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Is Bislama the best language ever?
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 11:50 am    Post subject: Is Bislama the best language ever? Reply with quote

Well, is it?

Have a listen:

http://www.news.vu/tam/bm~doc/050518-vanuatu-news-vu-audio.mp3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bislama

Of course, if this were the language Koreans were learning, this board wouldn't exist. Everybody would be out of a job.
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Satori



Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Location: Above it all

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 12:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Can't say the sound of it really appeals to me. Korean is actually the most beautiful language, soundwise, that I've ever heard...
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Hollywoodaction



Joined: 02 Jul 2004

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Satori wrote:
Can't say the sound of it really appeals to me. Korean is actually the most beautiful language, soundwise, that I've ever heard...


French and Italian are much nicer sounding, in my opinion.
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gang ah jee



Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There are a few Bislama speakers in my department. It's pretty cool.
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jaganath69



Joined: 17 Jul 2003

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know a few Pidgin speakers from the South Pacific and am familiar with the possessive 'blong', pretty cool. Actually, Vanuatu has it on its banknotes; "bank blong Vanuatu".
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Hollywoodaction



Joined: 02 Jul 2004

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I understand a bit of Haitian Creole (I speak French, had Haitian roommates for a couple of years (loved going to Haitian parties with them, by the way. Great music, lots of sexy ladies)).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oatOnd9K3l8&mode=related&search=
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gang ah jee wrote:
There are a few Bislama speakers in my department. It's pretty cool.


That's a bit of a surprise but good to hear. I don't suppose you've ever come across studies comparing the length of time it takes to learn a creole (or certain creoles) vs. other major languages that they came from? I know that English without irregular verbs, conjugation, irregular spelling, articles, etc. would be a lot easier, but how many times easier is what I'm curious about.

One interesting advantage is not just that they're often easier, but they're easier in ways that work well in early education (grades 1-6 or so). The faster kids can start using a language the better, and I remember conjugating tons and tons of French verbs in school while only using the language once when we had people from Quebec come in and we got to eat Nutella on bread. Besides that it was always Ms. Lorscheider (yech) that we learned it from and she was also the Social Studies teacher so that was never any fun.

Learning a language like Bislama instead would have been dope. Haitian Creole is interesting too. One other thing I like about Bislama though is that the country is stable and crime is low whereas though Tok Pisin is cool I don't think I'd ever want to visit Port Moresby. One other creole from a nice stable place is Papiamentu, but I've never heard it before.
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kermo



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very fluid sounding language, from what I've caught on that radio station. Mellifluous even.
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gang ah jee



Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mithridates wrote:
That's a bit of a surprise but good to hear. I don't suppose you've ever come across studies comparing the length of time it takes to learn a creole (or certain creoles) vs. other major languages that they came from? I know that English without irregular verbs, conjugation, irregular spelling, articles, etc. would be a lot easier, but how many times easier is what I'm curious about.

My university has quite a few connections with Vanuatu, and some of the faculty have done field- and volunteer-work there. Happiest country on Earth, they were saying earlier this year.

As far as studies go, I don't know of any empirical studies of the type you're talking about. I suspect that they aren't done, for various reasons.
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Woland



Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul

PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I dunno, Mith. Rotokas has fewer phonemes than any other language (we'll ignore claims about that Brazilian language), only 11, and that's cool. (And by Junior's standards, that makes it the best and most evolved language, since evolvement means less of anything apparently.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotokas_language
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cwemory



Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Location: Gunpo, Korea

PostPosted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 3:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure about the language, but Yumi, Yumi, Yumi must be the best national anthem title ever.
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