Public Research: Mothertongue (Part 1)
 

I was in doubt how to put down this one, since number of spoken languages of the world exceeds 3,000, but finally I've came to conclusion to put down larges language families. Most common classification distinguishes 19 families, which are listed in two polls (as limit of poll entries for single poll is 10). If you do not find your family here, refer to Public Research: Mothertongue (Part 2). If you are not sure where your language belongs to, consult some authority and/or the Map before voting.

Part of Public Research Project

Pray be attentive - Caucasian does not equal 'language spoken by 'Caucasian race' - see definition provided in Post #10 of the current thread! (I don't believe seeing number of compatriots I haven't heard about before!)

I wondered where Finno-Ugric was, but I checked and it seems to be part of the Uralic group.

(I am Indo-European myself, btw, but I know we've got a few Finnish speakers so I was kind of wondering on their behalf... :) )

I to was wondering where the minor languages such as finnish/hungarian and basque would be placed. (I don't think there is any downers frome those parts of spain/france, but I wondert)

I my self is of course Indo-European.

Finnish and Hungarian both belong to Uralic languages.

Basque is 'isolate' (see part 2) - though some account it related to Caucasian family, some object, so generally it is considered as thing apart.

English is caucasian? or am I all wrong?

English is Indo-European.

Well... English is a little bit of everything really, but we call it Indo-European.

whoops. That means your poll is off by one caucasian vote. Sorry.

What's this for? I'm very interested in language families myself, and I'm really, really curious...... ???

Just that. Curiousity.

My mothertongue, if you mean the tongue I learnt first and thereafter forgot, is Gujarat, spoken in the Western state of Gujarat in India, and a member of the Indo-European family.

Steady here as well
 

As was my advice, consult the map or encyclopaedia first :) Out of four Caucasian votes, two are already gone amiss.

For further reference, Caucasian Family refers to:

1. North Caucasian Family (Abkhaz/Adygh and Nakh-Dagestanian)
2. South Caucasian Family (Kartvelian Languages (Georgian, Margali, Svan, Lazuri-Chanuri))

Whether the two families are related, is not yet clearly shown, but, as the poll is general, so the listings are general as well.

Hence, the term has nothing to do with 'Caucasian race'. To avoid confusion, I specifically employed 'white' in the race thread and probably brought about more confusion because of that decesion.



Squatter suspects I may be on the pay-roll of HarperCollins... go figure :D

Okay, curiosity's good. Didn't I say I was? :)

Just for fun, how about we say which part of our Language Family our mother tongue is?

My Indo-European mother tongue is Dutch --> which is part of --> Germanic --> which is part of --> European --> which is part of --> Indo-European.

Confusing? Nah. Try a Tolkienian Elven tongue, if you want confusing! :D

EDIT: Welllll...... my parents' parents' mother tongue is Dutch. I barely know the language. Jah. :p

For those confused, a nice simple summing up of Indo-European:
http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_indoeuro.html

Surely the classifications are a little wide - so many downers are Indo-European, it would be interesting to see what actual languages were spoken as well...

But hey, Indo-European it is though. :)

I'm just an average American kid, so...

Mother is American derived English (father also) ---> American derived English kid, who has a fancy for Sindar, with some (but very few) aspects of Ebonics.

Heritage of parents includes Northern and Southern Irish, Scottland, England, and a tad bit of German/French. So no doubt about it English.

If you'd like to learn about derivations and cultural impacts concerning Ebonics, clickizzat thizzit. But dont worry about it.
________
FERRARI DAYTONA HISTORY

Be patient :)

Darn, I clicked the wrong one by accident... :rolleyes:

Wow! That was very interesting. Did you make that up all by yourself?

Just a little bit more precise for Romanian
Indo-European - Romance - Eastern Romance
It happens to be the only national language in Eastern Europe that belongs to this family.

Er... there's actually no question about English being an Indo-European language. True, it has a very large number of "loan words", but almost all of them are Indo-European too.