The Null Device

A lengthy compedium of essentialist explanations of various languages:

English is essentially bad Dutch with outrageously pronounced French and Latin vocabulary. --Eugene Holman

Australian English is essentially Cockney without the refinement. -- Öjevind Lâng

Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are actually the same language. It's just that the Norwegians can't spell it, and the Danes can't pronounce it. --Chlewey

Yiddish is essentially the Ebonics of German. --submanifold

Dutch is essentially English spoken whilst stoned, which pretty much explains all the double vowels --Keith Gaughan

French is essentially a language that elides everything that doesn't get out of the way fast enough, and nasalises everything else. --Peter Bleackley

Brazilian is essentially a conlang created by people who wanted to have sex all the time, but still be able to talk about everyday things. --alleszermalmer

Romanian is essentially a Romance language trying really hard to blend in with the Slavic languages around it. --Jesse S. Bangs

Romanian is essentially French pronounced as written. --Christian Thalmann

German and Polish are essentially the same, only there are too many "ß"s in Leftoderian writing, and too many "z"s in Rightoderian. --Andreas Johansson

Breton is essentially Welsh with all the consonants changed to "z". --Thomas Leigh

Welsh is essentially the only language that can have four consecutive L's. --Danny Weir

Star Trek is essentially a religion for secular humanists, and Klingon is its Latin. --Jeffrey Henning

(via bOING bOING) ¶ language amusing linguistics english swedish norwegian danish yiddish german ebonics dutch french brazilian romanian polish breton welsh klingon [3 comments]

The results of the 2001 UK Census are in; use of Gaelic is in decline (though the decline is slowing), but Welsh is experiencing a resurgence (thanks to people like Jim). Meanwhile, Britain has 390,000 Jedi; 2.6% of yoof party centre Brighton and Hove reports its religion as Jedi, and university towns and the bohemian parts of south London also report high concentrations.

¶ gaelic language welsh uk brighton jedi census [no comments]

Via Neil Gaiman's blog (where else?), a page on Gaiman, the Welsh colony in Patagonia. I wonder how much of the original Welsh culture there remains there, and to what extent it has been assimilated into Argentina?

¶ patagonia gaiman welsh enclaves [no comments]