indonesian, and languages with very hard grammatical rules like Arabic. English is one of those languages that is a total mess. There are rules, but there are exceptions everywhere and exceptions to the exceptions. Grammatically, it’s disaster area. It’s hard to know where to start.

Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons, English only gets a 2 rating as moderately easy to learn, in part because it is fairly easy to speak it well enough as to be more or less understandable much of the time.

German’s status is controversial. It’s long been considered hard to learn, but many say that they did not have much problem learning it. However, let’s not underestimate German. There are 6 different forms of the depending on the noun case – der , die, das, den , dem and des – but 16 different slots to put the 6 forms in, and the gender system is irrational. In a more basic sense and similar to Danish, there are 3 basic forms of the: der, die and das. Each one goes with a particular noun, and it’s not very clear what the rules are.

Pronunciation is straightforward, but there are some problems with the müde, the Ach, and the two ch sounds in Geschichte. One problem with German syntax is that the verb, verbs or parts of verbs don’t occur until the end of the sentence. German also has Schachtelsätzen, box clauses, which are like clauses piled into other clauses. The syntax is very rigid but at least very regular. In addition, subclauses use SOV word order. German case is also quite regular. The case exceptions can be almost counted on 1 hand.

An example of German case (and case in general) is here: The leader of the group gives the boy a dog. In German, the sentence is case marked with the 4 different German cases: Der Führer (nominative) der Gruppe (genitive) gibt dem knabe (dative) einen Hund (accusative).

There are three genders, masculine, feminine and neutral. Yet maiden is neutral and petticoat is masculine! The r in German is quite strange, and of common languages, only French has a similar r. Any given noun inflects into 4 cases and the 3 genders.

One problem with German is that you need a big vocabulary to even engage in small talk. This is a real disadvantage. German also has a vast vocabulary, said to be the 4th largest in the world.

On the plus side, word formation is pretty regular. Pollution is Umweltverschmutzung. It consists, logically, of two words, Umwelt and Verschmutzung , which mean environment and dirtying. In English, you have three words, environment, dirtying and pollution, the combination which has no relation to its semantic roots. Nevertheless, this has its problems, since it’s not so simple to figure out how the words are stuck together into bigger words, and meanings of morphemes can take years to figure out.

Also, German is not very inflected, and the inflection that it does take is quite regular.

German gets a 3 rating, moderately difficult.

Icelandic is said to be very hard to learn, much harder than Norwegian, German or Swedish. Part of the problem is pronunciation. The grammar is harder than German grammar, and there are almost no Latin-based words in it. The vocabulary is quite archaic. Like German, Icelandic has preserved a lot more of the original IE grammar than English has.

There are four cases – nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative – as in German, and there are many exceptions to the case rules, or “quirky case,” as it is called. Verbs are modified for tense, person and number, as in many other IE languages (this is almost gone from English). Icelandic also modifies verbs for mood – active, passive and medial. Furthermore, there seems to be a lack of rules for the declensions and many just have to be memorized. The numeral system is completely convoluted and crazy, but Icelandic speakers take pride in it.

Icelandic gets a 4 rating, hardest of all to learn.

Faroese is said to be even harder to learn than Icelandic, with some very strange vowels not found in other North Germanic languages.

Norwegian and Swedish are both easy to learn, and Norwegian is sometimes touted as the easiest language on Earth to learn. Nevertheless, dialects can be a problem. Swedish does have the disadvantage of having hundreds of irregular verbs. There is also the problematic en and et alternation, as discussed with Danish. Swedish also has some difficult phonemes, especially vowels, since Swedish has 9 vowels, not including diphthongs. But learning to speak Swedish is easy enough. Where Swedish gets difficult is learning how to write it, since the spelling seems illogical, like in English.

Swedish and Norwegian get a 1 rating, very easy to learn.

Danish is actually a pretty tough language to learn! It’s not that hard to read or even write, but it’s quite hard to speak. For one, there are a huge number of dialects. Denmark is just a bunch of really cold islands, with a freezing cold ocean in between them.

People generally stayed on their islands and didn’t move around much. Each little island has its own dialect, and the dialects can be quite baffling for second language learners. There are eight major dialects, and countless minor ones subsumed under them.

Written Danish is very hard to master. For instance, instead of the, there is den and det , and instead of a and an, which are regular in English, there is en and et. Whichever form goes in front of a noun depends on the noun and seems quite arbitrary. There is en hund -a dog and yet et kæledyr – a pet. In addition, nouns take different endings depending on which form of the article they take. A horse – en hest, but the horse – den hesten.

In addition, there d words where the d is silent and other d words where it is pronounced and though the rules are straightforward, it’s often hard for foreigners. The d in hund is silent, for instance.

There are three strange vowels, æ, ø and å. They are also present in Icelandic, Swedish and Norwegian, but foreigners have problems with them.

One advantage of all of the Scandinavian languages, though, is that their basic vocabulary is fairly limited. This in contrast to German or Chinese, where you have to learn a lot of vocabulary just to converse at a basic level.

As with Maltese and Gaelic, there is little correlation between how a word is written and how it is pronounced. Pronunciation of Danish is difficult. Speech is very fast and comes out in a continuous stream that elides entire words. Vowels in the middle and at the end of words are seldom expressed. There are 9 vowels, and each one can be pronounced in 5-6 different ways. There is also a strange phonetic element called a stød, which is a very short pause slightly before the vowel(s) in a word. This element is very hard for foreigners to get right. Just about any word has at least four meanings, and can serve as noun, verb, adjective or adverb. It’s been said that Danish children speak later than other Scandinavian children.

Danish gets a 3 rating, moderately hard to learn.

Dutch is said to be harder to learn than English, due to the large number of rules used in both speaking and writing. Dutch people say that few foreigners learn to speak Dutch well. Part of the problem is that some words have no meaning at all if it is isolation (meaning is only derived via a phrase or sentence). Word order is somewhat difficult, as foreigners often seem to get the relatively lax Dutch rules about word order wrong in long sentences.

Dutch gets a 3 rating, moderately hard to learn.

Goidelic

Any Gaelic language is tough. Irish students take Irish for 13 years and some take French for five years. These students typically know French better than Irish. There are inflections for the inflections of the inflections, a convoluted aspiration system, and no words for yes or no. The system of initial consonant mutation is quite baffling. One problem with Irish is that the way a word looks often does not much to do with the way it is pronounced.

Welsh and Scottish Gaelic are also said to be very hard to learn, some say harder than Irish, although Welsh has no case compared to Irish’s two cases. There is a close orthography-pronunciation match. And the Welsh verb system is very regular – Welsh has a mere five irregular verbs. Gaelic languages are harder to learn than German or Russian.

Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Irish get 5 ratings, hardest of all.

Armenian

Two obscure branches of Indo-European, Armenian and Albanian, are said to be very hard to learn.

Rated 5, hardest of all.

Albanian

Similarly to Gaelic, Armenian and Albanian are harder to learn than either German or Russian. Albanian may be even harder to learn than Polish.

Rated 5, hardest of all.

Slavic

Czech and Slovak are notorious; in fact, all Slavic languages are. Language professors rate the Slavic languages the third hardest to learn on Earth. Czech is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the hardest language to learn. It’s sometimes said that even Czechs never learn to speak their language correctly, but that is probably an exaggeration. There are seven singular cases, seven plural cases and forty different “modes” for words. Yet it’s full of exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions.

Czech has 7 cases in singular and 7 more cases in plural for nouns for a total of about 40 different “modes” of declension. There are also words that swing back and forth between “modes.” Adjectives and pronouns also have 7 cases in the singular and plural. There are lots of exceptions, too. Verbs also decline. There are 6 genders, 3 in the singular and 3 in the plural.

Truth is that almost every word in the language is subject to declension.

One of the problems with Czech is that not only nouns but also verbs take gender. As with other Slavic languages like Russian, it has the added problem of fairly loose word order. In addition, there are significant differences between casual and formal speech.

Slovak is said to be even harder than Czech, but that’s a tough call. These two languages are the only ones with 7 cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, locative, dative, instrumental and vocative). There is also a hard and soft i which is hard to figure out.

The suffixes on nouns and verbs change all the time in strange ways. It’s also full of words that don’t seem to have vowels. There are some difficult consonants such as š, č, ť, ž, ľ, ď, dz, dž, ĺ and ŕ.

Some say that Slovak is even harder than Polish, but, it’s probably a toss-up between Czech/Slovak and Polish.

Czech and Slovak both get 5 ratings, hardest of all.

Polish is similar, but in Polish at least there are invisible vowels in Polish. That’s not so obviously the case with Czech. Try these sentences: Strč prst skrz krk or Mlž pln skvrn zlvh. Or these: Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie. Wyindywidualizowaliśmy się z rozentuzjazmowanego tłumu.

