Thanksgiving Survey: Language
Results
Here are the survey results from our extended family. Combining these with my dear readers’
responses in the comments of the previous post, it seems that a large portion
of us are grateful for Latin. Who would
have guessed it?!
1. Name a language
which you do not speak, but for which you are grateful, and explain why.
- Latin, because without it, I wouldn't have learned nearly as many life lessons as I have, even if I didn't learn much Latin.
- No, because the world would be a better place if everybody
spoke the
same language.
- Chinese, because that's the language that all of our
technology speaks.
- Machine language.
Because it makes the machines work.
- Arabic, for looking and sounding beautiful.
- Java, because it's probably important.
- Swahili, because it's the language in which Baba Yetu is sung
- Navajo because it helped us win WWII
- Biblical Hebrew, because B____ was able to use it to learn
so much from Genesis and to actually read the Isaiah scroll at the Shrine of
the Book in Jerusalem.
- Spanish, because I think it sounds beautiful.
- Punjabi
- Latin
- Ancient Maya
2. What is your
favorite word that you associate with Thanksgiving Day?
- Done
- Closed. As in,
school is closed. No work today.
- Laughter
- Nap time
- Pie!
- Family
- “ready” as in “dinner is.”
- Gratitude
- Eat
- Pie
- snow
3. What is your favorite word in a language that
is not your native tongue?
- Quinceaños. It just sounds really nice!
- "Gaol".
If you had asked about my native tongue, I would have to have said "defenestrate".
(Note: “Gaol” is British English for “jail”. This person’s
native tongue is American English. He
follows the British custom of placing the punctuation outside the quotation
marks, which, in my opinion, is much more sensible than the American custom.)
- It’s a toss-up between two French words: “pamplemousse”
(grapefruit) and “crepuscule” (dusk)
- Quid-quid: “however” in Latin
- Schadenfreude
- señorita
- Gesundheit (it is
fun to say)
- Schrecklich from German (though I’m not altogether sure of
the spelling). I think every muscle in
our speaking apparatus is required to pronounce this word, which means
“terrible” and, in my mind at least, comes with an exclamation point!
- Mañana, because it conveys an excitement for the next day.
- Comer
(“to eat” in Spanish)
- caj
(Note: this was submitted by a crack Scrabble player)
- wabi-sabi
Thanks to everyone for playing.
1 comment:
Oh, to be known as a crack Scrabble player.
I love how varied your family's responses were! I was especially struck by "Arabic," as it does look unusually beautiful. But as much as I enjoy Anglicisms, please leave my punctuation inside the quotation marks.
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