MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

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MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby null » 2008-10-28, 5:23

Besides English of course. :hmm:

I mean language(s) spoken by the # of different ethnics, either naturally adopted or forced upon.

Is it Russian? I heard it's spoken by more than 130 ethnics.

Sorry if i didn't make myself clear.

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby ILuvEire » 2008-10-28, 6:15

It's either Russian or possibly Spanish. There are many indigenous people in South and Latin America that speak Spanish along with the Spaniards, plus all of the immigrants to South America.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby eskandar » 2008-10-28, 6:55

Russian is surely #1 after English. After Russian, I think Portuguese or Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) could possibly be spoken by more different ethnic groups than Spanish.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby peterlin » 2008-10-28, 16:53

The question is close to meaningless as formulated. What is a "race" or "ethnic group"? Do you mean "spoken" as in "one's sole language", "one's native language" or "a language one speaks fluently"? How can you compare various "colonial" languages in this regard?

Anyway, I'm very surprised French wasn't mentioned. Even if you count the "homeland" only (and why should you do that?) I'm sure there's plenty of Francophone Amazighen, Arabs, Wolofs, Hausans, Fulbe, Kanakas, Vietnamese, Tahitians etc. etc. etc. in France.

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Alejo » 2008-10-28, 22:50

Perhaps Portuguese?

Portugal, Brazil, East Timor, parts of India, Macau, and tons of African countries and probably more. All very ethnically diverse areas(well, except Portugal itself I suppose). :?:

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby JackFrost » 2008-10-30, 5:30

French. Probably not on the top of the list, but it's quite spoken around the world by many groups.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby ILuvEire » 2008-10-30, 5:31

What about Arabic? It's spoken throughout the middle east and much of Northern Africa.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby alijsh » 2008-11-04, 6:16

ILuvEire wrote:What about Arabic? It's spoken throughout the middle east and much of Northern Africa.

As for Middle East, it's basically spoken among people who call themselves "Arab" and not other ethnic groups and there are many "Arab" countries in the region. Iranian peoples (Persians, Kurds, Pashtuns, Lurs, etc.) and Turkic peoples have their own languages. I mean it doesn't have much inter-ethnic use in non-Arab countries. For example, in Iran with different ethnic groups like Persians, Kurds, Lurs, Arabs, Armenians and Turkic peoples it's Persian which is normally used as the inter-ethnic language and not even Azeri let alone Arabic. Even in Iran it's possible for example that a Kurd and a Lur use Kurdish or Luri to communicate each other even though they both know Persian. Persian had also such a role in India before the British conquest. I don't know much about it (please enlighten me) but I don't think Arabic has ever been used much by ordinary people of different ethnic groups (in non-Arab regions) to communicate each other. It was mainly used among scientists (like Latin for Western scientists). For example, Iranian scientists like Avicenna wrote most of their books in Arabic (he has also books in Persian). I think Persian has had a more inter-ethnic role than Arabic; even the influence of Arabic on regional languages like Urdu and Turkish has been mainly thru Persian.

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby polishboy » 2008-12-20, 15:55

Tok Pisin
papua New Guinea has the most languges, they are the same race.
What about Hindi?
India has many nationalities living in.

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby ILuvEire » 2008-12-20, 17:58

polishboy wrote:India has many nationalities living in.


But many of those speak their own language. Is Hindi really used all over India? I thought it was just used in certain areas, and the rest spoke whatever language was associated with that culture (like Punjabi, Pashto or Bengali).
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Formiko » 2008-12-20, 18:49

alijsh wrote:
ILuvEire wrote:What about Arabic? It's spoken throughout the middle east and much of Northern Africa.

As for Middle East, it's basically spoken among people who call themselves "Arab" and not other ethnic groups and there are many "Arab" countries in the region. Iranian peoples (Persians, Kurds, Pashtuns, Lurs, etc.) and Turkic peoples have their own languages. I mean it doesn't have much inter-ethnic use in non-Arab countries. For example, in Iran with different ethnic groups like Persians, Kurds, Lurs, Arabs, Armenians and Turkic peoples it's Persian which is normally used as the inter-ethnic language and not even Azeri let alone Arabic. Even in Iran it's possible for example that a Kurd and a Lur use Kurdish or Luri to communicate each other even though they both know Persian. Persian had also such a role in India before the British conquest. I don't know much about it (please enlighten me) but I don't think Arabic has ever been used much by ordinary people of different ethnic groups (in non-Arab regions) to communicate each other. It was mainly used among scientists (like Latin for Western scientists). For example, Iranian scientists like Avicenna wrote most of their books in Arabic (he has also books in Persian). I think Persian has had a more inter-ethnic role than Arabic; even the influence of Arabic on regional languages like Urdu and Turkish has been mainly thru Persian.


I think it has to do with the ease of Persian. As natural languages go, the only language easier than Persian is Indonesian (not counting some African langages or even Swedish). Even indonesian is an Artificial language (made by a commitee rather than an individual). Has Persian ALWAYS been simple, or has it BECOME simple due to it being a lingua franca?
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Boes » 2008-12-20, 19:11

Formiko wrote:Even indonesian is an Artificial language (made by a commitee rather than an individual).

