Daydreaming, linguaphile-style.

[mmm_words]

 Just for fun and linguistic self-indulgence

Comments

[tom_mouse]

Too many.
Japanese, Korean, Russian, Icelandic, one of the Ancient Mesopotamian languages, Xhosa (for fun), Arabic...

You?

[mmm_words]

Proto-Indo-European. Just kidding. Sort of.
Seriously, though, Arabic tops my list purely for aesthetic reasons. I like the way it sounds and the way it looks. I know it's kind of shallow, but I'm consoling myself with the nerdiness of the subject matter. I'd also be interested in languages with uncommon features - geocentric directions, for example. And tonal languages! In my few, miserable attempts at tonal languages, I have failed miserably. Or Pirahã, speaking of tonal languages.

In short, too many. Far too many.

[manifestress]

Esperanto!

[kali_kali]

Study to fluency? German or Russian, for career reasons.

Though if I could wake up one morning and be fluent in spoken and written Cantonese, that would be fantastic. I'm a bit wary of how much work that is going to take in terms of actual study though.

[mmm_words]

I can see what you're saying. I chose to write study, though, because I think there's a certain amount of joy inherent to learning a new mode of communication, and as tempting as it would be for me, I personally wouldn't want to bypass the process.

If I went with the magically waking up thing, though, Cantonese would be on that list. Definitely.

[eastertheatre]

Czech. I'm not sure why, maybe it's my Eastern European heritage.

[embryomystic]

In my more fanciful moments: Sanskrit, Old Irish, Lojban, Láadan, Navajo. I actually have a fair bit of Old Irish vocabulary under my belt, and I understand the phonology of Old Irish and Láadan fairly well, but I couldn't put together a sentence in any of these.