I and Y, S and Z, JE and Ě alternate at the ends of some words, but the rules governing when do this, if they exist, don’t seem sensible. The letters Ř and Ť are very hard to pronounce, and the Ř exists in no other language. There are nasal vowels as in Portuguese. The ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, sz, cz, dz, dź, dż sounds are hard for foreigners to make. There are sounds that it is even hard for native speakers to make, as they require a lot tongue movements.

Polish written to spoken pronunciation makes little sense, as in English – h and ch are one sound, and ó, u and ł are one sound. Polish orthography, while being quite regular, is very complex.

Polish is full of words that don’t seem to have any vowels in them. Further, native speakers speak so fast, it’s quite hard for non-natives to understand them. Due to the consonant-ridden nature of Polish, it is harder to pronounce than most Asian languages. Listening comprehension is made difficult by all of the sh and ch like sounds. Furthermore, since few foreigners learn Polish, Poles are not used to hearing their language mangled by second-language learners. Therefore, foreigners’ Polish will seldom be understood.

Polish grammar is much more difficult than Russian grammar.

Polish has seven cases, and case declension is very irregular, unlike German. It also has 7 genders, 5 in singular and 2 in plural. The genders of nouns causes the adjectives modifying them to inflect differently.

Nouns
matka   mother (female gender)
ojciec  father (male gender)
dziecko child (neuter gender)

modifyng adjective
brzydki - ugly

Singular
brzydka matka    ugly mother
brzydki ojciec   ugly father
brzydkie dziecko ugly child

Plural
brzydkie matki   ugly mothers
brzydcy ojcowie  ugly fathers
brzydkie dzieci  ugly children

Gender even effects verbs.

Ja zjadłam – I ate (female speaker), but Ja zjadłem – I ate (male speaker). We killed – zabiliśmy/zabiłyśmy, they killed – zabili/zabiły, I killed – zabiłem/zabiłam. There are two different forms of the verb kill depending on whether the 1st person singular and plural and 2nd person plural killers are males or females.

kupować - to buy

Singular  Simple Past         Imperfect
I (f.)    kupiłam             kupowałam
I (m.)    kupiłem             kupowałem
you (f.)  kupiłaś             kupowałaś
you (m.)  kupiłeś             kupowałeś
he        kupił               kupował
she       kupiła              kupowała
it        kupiło              kupowało

we (f.)   kupiłyśmy           kupowałyśmy
we (m.)   kupiliśmy           kupowaliśmy
you (f.)  kupiłyście          kupowałyścieyou
you (m.)  kupiliście          kupowaliście
they (f.) kupiły              kupowały
they (m.) kupili              kupowali

The verb above forms an incredible 28 different forms in the perfect and imperfect past tense alone.

In addition, there is an animate-inanimate distinction in gender. Look at some words: hat – kapelusz, computer – komputer, dog – pies and student – uczen. All are masculine gender, but computer and hat are inanimate and student and dog are animate, so they inflect differently. I see a new hat – Widze nowy kapelusz, but I see a new student – Widze nowego ucznia . Notice how the now- form changed.

For instance, English have one word for the genitive case of the 1st person singular – my. In Polish, depending on the context, you can have the following forms: mój, moje, moja, moją, mojego, mojemu , mojej, moim, moi , moich, moimi, etc.

English has one word for the number 2 – two. Polish has 35 words for two:

dwa
dwaj
dwie
dwoje
dwóch
dwom
dwóm
dwu
dwoma
dwiema
dwojga
dwojgu
dwójgę
dwójką
dwójkę
dwójki
dwójce
dwojkiem
dwójko
dwójgo
dwojgiem
drugi
druga
drugie
drugiemu
drugiej
drugiego
drugim
drugą
dwójkach
dwójek
dwója
dwójna
dwójkami
dwójkom

Polish, like Hungarian and Finnish, can also have very long word. For instance, pięćsetdwadzieściajedenmiliardówdwieścieczterdzieścisiedemmiloionów-trzystaosiemdzisiątpięćtysięcyczterystadziewięćdziesięciopięcioletni is a word in Polish (There is no dash in the word – I was just dividing the line).

A single noun can change in many ways and take many different forms. Compare przyjaciel – friend

                          singular       plural
who is my friend          przyjaciel     przyjaciele
who is not my friend      przyjaciela    przyjaciół
friend who I give s.t. to przyjacielowi  przyjaciołom
friend who I see          przyjaciela    przyjaciół
friend who I go with      z przyajcielem z przyjaciółmi
friend who I dream of     o przyjacielu  o przyjaciołach
Oh my friend!             Przyajcielu!   Przyjaciele!

There are 12 different forms of the noun friend above.

Polish has perfective and imperfective verbs, but that is the least of the problem. The problem is that each verb is in effect a separate verb altogether, instead of just being conjugated differently. The verb to see has two completely different verbs in Polish: widziec and zobaczyc . Widziałem – I saw (repeatedly in the past, like I saw the sun come up every morning). Zobaczyłem – I saw (only once; I saw the sun come up yesterday).

This is not a tense difference – the very verbs themselves are different! So for every verb in the language, you effectively have to learn two different verbs.

In addition, the future perfect and future imperfect often conjugate completely differently, though the past forms usually conjugate in the same way – note the -em endings above. There is no present perfect as in English, since in Polish the action must be completed, and you can’t be doing something at this precise moment and at the same time have just finished doing it. 95% of verbs have these crazy dual forms, but for 5% of verbs that lack a perfective version, you only have one form.

Plurals change based on number. In English, the plural of telephone is telephones , whether you have 2 or 1000 of them. In Polish, you use different words depending on how many phones you have: 2, 3 or 4 telefony, but 5 telefonów. Sometimes, this radically changes the word, as in hands: 4 ręce, but 5 rąk .

It’s often said that one of the advantages of Polish is that there are only three tenses, but this is not really case, as there are at least 8 tenses:

Indicative – grac – to play.
Present – Gram. – I play.
Past – Gralem. – I played.
Conditional – Gralbym. – I would play.
Future – Będę grać. – I will play.
Continuous future – Będę grał. – I will be playing.
Perfective future – Pogram. – Implies you will finish the action – I will have played.
Perfective conditional – Pogralbym.

There is also an aspectual distinction made when referring to the past. Different forms are used based on whether or not the action has been completed.

In addition, like Serbo-Croatian, Polish can use multiple negation in a sentence. You can use up to 5 negatives in a perfectly grammatical sentence: Nikt nikomu nigdy nic nie powiedzia – Nobody ever said anything to anyone.

Whereas in English we use one word for “go” no matter what mode of transportation we are using to get from one place to another, in Polish, you use different verbs if you are going by foot, by car, by plane, by boat or by other means of transportation.

Like Russian, there are multiple different ways to say the same thing in Polish. In English, you can say Ann has a cat and you can’t mix the words up and mean the same thing. In Polish you can say Ann has a cat 5 different ways: Ania ma kota, Kota ma Ania, Ma Ania kota, Kota Ania ma , Ma kota Ania. The first one is the most common, but the other 4 can certainly be used.

A major problem with Polish grammar is that it is not regular at all. There are probably more exceptions than there are rules. Even more importantly, what rules there are so complex and numerous that it is hard to figure them all out.

It is said English-speaking children reach full adult competency in the language (reading, writing, speaking, spelling) at age 12. Polish children do not reach this milestone until age 16. Even adult Poles make a lot of mistakes in speaking and writing Polish properly. However, most Poles are quite proud of their difficult language (though a few hate it), and even take pride in its difficult nature.

On the positive side, in Polish, the stress is fixed, there are no short or long vowels or vowel harmony, there are no tones and it uses a Latin alphabet.

Polish gets a 5 rating, hardest of all.

Bulgarian is said to be easy, but it’s often hard. Though it is close to Russian, there are Russians who have been living there for 20 years and still can’t understand it well. It has only three cases, but all Western Slavic languages are pretty tough.

Mood is very complicated. There are different ways to say the same idea depending on how you know of the event. If you know about it historically, you mark the sentence with a particular mood. If you doubt the event, you mark with another mood.

If you know it historically but doubt it, yet another mood. And there are more than that. These forms are rather rare in world languages. The only one I can think of offhand is Yamana, a Patagonian language that has only one speaker left. Bulgarian is probably the easiest Slavic language to learn.

Bulgarian gets a 3 rating, moderately hard to learn.

Slovenian is also a very hard language to learn, probably on a par with Serbo-Croatian. It has 3 number distinctions, singular, dual and plural. It’s the only European language that has retained the dual. In addition, there are 6 cases. There are 18 different declensions of the word son, but 5 of them are identical, so there are really only 13 different forms.

