Languages spoken in your city.

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Caius
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Caius » 2009-09-16, 18:06

Formiko wrote:
Hummfrea wrote:I live in a fairly small city, but we have Spanish, Somalian (?), Chinese, and several others. And English. :D


How do you know it's Somali? I love the way Somali sounds.


There are many Somali refugees in the US right now, so most of them are sent to cities with big factories (like mine, with the meat packing plant) to work. One would be safe assuming that the Cushitic language he's hearing is Somali. The script is also fairly recognizable, and is posted in many different places around cities with larger refugee populations.

Of course, without ever having had direct experience with the language, it's nearly impossible to tell apart from other Cushitic languages, such as Afar or Oromo.
Do not hesitate to ask me about English or German, and please correct any mistakes.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Formiko » 2009-09-16, 19:06

Caius wrote:
There are many Somali refugees in the US right now, so most of them are sent to cities with big factories (like mine, with the meat packing plant) to work. One would be safe assuming that the Cushitic language he's hearing is Somali. The script is also fairly recognizable, and is posted in many different places around cities with larger refugee populations.


Living in New York City, we have very few refugees. But we do have plenty of students. New York City is so expensive to live here, natives can barely afford, never mind a refugee!
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Tukkumminnguaq » 2009-09-17, 1:50

Daniel wrote:As I'm deaf I've probably missed a lot of foreign languages even though London is reputed to have more immigrant languages than any other city in the world but as far as I'm concerned I've definitely heard:

As for sign languages (because obviously I'm deaf so they are easier for me):

Spanish Sign Language
American Sign Language
International Sign Language
Latvian Sign Language
Russian Sign Language
German Sign Language
Australian Sign Language
Irish Sign Language
Brazilian Sign Language
Icelandic Sign Language


Hey i noticed you r deaf =D....so im deaf too XD
Im native of ASL and Inuit Sign Language =]

eh lots different in Sign language in ur town lol.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby csjc » 2009-09-17, 2:56

Here in Vancouver: (roughly from most to least common, well... it's not close to accurate :P )

English
Mandarin
Cantonese
Taiwanese*
Hakka*
Shanghainese*
Teochew*
Hindi/Urdu
Punjabi
Bengali*
Gujarati*
Tamil*
Vietnamese
Tagalog
Japanese
Arabic
French
Greek
German
Spanish
Italian
Farsi
Thai
Sinhala
Pashto
Turkish
Cambodian
Russian
Serbian/Croatian
Romanian
Czech
Hungarian
Bulgarian
Polish
Swedish**
Danish
Dutch/Flemish
Afrikaans**
Hebrew**
Yiddish**
Zulu
Swahili
Georgian

This is basically just a list of every language I've ever heard spoken here, including by tourists. :P

*: Assuming I've heard it, they're commonly spoken and I live in an area with a large Chinese population. I can't differentiate between these.

**: Probably only because I know native speakers/have chatted with a tourist, or something of that sort.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Quevenois » 2009-09-17, 11:44

Ok.
Last edited by Quevenois on 2010-11-20, 2:46, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Bubulus » 2009-09-21, 1:34

Santa Tecla: Spanish. Period.
csjc wrote:Here in Vancouver: (roughly from most to least common, well... it's not close to accurate :P )

English
Mandarin
Cantonese
Taiwanese*
Hakka*
Shanghainese*
Teochew*
Hindi/Urdu
Punjabi
Bengali*
Gujarati*
Tamil*
Vietnamese
Tagalog
Japanese
Arabic
French
Greek
German
Spanish
Italian
Farsi
Thai
Sinhala
Pashto
Turkish
Cambodian
Russian
Serbian/Croatian
Romanian
Czech
Hungarian
Bulgarian
Polish
Swedish**
Danish
Dutch/Flemish
Afrikaans**
Hebrew**
Yiddish**
Zulu
Swahili
Georgian

This is basically just a list of every language I've ever heard spoken here, including by tourists. :P

*: Assuming I've heard it, they're commonly spoken and I live in an area with a large Chinese population. I can't differentiate between these.

**: Probably only because I know native speakers/have chatted with a tourist, or something of that sort.

There really is a South African community, so I'd remove those two stars from Afrikaans. :wink:

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby jaybee » 2009-09-30, 13:23

What I've heard spoken here in Jeddah from native speakers:
Arabic ;)
English
French
Spanish
German
Turkish
Uzbeki
Urdu
Hindi
Tagalog
Indonesian
Bengali
Habashi (Somali?)

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Imbecilica » 2009-09-30, 15:11

Here's what I've encountered in Perth, Western Australia.

English
Spanish (mostly South American)
Italian
Greek
Russian
Portuguese (mostly Brazilian)
Japanese
Korean
Mandarin
Cantonese
Vietnamese
Thai
Hindi
Tagalog
Indonesian
Malaysian
Arabic
Swahili
Dinka

There are heaps more but those are the ones I regularly hear while walking down the streets, shopping centres and at university.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby lumiel » 2009-10-01, 15:22

So, these are the languages I've heard while I've been up here.