But isn't 'Indonesian' just a name for a standardized form of Malay?

I know for a fact that at the time of the Dutch Colonial administration the (main) language of Indonesia was always referred to as Malay, never as Indonesian.

So that doesn't really make it an artificial language in my opinion. Most people on today's earth speak a standardized dialect ...

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby eskandar » 2008-12-20, 19:19

Formiko wrote:I think it has to do with the ease of Persian. As natural languages go, the only language easier than Persian is Indonesian (not counting some African langages or even Swedish). Even indonesian is an Artificial language (made by a commitee rather than an individual). Has Persian ALWAYS been simple, or has it BECOME simple due to it being a lingua franca?

Well, you said "not counting some African languages"-- I think Swahili is definitely easier than Persian. And as Boes pointed out, by the logic that you call Indonesian an artificial language, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Persian, Arabic, and any other language that has a standardizing regulatory committee is an "artificial language." It's more accurate to say that Standard Indonesian, for example, is an artificial(ized) dialect, but the language itself evolved quite naturally.

As for Persian, I'm not convinced that it's the easiest language (other than Indonesian, Swahili, Swedish, etc.) and I've studied it for three years, speak and read it quite well, and love it. It has certainly not always been simple; Old and Middle Persian had all kinds of complicated cases, split ergativity, and other troublesome features, which it lost over time due to many factors: becoming a lingua franca was one, as was the Arab invasion of Iran and the subsequent development of New Persian.

In my opinion, some of the "easiest" languages (which is of course a very subjective term anyway) are Indonesian, Swahili, Haitian Creole, and Spanish.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Formiko » 2008-12-20, 19:37

eskandar wrote:
In my opinion, some of the "easiest" languages (which is of course a very subjective term anyway) are Indonesian, Swahili, Haitian Creole, and Spanish.


If you saw Yoruba or Wolof or some other West African languages, you would think Swahili is too difficult. Yoruba is an SVO isolating language. Has ZERO noun classes, and the plural is always the same (none!)
But if you MUST pluralize a noun, you add àwon before the noun. (But this is rarely used)
okùnrin = man
àwon okùnrin = men
The hardest part about Yoruba is learning the vocabulary. And tones are not a big deal. Tones are usually grammatical. Swahili has too many classes with too many exceptions.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby loqu » 2008-12-20, 19:55

how can Spanish be easy? I mean, not that I think that my language is one of the hardest in the world, but come on, it's IE. Spanish verbs (and in other Romance languages) are hard even for natives.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Formiko » 2008-12-20, 20:38

loqu wrote:how can Spanish be easy? I mean, not that I think that my language is one of the hardest in the world, but come on, it's IE. Spanish verbs (and in other Romance languages) are hard even for natives.


I think he means compared to the choices available n school :)
Compared to Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Russian and Spanish, Spanish to me is easier. Possibly because it's so pervasive here in the US.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Rémy LeBeau » 2008-12-23, 14:40

AFAIK everyone in India has at least basic knowledge of Hindi because it is taught in schools everywhere alongside English.

Also are we talking about languages as a mother tongue? In that case I'd imagine that Russian would be more prevalent than English across different ethnic groups.

Ali: Persian was never really spoken as a first language in India (or South Asia generally), it was always learned later on as an auxiliary language, and even then it was restricted mostly to the elite. The normal people tended to stick to their ethnic languages, and even some of the most celebrated poets in pre-British times preferred writing in their ethnic languages than to Persian, like Baba Bulle Shah for example, who despite being from a Tajik Bukharan family, still wrote primarily in Punjabi, the language he was surrounded by from birth. The role of Persian in South Asia before the British was pretty much the same as the role of Arabic in Iran before Tajiks and Turks conquered Iran after the Arab caliphates; an auxiliary language that was by and large restricted to the elites.

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby TheKickInside » 2008-12-23, 17:30

For the most interracial language, I would have to say English, because of the sheer diversity of the United States alone, though I'd imagine Russian is a close second.
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Anesthesia » 2008-12-23, 20:48

Besides English, I'd say Spanish and Russian.

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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Travis B. » 2008-12-28, 3:31

TheKickInside wrote:For the most interracial language, I would have to say English, because of the sheer diversity of the United States alone, though I'd imagine Russian is a close second.

The only thing about the US is that much of the US has become so socially homogenized within particular social groups, particularly European Americans, that they could very well operate as ethnic groups themselves with respect to younger people today, even though they are not strictly so with respect to descent proper. Older ethnic identities have hence been superceded by modern regional identities. For instance, while people here may call themselves "German", "Polish", "Irish", "Norwegian", "Italian", and so on, or more likely a mixture thereof, in reality they generally actually identify as Wisconsinites or, more broadly, Upper Midwesterners, and if they have lived here much of their life, likely also as Milwaukeeans. The closest thing to the traditional idea of ethnicity that I can get out of this is being an Upper Midwesterner of largely European descent, but even then things are unclear in reality.
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