   Singular Dual       Plural 

1. Sin      Sina       Sini
2. Sina     Sinov      Sinov
3. Sinu     Sinovoma   Sinovom
4. Sina     Sinova     Sinove
5. O sinu   O sinovoma O sinovih
6. S sinom  Z sinovoma Z sini

There are 7 different ways that nouns decline depending on gender, but there are exceptions to all of the gender rules.

Slovenian gets a 5 rating, hardest of all to learn.

Serbo-Croatian, similar to Czech, has seven cases in the singular and seven in the plural, plus there are several different declensions. There 15 different types of declensions: 7 tenses, 3 genders, 3 moods and 2 aspects. Whereas English has one word for the number 2 – two, Serbo-Croatian has 17 words

Case abbreviations below:
N = NAV – nominative, accusative, vocative
G = Genitive
D = Dative
L =Locative
I = Instrumental

Masculine inanimate gender
N dva
G dvaju
D L I dvama

Feminine gender
N dve
G dveju
D L I dvema

Mixed gender
N dvoje
G dvoga
D L I dvoma

Masculine animate gender
N dvojica
G dvojice
D L dvojici
I dvojicom

“Twosome”
N dvojka
G dvojke
D L dvojci
I dvojkom

The grammar is incredibly complex. There are imprefective and perfective verbs, but when you try to figure out how to build one from the other, it seems quite irregular. This is the hardest part of Serbo-Croatian grammar, and foreigners not familiar with other Slavic tongues usually never get it right.

As in English, there are many different ways to say the same thing. Pronouns are so rarely used that some learners are surprised that they exist, since pronimalization is marked on the verb as person and number. Word order is almost free or at least seems arbitrary, similar to Russian.

Serbo-Croatian, like Lithuanian, has pitch accent – low-rising, low-falling, short-rising and short-falling. It’s not the same as tone but it’s similar. In addition to the pitch accent differentiating words, you also have an accented syllable somewhere in the word, which as in English, is unmarked. And when the word conjugates or declines, the pitch accent jumps around in the word to another syllable and even changes its type in pretty unpredictable ways. It’s almost impossible for foreigners to get this pitch-accent right.

Serbo-Croatian is probably not quite as hard as Polish, but it’s harder than Russian.

Serbo-Croatian gets a 5 rating, hardest of all.

People are divided on the difficulty of Russian, but language teachers say it’s one of the hardest to learn. Some say that even after a couple of years of study, it’s hard to speak even a simple sentence correctly.

It has seven cases, but the grammar is fairly easy for a Slavic language. The problem comes with the variability in pronunciation. The adjectives and endings can be difficult. In addition, Russian has gender and lots of declinations. The adjectives change form if the nouns they describe have different endings. Adjectives also take case somehow. Verbs have different forms depending on the pronouns that precede them.

Word order is pretty free. For instance, you can say I love you by saying I love you, You love I, Love you I, I you love, Love I you and You I love.

Pronunciation is a bit strange, with one vowel that is between an ü and i. Many consonants are quite strange, and every consonant has a palatalized counterpart, which will seem odd to speakers whose languages lack phonemic palatalized consonants. Stress is quite difficult in Russian since it seems arbitrary and does not appear to follow obvious rules: дóма – at home, but домá – buildings.

Like German, Russian builds morphemes into larger words. Again like German, this is worse than it sounds since the rules are not so obvious. One problem is that accent, generally not written out, changes the way the vowel is pronounced. In addition, there is the strange Cyrillic alphabet, which is nevertheless easier than Arabic or Chinese.

Russian gets a 4 rating, very hard to learn.

Baltic

Lithuanian, an archaic Indo-European Baltic tongue, is said to be extremely difficult to learn. There are many dialects, which is interesting for such a small country, and the grammar is extremely difficult, with many rules. There is grammatical gender for nouns, and in addition, even numerals have gender in all cases. The language is heavily inflectional such that you can almost speak without using prepositions.

A single verb has 13 participial forms, and that is just using masculine gender for the participles. You can also add feminine forms to that verb. Furthermore, while it does not have lexical tone per se, it does have pitch accent (I am not sure what the difference is!). It’s almost impossible for foreigners to get the accent right, and the accents tend to move around a lot across words such that the rules are opaque if they exist at all. Often you need a dictionary to figure out where the accent should be on a word. Lithuanian pronunciation is also difficult.

Try these words and phrases: šalna, šąla šiandien, ačiū už skanią vakarienę, pasikiškiakopūsteliaudamasis , ūkis, malūnas, čežėti šiauduose.

Or this paragraph: Labas, kaip šiandien sekasi? Aš esu iš Lietuvos, kur gyvenu visą savo gyvenimą. Lietuvių kalba yra sunkiausia iš visų pasaulyje. Ačiū už dėmesį .

Lithuanian is an archaic IE language that has preserved a lot of forms that the others have lost.

Lithuanian gets a 5 rating, hardest of all.

Latvian is another Baltic language that is somewhat similar to Lithuanian. It’s also said to be hard to learn. Try this: Sveiki, esmu no Latvijas, un mūsu valoda ir skanīga, skaista un ar ļoti sarežģītu gramatisko sistēmu. Latvian and Lithuanian are definitely harder to learn than Russian. They both have aspects like in Russian, but also have more cases than Russian, plus a lot more irregular verbs.

Some say that the Baltic languages are even harder to learn than the hardest Slavic languages like Polish, Czech and Serbo-Croatian.

Latvian gets a 5 rating, hardest of all.

How to say Merry Christmas in different languages. Send these to your friends around the world.

Afrikaans: Gesëende Kersfees

Afrikander: Een Plesierige Kerfees

African/ Eritrean/ Tigrinja: Rehus-Beal-Ledeats

Albanian:Gezur Krislinjden

Arabic: Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah

Argentine: Feliz Navidad

Armenian: Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand

Azeri: Tezze Iliniz Yahsi Olsun

Bahasa Malaysia: Selamat Hari Natal

Basque: Zorionak eta Urte Berri On!

Bengali: Shuvo Naba Barsha

Bohemian: Vesele Vanoce

Brazilian: Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo

Breton: Nedeleg laouen na bloavezh mat

Bulgarian: Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo

Catalan: Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou!

Chile: Feliz Navidad

Chinese: (Cantonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan’Gung Haw Sun

Chinese: (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan

Choctaw: Yukpa, Nitak Hollo Chito

Columbia: Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo

Cornish: Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth

Corsian: Pace e salute

Crazanian: Rot Yikji Dol La Roo

Cree: Mitho Makosi Kesikansi

Croatian: Sretan Bozic

Czech: Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok

Danish: Glædelig Jul

Duri: Christmas-e- Shoma Mobarak

Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
or Zalig Kerstfeest

English: Merry Christmas

Eskimo: (inupik) Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo!

Esperanto: Gajan Kristnaskon

Estonian: Ruumsaid juulup|hi

Faeroese: Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar!

Farsi: Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad

Finnish: Hyvaa joulua

Flemish: Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar

French: Joyeux Noel

Frisian: Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier!

Galician: Bo Nada

Gaelic: Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr!

German: Froehliche Weihnachten

Greek: Kala Christouyenna!

Hausa: Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!

Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka

Hebrew: Mo’adim Lesimkha. Chena tova

Hindi: Shub Naya Baras

Hausa: Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!

Hawaian: Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou!

Hungarian: Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket

Icelandic: Gledileg Jol

Indonesian: Selamat Hari Natal

Iraqi: Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah

Irish: Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat

Iroquois: Ojenyunyat Sungwiyadeson honungradon nagwutut. Ojenyunyat osrasay.

Italian: Buone Feste Natalizie

Japanese: Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto

Jiberish: Mithag Crithagsigathmithags

Korean: Sung Tan Chuk Ha

Latin: Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!

Latvian: Prieci’gus Ziemsve’tkus un Laimi’gu Jauno Gadu!

Lausitzian:Wjesole hody a strowe nowe leto

Lettish: Priecigus Ziemassvetkus

Lithuanian: Linksmu Kaledu

Low Saxon: Heughliche Winachten un ‘n moi Nijaar

Macedonian: Sreken Bozhik

Maltese: LL Milied Lt-tajjeb

Manx: Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa

Maori: Meri Kirihimete

Marathi: Shub Naya Varsh

Navajo: Merry Keshmish

Norwegian: God Jul, or Gledelig Jul

Occitan: Pulit nadal e bona annado

Papiamento: Bon Pasco

Papua New Guinea: Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu

Pennsylvania German: En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!

Peru: Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo

Philipines: Maligayan Pasko!

Polish: Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie

Portuguese:Feliz Natal

Pushto: Christmas Aao Ne-way Kaal Mo Mobarak Sha

Rapa-Nui (Easter Island): Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi. Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua

Rhetian: Bellas festas da nadal e bun onn

Romanche: (sursilvan dialect): Legreivlas fiastas da Nadal e bien niev onn!