Ohcejohka/Utsjoki:

- North Sami (davvisámegiella)
- Finnish (suomi)
- Inari Sami (anarâškielâ)
- Norwegian (norsk)
- English (English) :D
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Sappho » 2009-10-13, 20:50

In Leuven:

Dutch (obviously)
French
English
German
Spanish
Russian
Turkish
Arabic
Japanese

And probably a lot more languages, since Leuven is an university town (so quite a lot of foreign students) and close to Brussels.

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Eoghan » 2009-10-13, 22:15

Stirling is full of international students, walking from my flat to the Atrium (a three minute walk) will have me listening to at least 8 languages.

English
Scots
Scottish Gaelic - considerably more often than I would have thought, we have even got t-shirts with the Uni's name in Gaelic (Oilthigh Shruighlea)
Irish Gaelic - A girl in the shop "speaks" Irish.
German - Quite a large number of German speakers around
French - They've even got a French society
Spanish - Erasmus students, they're all Erasmus students.
Italian - Most of my best friends here are Italian.
Portuguese - One of my flatmates lived in Rio for 4 years and speaks fluent Portuguese
Welsh - I've heard a couple of students speaking Welsh ...
Punjabi - Ever heard a bunch of Indians speaking Punjabi and then switching over to Glaswegian?
Hindi - A small but loud group
Urdu - I know of one student
Arabic
Mongolian - They look Chinese, consequently I expect them to speak Chinese, so every time they open their mouths I get all confused.
Turkish
Russian
Norwegian - They're being Vikings all over again, they're bloody everywhere)
Swedish - Swedes hate each other, consequently we all think that we're the "only Swede in the village". Our dream is shattered every time we're summoned to a meeting with other international students. (Summoned, och well, we are indeed jinns ...)
Danish
Finish - I've met two Moomins so far :P
Estonian
Chinese - Lyon Crescent in Bridge of Allan is not an English speaking community, it's rather " 來膒你是狂熱盾" (phonetically speaking that is)
Thai
Lao
Afrikaans - My flatmate's girlfriend speaks Afrikaans
Xhosa - I heard a ! and nearly broke my neck while turning round in order to detect the speaker of Xhosa.
Malayalam
Tibetan - I am going to hunt that guy down and force him to teach me Tibetan

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby densou » 2009-10-13, 22:23

Eoghan wrote:Italian - Most of my best friends here are Italian.


woah, not good at all, mate .... they're just using you to have a place (in your hometown, not there) for free, on where they'll be able to bring your fellow girls (Italian national sport ISN'T football/soccer :blush: )
Chi sta per morire si inventa sempre qualcosa per illudersi di essere sopravvissuto.
Here, you are all equally worthless!

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Smitty » 2009-10-14, 6:42

Eoghan wrote:Hindi - A small but loud group


Yes! :mrgreen: It's the same at my university!

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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby JackFrost » 2009-10-14, 7:46

linguoboy wrote:
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.

My mistake. :/

Here's what I encountered.

French
English
Cantonese
Mandarin
Vietnamese
Catalan
Arabic
Swedish
Russian
Greek
Spanish
German
Thai
Korean
Italian
Hindi or some Indian language(s)
Yoruba

I could've made some of my classmates to speak some bits of their language to me, like Romanian, Ukainian, Japanese, Taiwanese, Italian, Welsh, Dutch, Swiss German, Polish, Latvian, Finnish, Hebrew, and Norwegian.

I missed my chance now. :roll:
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Formiko » 2009-10-14, 17:47

JackFrost wrote:Yoruba


How did you know for sure it was Yoruba?
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Getting reacquainted with Swahili Msaada!
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby loqu » 2009-10-14, 19:34

JackFrost wrote:Catalan


doesn't count if it's you who speaks it. :lol: :P
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby JackFrost » 2009-10-14, 21:15

loqu wrote:
JackFrost wrote:Catalan

doesn't count if it's you who speaks it. :lol: :P

I had Guillem to speak it for me when we met in Montreal. ;)

How did you know for sure it was Yoruba?

A girl from Benin that I once knew told me about it and spoke some lines for me.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby kalemiye » 2009-10-14, 21:37

Languages I heard while in Turkey:
- Turkish
- Kurdish
- Azeri
- Urdu
- Khmer
- Persian
- Arabic
- Russian
- German
- Hungarian (but not Sumerian)
- Italian
- English
- Random Turkic languages

Languaged I've heard in Madrid so far:
- Spanish (all dialects)
- Italian
- Portuguese
- French
- Catalan
- Basque
- Galician
- Chinese
- Japanese
- Moroccan Arabic
- German
- English
- Romanian
- Ucrainian
- Bengali
- Urdu
- Tagalog
- Azeri
Last edited by kalemiye on 2009-10-15, 21:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby Formiko » 2009-10-15, 2:14

JackFrost wrote:A girl from Benin that I once knew told me about it and spoke some lines for me.


Yoruba is called the "Italian of Nigeria" for its musical quality.
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Getting reacquainted with Swahili Msaada!
In no particular order
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Re: Languages spoken in your city.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-02-05, 20:46

Making a couple of additions and necroing the thread in the hopes of getting some new contributions.

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
Kurdish (Kurmanci)
Lao
Latvian
Lithuanian
Macedonian
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
Yiddish
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons


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