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The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

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Re: The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

#141

Post by tripzilch »

tripzilch wrote: post #137
unhammer wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, after each try you could have a snippet about each language, e.g. Kannada Primarily spoken in: India # of speakers: 38 million Language family: Dravidian Writing sample: ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾತ್ರ ಬರೆಯಿರಿ Is awesome because: Reduplication! You write the word twice, replacing the start of the second one with 'gi-', to get "and related things". So if "books" is 'pustaka', "books and r…

Oh that's a great idea, very educational and I'd love reading stuff like that while playing this game! (Especially since you have to wait quite a bit before the next sample loads. Which, as some others have pointed out, shouldn't have to be that slow. How many minutes of audio does this game have in total? I think using a modern codec (say OGG or AAC, not MP3) you could go with a pretty low bitrate (VBR), would it be…

> 15/15, still got 3 lives

.. and then I got 3 wrong in a row :) so, 750 points.

Question to the author: last one I got wrong was Turkish. I would've definitely considered that if I had seen the option, but I don't remember I did. I probably just overlooked it. But it would be nice if it'd show all the options with the wrong one red and the right one green or something, just to comfort any thoughts of "was that a bug or did I overlook something?"

Re: The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

#143

Post by unhammer »

unhammer wrote: post #123
mrich wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! One suggestion: Add a wikipedia link to the language that is displayed when the player gets it wrong, that way you can quickly read up on where it is spoken etc.

Actually, after each try you could have a snippet about each language, e.g. Kannada Primarily spoken in: India # of speakers: 38 million Language family: Dravidian Writing sample: ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾತ್ರ ಬರೆಯಿರಿ Is awesome because: Reduplication! You write the word twice, replacing the start of the second one with 'gi-', to get "and related things". So if "books" is 'pustaka', "books and r…

also, instead of just "you got it", how about a greeting in that language?

also, how about localisation of the game?

Re: The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

#144

Post by stevoski »

mutation wrote: post #110
radikal_shit wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, great game. A little suggestion. Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian languages are too similar to differentiate for non native speakers. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Croatian . Basically, the division is more political than linguistical.

(Disclaimer: I am a native croatian speaker.) There's a significant difference between croatian and serbian language: croatian language is composed of three dialects and a standard language which are not found in serbian. It was a political movement to merge one of those dialects (shtokavian) with serbian language. So, serbian is somewhat similar to shtokavian but not to other dialects that compose the rest of the cr…

And...we have our unavoidable example showing that any public statement on languages vs dialects becomes political and controversial.

Re: The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

#145

Post by busterarm »

VLM wrote: post #126
busterarm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing this game on my own now for decades...just trying to guess what language people are speaking eavesdropping on conversations and listening to radio. I'm easily able to break 1000 points but some of those African languages (Dinka) are really hard! I'm so thankful for this site. It's really really cool!

"listening to radio." For me specifically, shortwave radio. I still have a R-75 hooked up although I don't often use it anymore. I used to have a R-390 and its "mobile" cousin the R-392. I've found the audio quality has little or nothing to do with the appeal of listening to foreign lands, so listening over the internet has had little if any change in that hobby vs using a radio. Although I do get most of my non-tech…

"For me specifically, shortwave radio"

Ditto.

Re: The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

#146

Post by lake99 »

jessaustin wrote: post #132
lake99 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how much of an exposure you have to various cultures, but I hope you keep in mind that many Indians find it offensive when you call them "the other kind of indians". I'll put it in a manner you can understand. I see that you're Dane. I suppose the US has a significant populace with Danish ancestry. How would you like it if they refer to you as the other kind of Dane. I've also come across anecdotes where…

...the other kind of indians. In an American context, it is understandable to think "Indian" signifies " American Indian". Now that East Indian immigration verges on outnumbering American Indians, that will probably change, but it's pretty silly to get offended by historical geographical misunderstandings. I mean, let's vilify Columbus for the right reasons. Besides, what's wrong with Native Americans? Why would it b…

> ... by historical geographical misunderstandings

If only it were just historical!

> Besides, what's wrong with Native Americans?

Nothing! That's an excellent term.

> Why would it be a put-down to share a name with them?

I never said anything about it being a put-down. To me, it's just annoying when people write "Indian" and assume that it will be understood to mean "Native American".

My point (with bringing up Danes and Brits too) was that some manners of speaking reek of ignorance. "In an American context" sounds like a weak excuse to perpetuate expressions rooted in ignorance. For example, when I learnt of the appropriate meaning of the word "Caucasian"[1], I stopped using it to refer generally to people of European descent. Now, I get annoyed when Americans use it that way ;-)

> Now that East Indian immigration ...

"East Indian" does not mean to me what it means to you. I'm South Indian. Historically, "East Indian" meant something else entirely [2].

[1]: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/01/stop-using-th...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indies

Re: The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

#148

Post by lutusp »

VLM wrote: post #126
busterarm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing this game on my own now for decades...just trying to guess what language people are speaking eavesdropping on conversations and listening to radio. I'm easily able to break 1000 points but some of those African languages (Dinka) are really hard! I'm so thankful for this site. It's really really cool!

"listening to radio." For me specifically, shortwave radio. I still have a R-75 hooked up although I don't often use it anymore. I used to have a R-390 and its "mobile" cousin the R-392. I've found the audio quality has little or nothing to do with the appeal of listening to foreign lands, so listening over the internet has had little if any change in that hobby vs using a radio. Although I do get most of my non-tech…

> I still have a R-75 hooked up although I don't often use it anymore.

I'm also a shortwave fan, and I also find it less interesting as time passes. But there's a concrete reason -- there are fewer interesting shortwave programs, mostly in response to the rise of the Internet, podcasting and satellite radio.

Many shortwave bands, once teeming with interesting and useful content, have been taken over by niche broadcasters like religious groups, or ordinary broadcasts that have shifted to the shortwave bands from the AM broadcast band in tropical areas to avoid excessive noise. Overall, less interesting shortwave content.

Apropos of nothing, for years I believed that one of my favorite AM radio stations for long-distance reception (KGO near San Francisco, 810 kHz) had its frequency to itself -- was a "clear-channel" broadcaster. I recently discovered that this hasn't been true for decades -- there are now 182 U.S. domestic AM stations on that one frequency. I was shocked.

Re: The Great Language Game: How many languages can you distinguish between?

#149

Post by jnbiche »

lake99 wrote: post #146
jessaustin wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...the other kind of indians. In an American context, it is understandable to think "Indian" signifies " American Indian". Now that East Indian immigration verges on outnumbering American Indians, that will probably change, but it's pretty silly to get offended by historical geographical misunderstandings. I mean, let's vilify Columbus for the right reasons. Besides, what's wrong with Native Americans? Why would it b…

> ... by historical geographical misunderstandings If only it were just historical ! > Besides, what's wrong with Native Americans? Nothing! That's an excellent term. > Why would it be a put-down to share a name with them? I never said anything about it being a put-down. To me, it's just annoying when people write "Indian" and assume that it will be understood to mean "Native American". My point (with bringing up Dan…

Regarding Caucasian, why would you get annoyed? Words can and often do have multiple appropriate meanings. One of the wonderful things about natural language is our ability to distinguish among different word meanings based on context.

Anyone who insists upon only a single meaning for each word will have a considerably poorer vocabulary because of it.

Furthermore, if you're going to rule out all words with spurious etymologies, I suspect you're going to have to eliminate quite a lot of words from your vocabulary. For example, stop using "turkey" to refer to the bird eaten in certain parts of the world.

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