Rumanian: Sarbatori vesele

Russian: Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom

Sami: Buorrit Juovllat

Samoan: La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou

Sardinian: Bonu nadale e prosperu annu nou

Serbian: Hristos se rodi

Slovakian: Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce

Sami: Buorrit Juovllat

Samoan: La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou

Scots Gaelic: Nollaig chridheil huibh

Serb-Croatian: Sretam Bozic. Vesela Nova Godina

Serbian: Hristos se rodi. Singhalese: Subha nath thalak Vewa. Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa

Slovak: Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok

Slovene: Vesele Bozicne. Screcno Novo Leto

Spanish: Feliz Navidad

Swedish: God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År

Tagalog: Maligayamg Pasko!

Tami: Nathar Puthu Varuda Valthukkal

Trukeese: (Micronesian) Neekiriisimas annim oo iyer seefe feyiyeech!

Thai: Sawadee Pee Mai

Turkish: Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun

Ukrainian: Srozhdestvom Kristovym

Urdu: Naya Saal Mubarak Ho

Vietnamese: Chung Mung Giang Sinh

Welsh: Nadolig Llawen

Yugoslavian: Cestitamo Bozic

Yoruba: E ku odun, e ku iye’dun!

Ugh this one is going to be brutal, but first a little dazzling history on this hole-in-the wall joint. Originally owned by Anthony Rinaldi and his overly energetic wife this little spot served up the greatest sandwiches, soups, salads, etc. Basically, some sick deli food. They would throw the sandwiches to you over the counter when they were finished makin’ them and say something funny like pasta fongul (kidding) Prices were good, spirits were high and sauce was everywhere! In a good way. Then, the Albanians came and took over the joint. Messed up! These two dorks ruined my favorite lunch spot. They skimp on EVERYTHING! (cheap-o’s) I would usually get the chicken parm on a wedge…amazing sandwich. The Albanians, however, destroyed this little torpedo by sprinkling mozzarella cheese on top of the sandwich as if it were a topping on ice cream. When I get a chicken parm, I want slices of mutz on that bad boy, not some fairy dust that gets lost in the sauce, which they also skimp on now. Then to add insult to injury, they wrap the damn thing in a plate, then in foil, then in butcher paper and top it off with a brown bag. Seriously, its a treasure hunt to find your sandwich and when you finally do, the bits of cheese that do manage to ooze out of the sandwich, stick to this ridiculous paper plate that the big chief decided was a good idea. (On a side note, the last time I went there, they did not wrap with a plate and have finally gone back to using slices of mutz, I guess they fell into some cash somewhere along the lines) Now, onto the new uniforms that they are wearing at my beloved deli. Green and red hats with red shirts. Seriously its Christmas here all year round now! Anyway, I am going to stop my rambling and just say this is not a recommendation in my book.

Enrique in front of the crime scene.

Nice uniforms - dork

They still havent redeemed themselves in my book. Keep trying.

You read the way he writes, it makes you

smile and cry at the same time.

You understand all that he has been through

He shows it all as though nothing matters

All those distant memories that must have hurt him

But is all over now and the old Marko does not regret anything.

The way he writes make you want to fall in love,

With the simple descriptions that carry such truths

That do not require metaphors to be carried through.

The more I read the more I need to know,

How he became what he used to be,

What made him write the way he wrote,

Who inspired him to be, and who made him, him.

Reading him seems like the easiest thing to do,

And one cannot get used to the fact that he is gone,

And he will never write again.

They were the Cold War years of the mid 1970s. The California folk sounds of Neil Young and Dan Fogelberg wafted through the nightspots in Monterey. Progressive rock sounds from bands like Kansas were heard blaring from certain rooms in the Navy barracks. The music reflected the questions of the age: were we in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s or were we in a new day?

To those of us in our formidable years it seemed that we were caught and hanging in time between two eras. The Vietnam War years were giving way, haltingly, to a new kind of tension on the world stage. Korea and China seemed destined to explode into war. Many in the language departments were nervous with that possibility. The East European language departments and the Russian departments continued to study with a sense of urgency as if at any moment the Balkans or the Berlin Wall would collapse into conflict and Soviet tanks would face off with American and British armies.

Into that history, a teenage Navy Cryptological Technician (Interpretive) began a journey in a place that would change his life. I was that lad, that 18-year-old boy from South Louisiana. That place was of course, our place, our DLI. I studied Albanian under Professors Zef Logoreci and Zef Nekai, two of the finest men I have ever known. While I had passed the entrance examination for this great institution, I had skidded effortlessly through high school with good grades and little studying. But not even the ablest “skidding student” could pull that same stunt off at the prestigious Defense Language Institute. And so, predictably, I found myself scrambling to keep up with the intense, regimental demands of DLI in my early days there. The ubiquitous, mysterious blue-grey fog of Monterey seemed to have settled over my study desk at the Navy detachment barracks. Thus, with few study skills in place, I began to flounder in class. It could have all ended for me as it did with others in my class and in other classes. There were hauntingly real stories of young men studying Mandarin one week and painting ships at Subic Bay the next week. No one was ever given a grade, or especially a coveted diploma from that institution. It had to be earned.

In spite of my struggles, my professors saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. Both men took time to help me learn how to study. And they gave me something even more valuable: they gave me a love of learning. I began to devour their lectures like one would devour the hot sourdough bread made on Cannery Row. Many times I found myself walking down the Presidio to get that bread with my Albanian paradigms in one hand. It was worth the heart-pounding walk back up to the DLI with hands dripping with butter from the hot bread.

But whether we were learning how to conjugate Albanian verbs in the northern dialect or decline nouns in the southern dialect, or studying the tumultuous history of the region, or the intriguing culture of the people, I began to grasp the glory of intellectual exploration. Indeed, as I graduated, and was leaving DLI, I asked Professor Nekai what I should do next. “What can I do with Albanian outside of the military?” He looked somewhere far away in his mind’s eye, maybe to the beautiful Adriatic seashore of his Albanian home. He was still peering wherever his mind had taken him when he told me words that I shall never forget: “Many people see the sand on the seashore. But you have seen one grain. Cherish that one grain. Tell others about it. Love the people you have studied. DLI has been a gift to you, Mr. Milton.”

Few words have ever proved to be truer.

Years later as a young Presbyterian minister, I was one of the first Americans to enter Albania as “the wall” fell and a fledgling democracy began to emerge. I stood on top of the tumbled statue of Joseph Stalin, recently pushed over by freedom-seeking students in revolt against despotism and Communism. I stood on the crumbled head of Stalin that had been dislocated from the broken body of that statue, that symbol of a horrible history now also crumbling. I stood on Stalin’s head and I preached. I preached a Gospel of a future and a hope. Over 500 people gathered in Skanderbeg Square that night. As I preached, I spoke in the Albanian language. And the legacy of DLI was with me.

My debt to the Defense Language Institute is far greater than being taught a language and the accompanying remarkable experiences. My deeper debt is that I was given an appreciation for the intellectual life that led me through undergraduate education in Kansas, to a Masters of Divinity degree, and finally to a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Wales. But a love of learning cannot be confined to formal degrees. And the pursuit continues in many ways as I am now the president of a graduate school of theology in North Carolina where I get to write, teach, and speak all over the nation and the world.

But the first diploma on my wall is the one I cherish the most. It is the diploma from DLI. For behind that piece of paper lies a story, a story of how an institution changed my life. It is a gift. I will always be thankful for that gift, for that place, for that faculty, and for the God-given opportunity to be just a small part of the remarkable story of the Defense Language Institute.

Students were welcomed with slogans similar to those used in communes.

By Sam Clemens

Bad News

With the release of Kent State’s final figures on student demographics comes striking revelations.

Tom Sinclair has been tallying enrollment numbers for 34 years. He says he’s never seen such bizarre fluctuations in student enrollment trends.

“These fluctuations in student enrollment trends are the most bizarre I’ve seen,” Sinclair said. “And I’ve been here since they made me leave ‘Nam.”

It’s not just that enrollment on all campuses jumped 30 percent. Nor is the dumbfounding 98 percent freshman retention rate the unbelievable statistic.

“Albanian students — we’ve never marketed Kent State in Albania — they’ve come in droves,” President Lester Lefton said. “Twelve percent of our students now are from Albania.”

Twelve percent Albanian enrollment is greater than at any other American university, including Brinkley University in Wyoming, which has poured thousands of dollars into Albanian recruitment.

Dining Services officials are baffled.

“When Indian student enrollment climbed, we started serving Indian food,” said Tessa Dodgson, Dining Services food coordinator. “But we have no idea what Albanians eat. We’ve noticed they enjoy hamburgers. And peanut brittle. They love peanut brittle.”

