Languages spoken in your city.

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TaylorS
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Languages spoken in your city.

Postby TaylorS » 2009-09-10, 4:08

How many different languages (spoken by native speakers) have you heard from people living in your local area?

Here in Fargo:

English
Spanish
Serbo-Croat
Russian
Ukrainian
Swahili
Somali
Dinka
Arabic
Farsi
Hmong
Vietnamese
Japanese
Chinese
Hindi
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Sean of the Dead » 2009-09-10, 4:18

Renton:

Spanish
Russian
Vietnamese
Cantonese
Tagalog
Hindi/Urdu
Persian
(Swiss) German
Last edited by Sean of the Dead on 2009-09-10, 4:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Formiko » 2009-09-10, 4:19

TaylorS wrote:Dinka


You've actually HEARD Dinka spoken?

I no longer live in NYC, but 45 miles west. In our town we have few foreigners except Mexicans. I spoke Cherokee AND Cheyenne last Friday. (It was with the same person though :) )
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Travis B. » 2009-09-10, 4:24

Milwaukee:

English
Spanish
Arabic
Vietnamese
Chinese languages
Hindi
Russian
Serbo-Croatian
Hmong
Polish
Italian
German
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby TaylorS » 2009-09-10, 4:29

Formiko wrote:
TaylorS wrote:Dinka


You've actually HEARD Dinka spoken?

I no longer live in NYC, but 45 miles west. In our town we have few foreigners except Mexicans. I spoke Cherokee AND Cheyenne last Friday. (It was with the same person though :) )


There are a few south Sudanese folks here, so yes. One of them was a classmate in a English Comp/Lit course in my Freshman year at college, spoke fluent Dinka! I was amazed! :D
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby linguoboy » 2009-09-10, 4:40

It's hard to say for sure since I can't always identify what languages I'm hearing. Here are ones I'm certain or nearly certain I've identified correctly:

Amharic
Arabic
Aramaic
ASL
Belizean Kriol
Bengali
Cantonese
Catalan
Croatian
Dutch
French
German
Greek
Gujarati
Haitian Creole
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Igbo
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Khmer
Korean
Lao
Latvian
Malayalam
Mandarin
Mayan (had to ask the speakers to be sure of this one!)
Panjabi
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Rumanian
Russian
Schwyzertüütsch
Somali
Spanish
Swedish
Tagalog
Teochiu
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Vietnamese
Welsh
Wolof

It's possible--likely even--that I'm missing several African languages, since the number I can identify is very limited. Could be that some of people I've identified as "Amharic" speakers, for instance, were actually talking in Tigrinya or some other Ethiopic language.

There are sizable East African and West African populations here in Chicago. I've had cabbies from at least a half-dozen West African countries, but unless I actually ask them what they're chatting away in into their cellphones, it's impossible for me to distinguish one vernacular from another.
Last edited by linguoboy on 2009-09-14, 21:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Formiko » 2009-09-10, 4:44

TaylorS wrote:There are a few south Sudanese folks here, so yes. One of them was a classmate in a English Comp/Lit course in my Freshman year at college, spoke fluent Dinka! I was amazed! :D


Very Interesting. I've gone through the demographics of NYC, and there have been close to ZERO Sudanese immigrants.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Formiko » 2009-09-10, 4:50

Linguoboy just reminded me, since he mentioned Mayan. I've heard (and used) Mayan with my landscapers.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby JackFrost » 2009-09-10, 5:15

We're talking about a few hundreds of languages spoken in Montreal that cannot be listed here.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby linguoboy » 2009-09-10, 10:15

JackFrost wrote:We're talking about a few hundreds of languages spoken in Montreal that cannot be listed here.

My listing of languages isn't comprehensive for Chicago either. The OP was only asking about those which you personally have heard while in the city.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby loqu » 2009-09-10, 10:21

I've heard in Seville:

Spanish
English
French
German
Italian
Dutch
Arabic
Swedish/Norwegian
Pidgin English
Romanian
Catalan
some Slavic one, couldn't identify
Chinese
Japanese
Last edited by loqu on 2009-09-10, 10:46, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Vortex » 2009-09-10, 10:41

English
Spanish
Polish
Thai
Laotian
Arabic (besides MSA, Iraqi Levantine and Maghrebi arabic is used)
Vietnamese
Chinese
Hindi
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Tenebrarum » 2009-09-10, 11:21

Languages I've heard in Sydney so far:

- English
- Cantonese
- Mandarin (de facto language of the business school I go to)
- Levantine Arabic
- Greek
- Hindi
- Tamil
- Vietnamese
- Italian
- Korean
- Malaysian / Indonesian
- Thai
- Khmer

There are of course many more, but European languages other than Italian and Greek seem to conceal themselves really well - I have yet to encounter Portuguese.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2009-09-10, 12:23

What I've heard in Belgrade

-Serbo-Croatian (EVERY possible variation i.e. dialect or a language)
-Slovenian
-Bulgarian
-German
-English
-French
-Spanish
-Danish
-Norwegian
-Romani (I'm guessing Balkan Romani)
-Russian
-Italian
-Chinese

not so many exotic languages though...

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby linguopolitano » 2009-09-10, 12:40

Rumpetroll wrote:What I've heard in Belgrade

-Serbo-Croatian (EVERY possible variation i.e. dialect or a language)
-Slovenian
-Bulgarian
-German
-English
-French
-Spanish
-Danish
-Norwegian
-Romani (I'm guessing Balkan Romani)
-Russian
-Italian
-Chinese

not so many exotic languages though...



+ Greek, Portuguese, Macedonian, Arabic and probably more.

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby lumiel » 2009-09-10, 14:58

I've heard in Heinola:

- Finnish (the official language)
- Estonian
- Russian
- German
- French
- Swedish
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Stawrberry » 2009-09-10, 15:37

I've heard in Zaandam:

-Dutch
-English
-Turkish
-Arabic
-Sranan Tongo
-Indonesian
-German
-French
-Mandarin
-Russian
-Brazilian Portuguese
-Spanish

Probably more, but I can't remember at the moment.

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby BezierCurve » 2009-09-10, 16:16

Limerick:

Irish
English
German
French
Spanish
Italian
Romanian
Russian
Czech
Polish
Slovak
Ukrainian
BCS
Lithuanian
Latvian
Estonian
Hungarian
Hebrew
Arabic
Urdu
Chinese - Mandarin and Cantonese, I had to believe what I was told
Somali
Yoruba
...
Last edited by BezierCurve on 2009-09-14, 12:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby linguoboy » 2009-09-10, 17:26

Draven wrote:There are of course many more, but European languages other than Italian and Greek seem to conceal themselves really well - I have yet to encounter Portuguese.

Although Chicago attracts tourists from around the world as well, the only Portuguese-speakers I've definitively IDed have been Brazilian students at one of the local business schools.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Spaigelploatje » 2009-09-14, 11:56

I don't live in a city but in a small village. And here it is:
Dutch
Frisian
Bosnian
English
French
German
Polish

Not more I think.. :hmm:


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