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The ignorance of the English language...

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Kanga said:
I derive amusement from some of the Australian place names taken from Aboriginal dialects. English settler :"What's this?" Aboriginal local: "Bird droppings" ("Goondiwindi"). Hence we have a town whose name means "bird droppings".
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A similar story, a friend of mine in West Africa had a very complex sounding family name, because you find lots of people from the Sahel have used a derivation of Coulibaly, an old tribal name. I asked him where it came from. His response was when his grandfather was standing in line to register with the French colonial authorities and after days of waiting he became frustrated and when he got to the front of the line he blurted out "stupid foreign people" in his native language. It stuck!
 
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Not racist. It is making fun of the difficulties (i.e. mispronunciation) experienced by a speaker whose morphological and phonetic skills do not differentiate between certain sounds. Ultimately, that is why different languages change the pronunciation of places names from other languages. In Mandarin, Paris is pronounced "Bah-lee". If every language had identical morphology and phonetics, the world would probably be a much easier place.

JohnnieWalker said:
And just to reinforce racial stereotypes. I noticed this sign on my recent trip to Japan.

View attachment 16755
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Castilian said:
...and your neighbours of Zimbabwe have 16



You meant the USA, didn't you?



...but none federally recognized official language in the USA.
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Guatemala has 57 languages that are actually spoken each day...
 
Tiny little Togo in West Africa, smaller than the state of West Virginia, with a population of 4.5 million people has 39 actively used languages.
 
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@ Rikkitikkitavi at last I now know why i find it difficult to remember things when it comes to languages, "quote, (experienced by a speaker whose morphological and phonetic skills do not differentiate between certain sounds)". But I do try my best all the time and have with me my language book for the country I am in.
 
falcon269 said:
There are about 296 official languages in North America. American Indians tribes are recognized as independent governments, and most of them have an official language other than English! There are 562 Federally recognized Indian tribes...
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Well, there may be 296 official languages in North America, but the United States does not have one of them. While English is the most common language, it has never been defined as "the official language of the US." While many states have legally established English as their official language, the federal government has never done so -- at least not "officially." Apparently, it would be politically incorrect to do so.
 
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Two English businessmen were driving across the island of Anglesey, North Wales, when they came to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, the village with the the longest Welsh language place-name. Each tried to pronounce it correctly, and each claimed to be the one who had done so. They stopped in the villlage for lunch and so decided to ask the waiter in the restaurant for the definitive pronunciation.
The conversation went a bit like this:
"Excuse me, Sir, can you help settle a bet we have about the correct way to say the name of this place we are in?"
"Yes, of course, gentlemen."
"Great, please tell us where we are. Say it slowly and clearly, so we can judge who has the more accurate pronunciation."
"OK. Gentlemen, you are in B-U-R-G-E-R K-I-N-G.
 
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