Dodgson wasn’t sure if the total lack of alternate food options has affected their dining affinities.

The other trend that blew away university officials was the steep decline in graduate students pursuing doctoral degrees in zoological music theory, “and we already had the 300 zebras lined up,” said Tim Daker, director of the program.

“That’s really going to hurt us,” he said.

So far, Lefton said the university has been unable to attribute that decline to the Albanians.

“It’s really difficult to put a finger on the reasons for any of these numbers,” he said. “But you should really try this peanut brittle.”

Bad News reporter Sam Clemens can be reached at badnewskent@gmail.com.

(Thanks to OMNIGLOT.com for phrase info) (Editing  by Still Doll)

Hebrew: Eifo ha’sheirutim? (?איפה השרותים)

Russian: Где туалет? (Gde tualet?)

Greek: Πού είναι η τουαλέτα; (pu íne I tualéta?)

Πού είναι το μπάνιο; (pu íne to báño?)

Polish: Gdzie jest toaleta?

German:Wo ist die Toilette?

Ukrainian: Де туалет? (De tualet?)

Thai: ห้องน้ำอยู่ที่ไหน? (hôrng náhm yòo têe nǎi?)

Scottish Gaelic: Càite bheil an taigh beag?

Tagalog: Nasaan ang kasilyas banyo?

Hungarian: Hol van a mosdó?

Swahili: Choo kiko wapi?

Swedish: Var är toaletten?

Korean: 화장실이 어디예요? (hwajangsiri eodiyeyo?)

French: Où sont les toilettes ?

Irish Gaelic: Cá bfhuil an leithreas?

Indonesian: Di manakah kamar kecil?

Mongolian: Бие засах газар хаана байдаг вэ (Biye zasakh gazar khaana baidag ve?)

Japanese: 便所はどこですか。 (benjo wa doko desu ka)<m>

トイレはどこですか。 (o-toire wa doko desu ka)<f>

Uzbek: Hojathona qay yerda?

Albanian: Ku është banjoja?

Hindi: टॉयलेट कहाँ है (Tāyalet kahan hai?)

Arabic (Standard): ayn al-ḥammām?) أين الحمّام؟

Farsi: (dashtshuee kojast?) دستشويي کجاست؟

So I bought a new camera!!   Finally saved up enough benjamin’s for a Canon 5d Mk II (been saving for this darn thing for the past 10 months).  Ismail and Ina’s wedding was the first time I got to use it, and now I am completely in love.   The low light capabilities on this thing are fantastic, I’m thrilled that it has HD video built in, but the very first thing I noticed is how much wider everything looks.  That full frame sensor really is a big deal.  I’m not sure the technical specifics of it, but most digital cameras (even SLRs) have a cropped frame.  So a 24mm lens really isn’t 24mm.  With my fancy new full frame camera, I now get a full 24mm.   So that’s the exciting news going on in my world. 

On to Ismail and Ina’s wedding photos.  I’ll start it off with one of my favorites.  Ismail and Ina’s party was held in Windsor, Ontario so I got to shoot some of their photos on the river walk, right off the Detroit river.  I love the Detroit city skyline in the background =>

The next photo is the very first shot I took when I showed up to Ismail’s brothers house where everybody was getting ready.  This photo almost got immediately deleted, because its totally under-exposed.  Way too dark.  But looking at in the computer, I decided that I love this image, and even though it is “technically” not perfect,  its art right?  Art doesn’t have to be perfect. 

A couple photos of the handsome groom:

I’m loving Muslim weddings…get ready, get in the limo, go take pictures, then go to the party and dance.  Skip the ceremony!  Woot!

Ina made a gorgeous bride, I love this candid I captured right before she got the limo.

The next one is another mistake. But its also another mistake that I decided that I loved too much to delete.  Maybe I should start making more mistakes?  Or maybe I just have bad taste in photography…haha.

Stopped at the river front for a photo session.  The rain held off just long enough to be able to get some nice outdoor photos.  It started pouring down while we were driving to the hall.  Very close call.   I’m pretty happy with the way these turned out.

So I haven’t written in quite some time.  I told you I wasn’t good at remembering to write…and it’s a shame too considering I seem to have the most amusing stories now that I live in NYC.  Speaking of…

So I was attempting to move into my new place a few weeks ago.  Basically, I just needed to pick up the keys and check out the place one last time.  The Super was out, but his father was in.  One problem…his father didn’t speak English.  At this point I swore I was suddenly dropped into a ‘Seinfeld’ episode.  It turned out the father was Albanian.  He said “I’m the papa de Martin,” so I, not knowing he’s Albanian at the time say “Se habla espanol?”  He smiles and brings me to a woman….a woman who speaks Spanish and Albanian…but NOT English.  Only in New York City would you come across this!  So then I say “Tienes las llaves de apartemento 22?” (Do you have the keys to apartment 22?) and she translates to him then brings me the keys.  Great!  So lets just hope I don’t have any other issues, or I may need to brush up on my Spanish (or learn Albanian).

Politische Übersicht in Albanien bei Election(s)Meter – Wahlbarometer.

Political overview – Albanien.

Albanien, amtlich Republik Albanien, ist ein Staat in Südosteuropa. Er grenzt im Norden an Montenegro und Kosovo, im Osten an Mazedonien sowie im Süden an Griechenland. Die natürliche Westgrenze wird durch die Küsten der Adria und des Ionischen Meeres gebildet, wodurch das Land zu den Anrainerstaaten des Mittelmeers zählt. Das Land ist Mitglied der Vereinten Nationen, der NATO, Teilnehmerstaat der OSZE und Mitglied des Europarates.

Politik

Der albanische Staat ist eine parlamentarische Republik. Gesetzgeber ist das Albanische Parlament (Kuvendi i Shqipërisë), dessen Abgeordnete alle vier Jahre gewählt werden. Staatsoberhaupt Albaniens ist der vom Parlament auf fünf Jahre gewählte Präsident. Die dem Parlament verantwortliche Regierung wird vom Ministerpräsidenten geführt. Albanien hat vor einigen Jahren ein Verfassungsgericht nach deutschem Muster eingerichtet, das sich in den politischen Krisen der jüngsten Zeit als stabilisierender Faktor erwiesen hat. Die derzeit gültige Verfassung wurde am 28. November 1998 durch eine Volksabstimmung angenommen.

Albanische Politiker / Albanian politicians

Petro Koçi

Është politikan shqiptar, ishte Ministër i Rendit Publik të Shqipërisë. /Ein albanischer Politiker – ehemaliger Minister für öffentliche Ordnung. / An Albanian politician – former Minister of Public Order.

Ilir Meta

Është politikan shqiptar, ish Ministër i Jashtëm i Shqipërisë dhe aktualisht Kryetari i LSI. / Ein albanischer Politiker – ehemaliger Premierminister von Albanien. / An Albanian politician – former prime minister of Albania.

Ramiz Alia

Ky udhëheqës komunist i Shqipërisë nga, dhe Presidenti i Republikës së Shqipërisë nga. / Ein albanischer Politiker. Er war der letzte kommunistische Staatschef Albaniens. / First Secretary of the Albanian Party of Labour.

Kastriot Islami

Politikan shqiptar. / Ein albanischer Politiker. / Albanian politician.

Fatos Nano

Politikanë shqiptarë, ish kryetar i Partisë Socialiste të Shqipërisë. / Ein albanischer Politiker. Von 1991 bis 2005 war er Vorsitzender der Sozialistischen Partei und in dieser Zeit mehrfach auch Ministerpräsident. Derzeit (2007) ist er Abgeordneter für den Wahlkreis Saranda im Parlament Albaniens. / A Member of the Albanian Parliament, representing Sarandë constituency.

Sali Berisha

President i Shqipërisë 1992-1997 Kryeminister i Shqipërisë 2005-aktiv. / Ein albanischer Politiker. Von 1992 bis 1997 war er Präsident Albaniens. Seit September 2005 ist er Ministerpräsident./ The Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania.

Edi Rama

Politikan si dhe kryetar i Bashkisë së Tiranës. / Ein albanischer Politiker und Künstler. Zur Zeit des Sturzes des kommunistischen Regimes war er als Lektor an der Akademie der Künste tätig, wo er bereits zum Maler ausgebildet wurde
/ The chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania and Mayor of Tirana.

Bamir Topi

Politikan shqiptar dhe presidenti aktual i Shqipërisë. / Seit dem 24. Juli 2007 Staatspräsident von Albanien. / The President of the Republic of Albania.

Gazmend Oketa

Politikan shqiptar, Ministër i Mbrojtjes i Shqipërisë. / Der albanische Verteidigungsminister – Nachfolger Fatmir Mediu./ The Albanian Minister of Defense who succeeded Fatmir Mediu.

