[quote=“scherpschutter, post:16, topic:1879”]I’m back, but not in good shape
My vacation was a disaster, I got an inflammation of both ears on the second day, so I spent most of the time indoors, enduring a lot of pain; it’s not over yet, so i’ll have to stay indoors most of te time during the next few days.[/quote]
Hope you get better soon mate.
Inflamation of both ears sounds painful. I’ve only ever had that when I was forced to listen to too much hip hop.
[quote=“Phil H, post:21, topic:1879”]Hope you get better soon mate.
Inflamation of both ears sounds painful. I’ve only ever had that when I was forced to listen to too much hip hop.[/quote]
I can imagine that. Some say any kind of loud music will do the nasty job
Luckily it’s (on both sides) the exterior part of the acoustic duct (i think it’s officially called the Eustacius duct) that got inflamed; still painful, but less dangerous than an inflammation of one of the interior parts. I’ve had an inflamation of the left tympanic membrane once, which nearly made me deaf on the that side. Having already hearing problems, i don’t want to loose any other percentage of my hearing abilities.
What a horrible thought - he wouldn’t suit one. 
@ basque
I first thought the rev was thinking of the small black beret, sometimes called (in French) un beret basque, or simply un basque. In Compañeros Tomas Milian wears one and I think he’s also called the Basque in some language versions.
But then I thought it was not very likely the rev would ever talk about a head-gear, so I checked if the word basque had a secondary meaning in English. It has! If you don’t know what it is, I assure you it’s worth looking for.
@ Afrikaan
Indeed Afrikaan has been derived from Dutch, like Phil indicated, so I can understand it more or less. Still I always speak English with people from South-Africa; a lot of words and structures are different in Afrikaan and Dutch. Books written in Afrikaan are translated into Dutch; actually for a Dutchman spoken Afrikaan is easier than written Afrikaan (the spelling of both languages is quite different)
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:24, topic:1879”]@ basque
I first thought the rev was thinking of the small black beret, sometimes called (in French) un beret basque, or simply un basque. In Compañeros Tomas Milian wears one and I think he’s also called the Basque in some language versions.
But then I thought it was not very likely the rev would ever talk about a head-gear, so I checked if the word basque had a secondary meaning in English. It has! If you don’t know what it is, I assure you it’s worth looking for.[/quote]
And despite what the Rev says I think you could carry it off Scherps. With the right shoes of course.
But what I meant of course was Basque as in the Basque country (Pais Vasco) so the beret would be more accurate. As I understand it Basque is one of the few european languages that has no links to any other. No indo-european roots at all which is very unusual. Especially considering its geographical location. I think there is one other that is similarly unique in Finland somewhere. Not exactly sure. But anyway, as obscure languages go, it’s the most likely to stump a multi linguist like our Scherps.
I think it is Finnish; as far as I know, it has only links to Hungarian. We have a Fin here on the Forum, Bill San Antonio, so he’ll be able to give us conclusive evidence about this.
I do know that Hungarian is considered to be one of the most complicated languages in the world, with grammatical and morphological structures unknown to civilized men anywhere else in the world; I have a colleague who is from Hungarian descent and she has often asked me if I were interested in studying Hungarian with her; she speaks it a little, but only very little, since her parents frustrated all of her attempts to utter a Hungarian words when she was small (her parents came to Belgium in '56, she was born shortly after and Flemish became her native tongue).
You does seem to know everything about all languages!
By the way, welcome back Silence. How was your holiday?
Thanks. My holiday was great.
Bonjooooer mez amies dans spaghettiland from the Rev and choirmistress 'oo are avec le plat de joooer et le vino plonk dans Cahors dans le sud de frogland. It is trez difficoolt to accessez le internet downez here - so just un quick tetes-up to dit that jay avez not forgotten vous all. Mon francay is trez bon al la mo et jay rivalai le scherpy avec mon knowledge of langue foreign matenont. Au revoir pour un few jours. ;D
Frenglish?
Franglais
And to think we get a bad rap for being lazy at learning foreign languages. Well done Rev for proving what we are capable of if we try.
Yes well done Rev!
Pidgin French 
Re languages
Anybody know any russian?
I think it seems a pretty cool language actually
Of course they use the Cyrillic alphabet, which probably makes it very hard to even try to learn some if you only know normal alphabet
Or maybe it’s not so hard after all, I haven’t tried
Didn’t they teach russian in school in the old eastern bloc, but not anymore?
If Alk0 was a few years older maybe he would’ve known some russian?
[quote=“Lindberg, post:36, topic:1879”]Re languages
Anybody know any russian?
I think it seems a pretty cool language actually
Of course they use the Cyrillic alphabet, which probably makes it very hard to even try to learn some if you only know normal alphabet
Or maybe it’s not so hard after all, I haven’t tried
Didn’t they teach russian in school in the old eastern bloc, but not anymore?
If Alk0 was a few years older maybe he would’ve known some russian?[/quote]
I don’t know russian, buth don’t let another alphabet stop you from learning a language
I do know some Arabic and I suppose most people would say their alphabet is more difficult to learn than the cyrillic one. I can tell you: Arabic is mighty difficult, but the alpahabet is only a minor problem of the learning process, it takes only a few lessons (=hours) to master it.
I’ve studied some ancient aramic too (the language spoken in Palestine 2000 years ago) and it’s the same story: the language is complicated, the alphabet a piece o’ cake.
Good to know
How many languages have you studied, Scherp?
[quote=“Lindberg, post:36, topic:1879”]Didn’t they teach russian in school in the old eastern bloc, but not anymore?
If Alk0 was a few years older maybe he would’ve known some russian?[/quote]
Yeah, they’ve used to do that, my parents know some russian because of that. I suppose they stopped doing that around 1989
Bye guys. I’m going to be on holiday for just over a week. I’ll be back 'round Tuesday. Let’s hope I don’t miss anything in important!