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Tom Jones wrote:An American friend, who lives in Doha, calls it, "Gutter" - with a Texan accent!!!

Hoooooo! Eeeeeeee! Y'all goin' ta Cutter?

Tom Jones wrote:An American friend, who lives in Doha, calls it, "Gutter" - with a Texan accent!!!

Ironicaly he's not very far off, GCC accent many pronouce Q or K as a G. Like Qalum ( Pen ) to Galum. But not Gutter, more like Ga'tr with somewhat like a rolling r in spanish

Well then most of native English speakers can not speak any other language. To be honest, English is not widely spoken in Iran, although they taught English and Arabic in school, lots of people lose it after little time. English is the first foreign language for more educated people and businessmen. After that comes French and German.

P.S. Dillon, I knew if anyone knows other language than English it would be you!

desertdudeshj wrote:

Tom Jones wrote:An American friend, who lives in Doha, calls it, "Gutter" - with a Texan accent!!!

Ironicaly he's not very far off, GCC accent many pronouce Q or K as a G. Like Qalum ( Pen ) to Galum. But not Gutter, more like Ga'tr with somewhat like a rolling r in spanish

DDS, apparently you did not catch the humor in the word “gutter”.

I’m sure BB caught it!!

Part of our stupid American slang!!! Gutter, beside being a storm drain, also means toilet, sewer!!!!!!

So if a Yank tells you "your mind is in the gutter", you'll know what that means!!

You see... being on DF is not always a total waste of time. You might learn something new every once in a while!!!

Oh geez TJ stop being so pedantic, I caught it alright but on the flip side like I said your friend wasn't too off even in his mockery.

zubber wrote:It seems that the english language originated sometime around 450 AD, but arabic originated sometime around 800 BC, This would indicate that the robustness of the arabic language would be greater than english.

English - Origin - 450 AD = 1561 Years from today
Arabic - Origin - 800 BC = 2810 years from today

^ Calculated using http://www.wolframalpha.com

Arabic was in existence 1,249 years before English

Well actually 'English' was around a lot longer than that. It is a language that evolved from many internal and external influences in the British Isles. The origins are uncertain, but the tribes of the Angles and Saxons who were dominant in the times from 10,000BC onwards probably spoke a form of Gaelic. As there are no written records from the time as script was developed much later, it is hard to know. Constant influence from continental Europe and Scandinavia then added new influences. The arrival of the Romans in 49AD gave the language structure however there are many Greek influences, which are harder identify when they came into it.

Since then, the language has adopted elements from all around the world as the globe became a smaller place. The ones that amuse me are:

Cul-de-sac...don't tell me the Brits came up with that one!
Kangaroo...which is apparently the Aborigine word for 'I don't know'! So that one came about when some explorer first saw one of the bouncy things and asked what the hell it was.

and finally

Pineapple! In almost every other language in the world, it is called Ananas. Only we Brits could be so literal!



Knight

^I'm also fascinated by the origins of languages - Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue' is a good, 'easy' , book on the origins and quirks of the English language - I recommend it.

DK - the pedant in me forces me to say that 'English' is indeed a modern language as zubber pointed out - distinct from Middle English and Old English - which itself derives from West Germanic dialects.

The Angles and Saxons invaded the island only from the early 4th century, displacing the Gaelic speakers (and even ancient Gaelic is not the same as the Gaelic spoken today - and then, as now, varies between regions). England derives from Engla land - the land of the Angles, and English similarly derives from the same root.

The underlying Germanic dialects that predate Old English may date back to when Arabic was first recorded as a language, but they can't really be compared to Middle or even modern English (they are distinct languages). Even more recent languages that English derives many words from - Latin and French, are distinct languages from English.

[/pedant mode]

Cheers,
Shafique