Albanische politische Parteien / Albanian political parties

Lëvizja Socialiste për Integrim (LSI)

Sozialistische Bewegung für Integration – sozialdemokratisch / Socialist Movement for Integration

Partia Demokristiane e Shqipërisë (PDK)

Christdemokratische Partei – christdemokratisch / Christian Democratic Party of Albania

Partia Socialiste e Shqipërisë (PSSH)

Sozialistische Partei – sozialdemokratisch/ Socialist Party of Albania

Partia Demokratike e Shqipërisë (PD)

Demokratische Partei – konservativ /Democratic Party of Albania

Meinst du, diese Liste nicht komplett ist – KEIN PROBLEM!!! Die Kandidaten kannst du nach der Registrierung sehr einfach hinzufügen…

You can add your candidates – after the registration – it´s easy…

Deep-fried alien-looking dough

Yeah, yeah I know….. fried dough doesn’t sound all that inviting…it’s not as pleasant-sounding as doughnut or as exotic as beignet but trust me, Petulla are fried pieces of heaven to our family.  There are many variations in the world when it comes to fried dough.  These petulla can be eaten alone (the way I like them) or with feta cheese or with honey or both as my husband and son like them.  They can also be covered with powdered sugar…to do this I place some powdered sugar in a clean paper lunch bag….toss in a couple of petulla and shake until they are coated with the sugar.   My son and I like to look at the odd shapes and see if we can identify objects in the shapes just like you would do with clouds in the sky.

Three petulla

I grew up on these but my mother didn’t teach me the recipe.  She is old school so she doesn’t measure her ingredients with measuring cups and spoons and I don’t like to cook or bake without those measuring devices.  I came across my recipe in the most unexpected of places….The Sopranos Family Cookbook.  I bought the cookbook because I loved the TV show and I love Italian food….but the recipe I’ve used the most in this book was the Zeppole recipe.   I was floored when I saw the Zeppole picture….they looked exactly like Petulla!  So I tried the recipe but I was slightly disappointed…it was close to my mom’s petulla but something was missing.  I thought back to the way my mom made it and I realized that she put eggs into her batter.  I tried the altered recipe and SUCCESS!  I turned an Italian zeppole recipe into an authentic Albanian petulla recipe.

Petulla

Adapted  from the Sopranos Family Cookbook

Makes about 12 to 18 petulla

- 1 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees F.)

- 1 teaspoon active dry yeast (not instant or rapid rise)

- 2 teaspoons sugar

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1 egg

- Vegetable oil for deep-frying (I prefer corn oil for this recipe)

1.  Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the water in a measuring cup.  Stir until the yeast dissolves.

2.  In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and slat.  Add the yeast mixture and egg and stir with a wooden spoon until well blended.  Cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise in a warm place for 90 minutes.  The batter/dough will be like a very, very loose bread dough.

3.  Pour about 2 inches of oil into a deep heavy saucepan or deep fryer.  Heat the oil until the temperature reaches 370 degrees on a deep-frying thermometer.

4.  Drop the dough/batter from a large soup spoon while using another spoon to scrape it off…try to stretch the dough as you drop it into the hot oil so it doesn’t lump up into a ball but into a flatter shape.  Once in the oil…use another spoon to very carefully splash the dough with the hot oil so it puffs up nicely. Add another 2 or 3 to the oil and splash carefully after each addition.  Fry the petulla until golden brown and puffed, then turn over and fry other side….3 to 6 minutes total.  Remove the petulla with tongs or slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels.  Repeat with the remaining batter.

This recipe can easily be doubled.

Plate of petulla

Per nje popull qe nuk pa liri me sy per afro 50 vjet me rradhe dhe perendimi ishte nje molle e ndaluar,nuk mund ta besojne se edhe 18 pas renies se murit izolues,ata jane akoma ne tentative per te vajtur fizikisht ne te shume lakmuarin Perendim.Per shume arsye shqiptaret i duan Vizat.Pjesa derrmuese e tyre deshiron te bashkohet me te afermit ne perpjekje per nje te ardhme me te mire.Disa te tjere duan te prekin ate enderr qe ne Shqiperi nuk e bejne dot realitet.Te tjere qe ndoshta jane grupi i dyte me i madh per te mbaruar studime apo per te blere sherbime qe nuk jan te disponueshme ne Shqiperi.Ka nje mije e nje arsye qe shqiptaret duan te largohen nga ky vend,qofte edhe vazhdim i nje tradite te kultivuar ne shekuj(e imponuar ose jo).Shqiptaret edhe sot,qe mund te jene ditet e tyre me te mira si komb dhe gjendja ekonomike nuk mund te themi se nuk eshte permirsuar,kembengulin  dhe arrijne deri aty sa thone se Nato dhe BE nuk na duhen,po vetem ato vizat te kishim.Ky eshte kulmi i nje mentaliteti te lidhur me ndodhite e se kaluares.Kjo e kaluar mund te jete gjeneza e kesaj qe ne po na ndodh.Per 500 vjet me rradhe e mohuam apo na e mohuan fene tone,qe rridhte nga gjaku i derdhur ne betejat e Heroit tone Gj.Kastrioti dhe zgjodhem ate qe vende te ngjashme me ne nuk e bene.Kjo ishte ndarja e pare me Europen.Ndarja e dyte ishte per 46 vitet e komunizmit,ku tani dolem si ateiste dhe njerez me ideale krejt te ndryshme nga Europa qe shkohet me viza.Dhe sot pa pike turpi shume prej nesh mohojne fene.Nuk kane faj…Shume pak prej ketyre pseudoateisteve,nje ne te ardhmen mund te nderrojne emrat po vajten me viza ne Greqi dhe te behen pse jo eshe UltraOrtodokse po qe e nevojshme,nuk dine se ajo pike ku ne ndahemi nga Europa eshte pikerisht feja,dhe jo sepse ne Myslimane apo Katolike apo Ortodokse,por se ne nuk kemi respekt per fene dhe gjate historise tone kemi luajtur me te dhe i kemi vene shkelmin sa here kemi dashur.Pra shqiptaret duhet te vuajne…e meritojne te vuajne qofte edhe per nje muaj me shume…apo edhe 5 apo 6 vite…Dhe ne fund fare te themi qe Europa nuk na do.Dhe te harrojme se kur na donte ne e perbuzem.

English – I love you.

A
Afrikaans – Ek het jou lief.
Albanian – Te dua.
Arabic – Ana behibak (to male)
Arabic – Ana behibek (to female)
Armenian – Yes kez sirumen

B
Bambara – M’bi fe.
Bangla – Aamee tuma ke bhalo aashi
Belarusian – Ya tabe kahayu.
Bisaya – Nahigugma ako kanimo.
Bulgarian – Obicham te.

C
Cambodian – Soro lahn nhee ah.
Cantonese Chinese – Ngo oiy ney a.
Catalan – T’estimo.
Cheyenne – Ne mohotatse.
Chichewa – Ndimakukonda.
Corsican – Ti tengu caru (to male).
Creol – Mi aime jou.
Croatian – Volim te.
Czech – Miluji te.

D
Danish – Jeg Elsker Dig.
Dutch – Ik hou van jou.

E
Esperanto – Mi amas vin.
Estonian – Ma armastan sind.
Ethiopian – Afgreki’

F
Faroese – Eg elski teg
Farsi – Doset daram
Filipino – Mahal kita
Finnish – Mina rakastan sinua
French – Je t’aime, Je t’adore

G
Gaelic – Ta gra agam ort
Georgian – Mikvarhar
German – Ich liebe dich
Greek – S’agapo
Gujarati – Hoo thunay prem karoo choo

H
Hiligaynon – Palangga ko ikaw
Hawaiian – Aloha wau ia oi
Hebrew – Ani ohev otah (to female)
Hebrew – Ani ohev et otha (to male)
Hiligaynon – Guina higugma ko ikaw
Hindi – Hum Tumhe Pyar Karte hae
Hmong – Kuv hlub koj
Hopi – Nu’ umi unangwa’ta
Hungarian – Szeretlek

I
Icelandic – Eg elska tig
Ilonggo – Palangga ko ikaw
Indonesian – Saya cinta padamu
Inuit – Negligevapse
Irish – Taim i’ ngra leat
Italian – Ti amo

J
Japanese – Aishiteru

K
Kannada – Naanu ninna preetisuttene
Kapampangan – Kaluguran daka
Kiswahili – Nakupenda
Konkani – Tu magel moga cho
Korean – Sarang Heyo

L
Latin – Te amo
Latvian – Es tevi miilu
Lebanese – Bahibak
Lithuanian – Tave myliu

M
Malay – Saya cintakan mu / Aku cinta padamu
Malayalam – Njan Ninne Premikunnu
Mandarin Chinese – Wo ai ni
Marathi – Me tula prem karto
Mohawk – Kanbhik
Moroccan – Ana moajaba bik

N
Nahuatl – Ni mits neki
Navaho – Ayor anosh’ni
Norwegian – Jeg Elsker Deg

P
Pandacan – Syota na kita!!
Pangasinan – Inaru Taka
Papiamento – Mi ta stimabo
Persian – Doo-set daaram
Pig Latin – Iay ovlay ouyay
Polish – Kocham Ciebie
Portuguese – Eu te amo

R
Romanian – Te ubesk
Russian – Ya tebya liubliu

S
Scot Gaelic – Tha gra\dh agam ort
Serbian – Volim te
Setswana – Ke a go rata
Sindhi – Maa tokhe pyar kendo ahyan
Sioux – Techihhila
Slovak – Lu`bim ta
Slovenian – Ljubim te
Spanish – Te quiero / Te amo
Swahili – Ninapenda wewe
Swedish – Jag alskar dig
Swiss-German – Ich lieb Di

T
Tagalog – Mahal kita
Taiwanese – Wa ga ei li
Tahitian – Ua Here Vau Ia Oe
Tamil – Nan unnai kathalikaraen
Telugu – Nenu ninnu premistunnanu
Thai – Chan rak khun (to male)
Thai – Phom rak khun (to female)
Turkish – Seni Seviyorum

U
Ukrainian – Ya tebe kahayu
Urdu – mai aap say pyaar karta hoo

V
Vietnamese – Anh ye^u em (to female)
Vietnamese – Em ye^u anh (to male)

W
Welsh – ‘Rwy’n dy garu

Y
Yiddish – Ikh hob dikh
Yoruba – Mo ni fe

The Indo-European languages include most of the languages of Europe, Iran and Northern India. For instance, English, Gaelic, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Greek, Albanian, Armenian and Kurdish are some of the better-known IE languages of Europe and the Near East.

In Iran, the major language, Farsi, is IE, as is the major language Pashto in Afghanistan. In India and Pakistan, the huge languages Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi are all IE.

They go back to a proto-language called Proto Indo-European, or PIE. In that the languages are all related, the truth is that the peoples are all related to for the greatest part. So Northern Indians, Pashtuns, Iranians, Kurds and Armenians are all closely related to Europeans since they all sprung in part from a common source, in the famous words of Sir William Jones, who discovered the IE languages in the late 1700’s.

Going back 6,500 years, we can reconstruct Proto-Indo-European quite well. One of the best resources is Julius Pokorny’s Proto-Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (or Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch).

Originally written in German, this incredible 2,500 page masterwork has been translated largely, but not completely, into English. One of my favorite pastimes is wading through this monster. I have a downloadable copy on the blog here (huge file).

The homeland of the Indo-Europeans is the subject of much debate, but the modern consensus centers around putting the homeland at 6500 years before present (YBP) around Southern Russia. I have narrowed it to southern Russia, southeastern Ukraine and southwestern Kazakhstan north of the Caucasus. This is more or less the region in between the Black and Caspian Seas.

An arid region called the Kuma-Manych Depression is in the middle of this region and seems to be a major center of PIE culture. I could not find a map of the Depression, but it separates the North Caucasus from the Russian Plain.

There were also settlements in southeastern Ukraine near the Sea of Azov, about 50 miles north of the Caspian Sea in southwestern Kazakhstan and up around the Lower Volga Region near Samara. A good word for this general region is the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.

The homeland of the Proto Indo Europeans, as of 6,500 YBP. I looked around for good maps of the PIE homeland but I could not find any, so I drew my own. Copyright Oakhurst Technology 2009.

From there, it’s not really known how or when the Proto-Indo-Europeans spread out, but they show up in Europe some time later. A good map of their migrations or conquests is here.

The PIE people had several advantages over their neighbors. They were already into the Bronze Age for one, and not only that, but there were horses running around Southern Russia. The PIE had managed to domesticate the horse. That’s quite an advantage, but the PIE people did one better.

They even invented a wheel. Then they logically put the two together and made horse-drawn chariots. With these chariots, the PIE people apparently conquered much of Europe and later parts of Southwest Asia and South Asia.

The people in Europe at this time were pre-PIE folks. We know little about their culture, but the master of PIE culture, the celebrated professor Marija Gimbutas (A woman!) calls it “Old Europe.” Old Europe is very little known or understood. A probable surviving language from Old Europe is Basque. Another, long extinct, is Etruscan.

The very early people of the British Isles, whose descendants are now known as the Black Irish, populated the Isles between 9000-11000 YBP. They had dark hair, dark eyes and very pale skin. Genetically, they seem to resemble the Basques and may have come on boats from Spain.

The Basques themselves and related peoples may have come from the Caucasus long, long ago. Although Basque is said to have no living relatives, I believe it is related to Caucasian languages like Chechen and Ingush. Throughout Europe one finds folks called Black this and Black that.

I had a girlfriend who called herself a Black Swede and later on, a girlfriend named Linda of Polish heritage. Both had very dark, curly hair, dark eyes and very pale skin. As a guess, these types of Europeans may be the remains of Old Europe.

We don’t know much about what PIE people looked like, but it is thought that they had long (and possibly thin) noses. From Pokorny:

Nasals are the most important element of Proto-Indo Europeans since they indicate the homeland of Aryans in a cold, snowy territory. The prolongation of their nose must have taken place during thousands of years of habitat in the frosty climate.

The long nose served Indo Europeans to warm the air while breathing which eventually caused the presence of nasal sounds (Pokorny, p.90).

This type of long and thin nose is still found in Greeks, Armenians, Iranians and North Indians at the least. Hence it is possible that these peoples are one of the better examples of what the PIE people looked like.

Gimbutas is also the founder of the Kurgan Hypothesis, which is currently the best PIE theory out there. Gimbutas (photo) sort of lost it towards the end when she got into “Goddess worship” and whatnot, but it’s clear that this Lithuanian archeologist was one of the great scholars of our time.

Some time after 6500 YBP, PIE began to break up, but no one knows quite how this occurred. At any rate, by 4200 YBP, a split had occurred in PIE and a separate language had broken off, Indo-Iranian. There are maps out there of the Indo-Iranian homeland, but I don’t like them all that much so I made my own. My best guess was to place it in the far north of Kazakhstan and just over the border into Russia.

From there, after 3500 YBP, the Indo-Aryans moved out and migrated into Afghanistan, Pakistan, North India and Iran. Many people in these regions today speak Indo-Iranian languages descended from these people. These folks are thought to be the source of the famous Aryan Invasion of India at around this time.

A map of the Indo-Iranian Homeland in far northern Kazakhstan around 3500 YBP. This is where the Iranians, Afghans, North Indians and many Pakistanis came from. Copyright Oakhurst Technology 2009.

As I noted, the process whereby these languages split off, other than the Indo-Aryan split, is little known. However, assuming this tree diagram is correct, maybe it can shed some light on the matter.

A very interesting tree diagram of the IE language family. Click to enlarge.

Unfortunately, this chart is hard to read, so I will try to decipher it. The first thing to note is the Anatolian split in the tree, apparently the first split. There are problems with the date for PIE. A glottochronological study recently gave a date of about 8500 YBP for PIE, considerably earlier than the usual date of around 6500 YBP.

Promoters of something called the Anatolian Hypothesis have used this to suggest than an earlier language called Proto-Indo-Hittite was spoken in Anatolia 8500 years ago.

The Anatolian languages split off, and the PIE speakers moved to the Pontic Steppe. The movement of Proto-Indo-Hittite speakers out of Anatolia to the Pontic Steppe to form the PIE people may be related to the Black Sea Deluge Theory which has recently been proven correct.

The Black Sea expanded dramatically according to this theory as, around 7600 YBP, a waterfall 200 times the size of Niagara Falls (!) poured through the Bosporus Straits, transforming the pre-Black Sea freshwater lake into the present-day brackish (part-salt water, part-fresh water) Black Sea. Soon after this event, PIE culture appears in the Pontic Steppe.

This is a very controversial proposal called the Indo-Hittite Theory, but I have long supported it. The late Joseph Greenberg, one of the greatest historical linguists that ever lived, also supported it.

This theory holds that Indo-European has two branches, Indo-European proper and the Hittite branch. The Hittite branch is related to the other branch only in a binary fashion. There is good evidence for this.

The Anatolian languages, all of which are now extinct, are very strange and seem distant from the rest. The appear archaic and have retained many forms which seem to not be present on the rest of IE. My guess is these are archaic forms.

Anatolian lacks grammatical gender – masculine:feminine, an IE innovation spread through the family. Instead, it has an archaic noun class system called animate:inanimate. This is reminiscent of ancient Niger-Congo languages in Africa. In addition, the Anatolian vowel system is reduced (fewer vowels) and the case system is simpler.

Many basic IE vocabulary terms are simply missing in Anatolian. All of this debris tends to add up to the hypothesis of an ancient branch of the language family.

Tocharian is visible on the diagram as Italo-Celtic-Tocharian. This branch is extremely strange, since Tocharian was spoken way over in Asia near East Turkestan and Kyrgyzstan, and Celtic and Italic are spoken in the heart of Europe. This is the area where the mummies with blond hair and blue eyes have been found. Tocharian may have split as early as 6000 YBP.

The Tocharian language is also very ancient and strange and is only distantly related to the rest of IE. If anything, it seems to look somewhat like Anatolian.

A very ancient branch of IE also split off around this time. Known as Balkan or Paleo-Balkan, it may also have split off 6000 YBP. There were two major branches, Thracian and Illyro-Venetic. Thracian is extinct, and all that remains of Illyro-Venetic is Albanian, a very ancient IE tongue that is only distantly related to the rest of IE. Proto-Illyrian and Thracian split around 4200 YBP.

At this time, it is thought that the people who later became Celts, Italics, Greeks and Albanians were the Illyrian peoples. They were driven out of northern Germany by pre-Germanic tribes 3800 YBP. So Celts, Italics, Greeks and Albanians all seem to share common genetic roots.

It is interesting that the pre-Greeks were living up around the Baltic Sea 3800 YBP. This fits in with new theories saying that the ancient Greeks came from the Baltic region. The theories are based on a reading of Homer’s Iliad in which the place names and descriptions match the Baltic region but do not match Greece. Even the Greeks themselves had legends that they came from the North.

This is the probable base from which the Romans emerged – a Celto-Greco-Italo-Albanian people. Here is a map of the Illyrian tribes before the Roman conquest. It is from this milieu that the Albanians emerged. The Albanian language is quite strange within IE and seems to have very ancient roots dating back to Proto-Paleo-Balkan from 6000 YBP.

Another very early split you can see in the chart is something called Indo-Irano-Armeno-Hellenic. The Armeno-Hellenic branch probably split off 6000 YBP. The fact that Armenians and Greeks today still possibly retain a PIE appearance is also suggested by this early split. Only the Greek languages and Armenian remain of this family, as most of the family is extinct.

Proto-Hellenic may have split off around 5000 YBP, and Proto-Armenian may have split around 4500 YBP. The proto-Hellenics seem to have been related to the Indo-Iranians. This may be why a number of North Indians look like Greeks, Turks or Armenians.

Armenian and Hellenic are also strange IE branches that are only distantly related to the rest of IE.

The Italo-Celtic branch broke off as early as 5000 YBP.  Proto-Celtic split about 2800 YBP; the homeland is in Northern Austria. The Hallstatt Culture is associated with them. The Proto-Italics are dated to around 3500 YBP in Italy. Before that, the Italo-Celtic Homeland is thought to have been in southern and central Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The fact that Italics (Italians and related languages) and Celts share common roots shows how insane and stupid Nordicism is, as Nordicists say that Italians south of the Po are ‘non-Whites.’ It turns out that those greasy dagos and those blond and blue guys in dresses blowing pipes in the Highlands are the same folks after all, as they share common genetic roots in Austria 3500 YBP.

Proto-Germanic also dates far back, with pre-Proto-Germanic possibly being spoken 3800 YBP in northern Germany, Denmark and Southern Scandinavia ( map). The homeland of the pre-proto-Germanics is in Southern Sweden and Jutland. They may have settled this area as early as 5000 YBP. These speakers may have been speaking something called Balto-Slavo-Germanic, a group you can see on the tree above.

Proto-Germanic proper probably dates from the Jasdorf Culture. The homeland of the proto-Germanics was in northern Germany, around Schleswig-Holstein south into the Lower Elbe region in what is now Saxony-Anhalt and the Hanover area.

It also extended along the Baltic coast of Germany to about the Polish border, down into Brandenburg and Mecklenburg. The original center of the homeland was in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony.

Balto-Slavic is also a very ancient branch of IE. Lithuanian is an ancient IE language that is very conservative and has retained many ancient IE reflexes that have been lost in the rest of IE. Proto-Balto-Slavic probably split around 4000 YBP. Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic split apart about 3400 YBP. Map of the Balto-Slavic homeland. This homeland encompassed Western Ukraine, Belarus and Eastern Poland.

Proto-Slavic, dating from 3400 YBP, seems to have its homeland in Northern and Western Ukraine and in Southern Belarus.

The proto-Baltic homeland dating from the same time frame is about the southern border region of Belarus around the Pinsk Marshes.

The rest of the splits, of Slavic, Italic, Celtic, Indian, Iranian and Germanic into their branches, are pretty well-documented, and all occur within the past 1500-3000 years.

Let us move to some interesting dilemmas about the Indo-Europeans. One is the distribution of R1a associated with the Indo-Europeans.

The map of the R1a lineage showing high concentrations in Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

The highest levels of this haplogroup are found in Eastern Europe in a narrow band from the Black Sea in the Ukraine through Poland to the Baltic Sea and in Northern India and areas to the northwest around the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs, but that does not mean that these two groups are particularly closely related. Northern Indians are most closely related to Iranians and relatively distantly to Eastern Europeans.

The truth is that this haplogroup is only a signature of a split from around the Aryan-Greco homeland in the Pontic Steppe region discussed above. This left high levels of R1a in Eastern Europe and in north India. High levels in North India are not particularly notable but exist only due to a founder effect. Actually, the highest levels are not found in North India but in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and north Afghanistan.

The high levels found in North India have led some to assume incorrectly that the homeland of the R1a people was in that area, but this is not the case.

A map of R1b DNA distribution. The homeland of the R1b line is the Maykop Culture, shown in the shaded pink region between the Caspian and Black Seas.

R1b levels are highest in Spain and the Western British Isles. The launching point for the R1b seems to have been the Maykop Culture of 5500 YBP. From there, they spread all over Europe.

The Maykop Culture was an early PIE split that existed between the Taman Peninsula just east of the Crimea east to the Dagestan border in the area that includes part of Southern Russia east of the Crimea, Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya in the Caucasus.

The center of the culture was around Maykop in Adygea (Circassia). The region is now inhabited by peoples of the Caucasus and is heavily Muslim.

An explanation:

The Proto-Indo-Europeans belonged both R1a and R1b. Their homeland was in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, in what is known as the Kurgan culture (7000-2200 BCE).

The presence of R1b in modern times between the Black Sea and the Caucasus hints at the Maykop culture (3500-2500 BCE) as their most plausible homeland, while the Eurasian steppes to the north were R1a territory. [...]

A comparison with the Indo-Iranian invasion of South Asia shows that 40% of the male lineages of northern India are R1a, but only 20% of the female lineages could be of Indo-European origin (H, J, K, T, U).

The impact of the Indo-Europeans was more severe in Europe because European society 4,000 years ago was less developed in terms of agriculture, technology (no bronze weapons) and population density than that of the Indus Valley civilization.

This is particularly true of the native Western European cultures where farming arrived much later than in the Balkans or central Europe. Greece was the most advanced of European societies and was the least affected in terms of haplogroup replacement.

Native European Y-DNA haplogroups (I1, I2a, I2b) also survived better in regions that were more difficult to reach or less hospitable, like Scandinavia, Brittany, Sardinia or the Dinaric Alps[...]

The eastern branch of the R1a steppe people was the Andronovo culture (2300-1000 BCE), around modern Kazakhstan, which correspond to the Indo-Iranian branch of languages. Their migration to the south have resulted in high R1a frequencies in southern Central Asia, Iran and the Indian subcontinent.

The highest frequency of R1a (about 65%) is reached in a cluster around Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan. In India, 15 to 45% of the population is R1a, depending on the region and caste. Over 70% of the Brahmins (highest caste in Hinduism) belong to R1a1, due to a founder effect.

References

Pokorny, Julius. 1959, 2007. Proto-Indo-European Etymological Dictionary. A Revised Edition of Julius Pokorny’s Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Published on the Internet: Indo-European Language Revival Association.

This paper, Evolution of Gender in Indo-European Languages by Harry E. Foundalis, explores whether and how the language one speaks influences the way one perceives reality.

Of special interest to this discussion is “Appendix A: Words Examined” which contains charts showing the gender assignment of 84 common words in 14 languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, German, Icelandic, Irish, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Albanian, Greek, Kurdish). As one might expect, gender assignment appears arbitrary and varies from one language to another, though closely related languages (Portuguese and Spanish, for example) often classify a given noun the same way.

An example: