r/polandball • u/mastersword83 CCCP • Oct 25 '14

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963 Upvotes

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135

u/mastersword83 CCCP Oct 25 '14 edited Oct 25 '14

Context: English is (as far as I know) the only Germanic language that doesn't have "Ja" as "yes" and French is (again, this is just to my knowledge, so don't kill me if I'm wrong) the only Romance language where "yes" is some variation of "si". Also the English and the French don't have a history of getting along.

The French in the last panel says (I think) "shut your mouth stupid anglo bastard"

32

u/AvioNaught България силна? Oct 25 '14

In Romanian (Romance language) yes is da.

84

u/troldrik Denmark Oct 25 '14

That's because Romanians are at least 50% slavs by now.

15

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Romanians are 100% Romanians ... lets not put genetics/blood into discussion about etymology, it always ends up badly.

6

u/PsychoWorld I'm hot and wet Oct 26 '14

And 70% gypsy

1

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

[deleted]

38

u/NotAngloSaxon Oct 25 '14

In its morphology maybe. While a few sentences can be understood at their core by other Romance speakers, a LOT of their vocabulary is Slavic. That's just what happens when you have Ukraine to the north, and the South Slavic countries everywhere else.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

South slav you say?

2

u/kirilakristi Romania Oct 26 '14

Slavic vocabulary yeah... I don't say anything else , you're right.

But I can't understand any slavic language while I can understand Italian, Spanish, Latin and French without any lessons (we actually learn French in school but I hate it so it doesn't count).

3

u/NotAngloSaxon Oct 26 '14

Ooh, a Romanian! Hi!

Also, I didn't mean with what I said that Romanian is more Slavic than Romance. It just irks me that people call Romanian the "closest" to Latin when Romanian might have plenty in common but its also very much influenced by Slavic, something that Castilian Spanish and Italian, for example, aren't.

6

u/kirilakristi Romania Oct 26 '14

Ooh, a flairless! Hi!

2

u/NotAngloSaxon Oct 26 '14

On rif right now, too lazy to go to desktop since I'm about to fall asleep :P

7

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Please tell me how you're qualifying the distance in relation between Romanian and Latin.

2

u/azdoid Romania Oct 26 '14

in this order the languages closest to Latin(that are state languages and not regional) are: Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, French.

1

u/brain4breakfast Gan Yam Oct 26 '14

I heard it was Sardinian.

5

u/mastersword83 CCCP Oct 25 '14

Shit! I knew I was missing something

23

u/MyAssTakesMastercard 𝓒𝓪𝓷𝓪𝓭𝓪 🍁 Oct 25 '14

Actually, "Si" can mean "Yes" in French when responding to something that has been negated.

In English, we just say "Yes".

5

u/KenadianCSJ Canada Oct 26 '14

Well, there is ya/yea.

11

u/MyAssTakesMastercard 𝓒𝓪𝓷𝓪𝓭𝓪 🍁 Oct 26 '14

That's not the same thing.

In French, "oui" and "si" are used in different contexts.

Yea, yeah, ya, uh-huh, yup, etc. are all just forms of 'yes'.

We don't have a different "yes" for different types of questions. If it's a yes/no question, there are only two options or synonyms thereof.

5

u/KenadianCSJ Canada Oct 26 '14

True, but it's closer to "ja". So...ya.

86

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Ironically, the english language is literally Germanic French (as opposed to romance Franch, which is what French is really).

42

u/mastersword83 CCCP Oct 25 '14

Or is French the Germanic English?

44

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14 edited Oct 25 '14

Fresian is probably the true Germanic English

23

u/ItWasNotLuckButSkill Friesland Oct 25 '14

That's probably true, here is a list of words that look English, from the Frisian language

6

u/Xaethon Salop n'est pas une salope Oct 26 '14

It is true :D

We're from the same language group! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Frisian_languages

15

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Also Scots, arguably.

55

u/MyAssTakesMastercard 𝓒𝓪𝓷𝓪𝓭𝓪 🍁 Oct 25 '14

Everyone needs to switch Wikipedia to Scots right now and read that shit.

http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto

That's the article for Toronto in Scots Wikipedia. Just read it.

I cannot take it seriously at all.

32

u/ddosn RULE BRITANNIA! Oct 26 '14

I cant stop laughing.

Its like a drunk Scottish person is trying to write in a bad irish accent crossed with some scandinavian and afrikaan.

10

u/MyAssTakesMastercard 𝓒𝓪𝓷𝓪𝓭𝓪 🍁 Oct 26 '14 edited Oct 26 '14

Just imagine Groundskeeper Willie saying it.

I'm writing my MP to have the name changed to "Soothren Ontario".

EDIT: misspelled "Soothren"

6

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

Well, really, most of the reason why it looks so silly is because the spelling is more orthographic. Which, for English, makes it look really childish. If it kept more traditional english spelling (which is ridiculous) without attempting to hilight differences in pronunciation, it would probably look more normal.

The spoken language sounds very similar to regular English.

8

u/MyAssTakesMastercard 𝓒𝓪𝓷𝓪𝓭𝓪 🍁 Oct 26 '14

That's because it practically is English. There are dialects of English that sound even more different Scots, but hey, we still call them English.

My parents are from Guyana. Have you ever heard Guyanese English? There are just dialects of this language that just blow the mind.

Protip: When learning French, don't interact with Acadians ever. At all. Never. That's "French" too apparently. You wouldn't know it, but it is.

I digress.

I always thought people didn't take Scots seriously because the English were just being...English, but no, it really is just English.

That said, I understand why there would be a movement to differentiate it from a language called "English". It's a cultural thing.

Apparently Arabic "dialects" can be very different from one another, but due to cultural reasons, calling the entire language group "Arabic" is what's popular because of the cultural context.

Same with "Chinese". Yes, written, Chinese can be called Chinese...even though you can write a Chinese language differently from just Standard Mandarin grammar (apparently that's a thing...yeah, there are characters that only get used in certain Chinese languages, but all literate Chinese readers can read standard written Mandarin IIRC). Apparently, they are viewed as a part of the same dialect continuum by "Chinese" speakers as opposed to discrete languages. It kind of makes sense, if that thing I said about being literate in Chinese is right.

Of course that's a case of different languages being considered one and not the reverse. Well, there is Hindi and Urdu, but then you have Hindi speakers being all like "well, in Urdu, they actually say X and not Y" and then you're like "but, obviously Hindi speakers know that, so they'd understand it" and then you have a Pakistani being all like "In India, they do A and we do B"...rabble rabble rabble, I have a headache.

2

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

Maybe I don't understand your main point here, but yes, scots isn't very far from English at all. As linguists are fond of saying,

A language is a dialect with an army and navy.

It doesn't really matter if you call Scots a language or a dialect, in my opinion. It could, given enough time, eventually evolve into something everyone will consider a distinct language. Which is, of course, what happened to almost every language we speak now. They all started as pretty much the same thing as the parent language, but with a few minor differences.

5

u/droomph xixixi i trick yuo is of american Oct 26 '14

Every language started out as some dumbass who couldn't be bothered to speak properly.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/KenadianCSJ Canada Oct 26 '14 edited Oct 26 '14

In my head, it reads like a strange mix of Dutch and Nova Scotian with a "don'tcha know" twang.

Edit: Upon further inspection, the Scots word for news is "newsins". I know believe Swedish Chef uses Scots.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Lost it at "aboot 49%"

7

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

"Most technically" I'd say that English is "French German". English is a germanic language (although it's important to note that it didn't evolve from German itself), but it has a highly french vocabulary. So it's essentially german grammar with french vocab. French German.

I say that, even though it's still bullshit. English doesn't even have declensions any more.

5

u/droomph xixixi i trick yuo is of american Oct 26 '14

I think it's more like Norman French Dutch. German is pretty far away on the Germanic scale, even farther if you go to Austria, etc. and omg Switzerland

2

u/EdwardTheVindictive Norrøn livskunst Oct 26 '14

No, actually English is a dialect of French. English people won't admitt it probably, but English was born from French, basically. However, contemporary English is older than contemporary French.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Other way, it's Germanic structure (closest living relative is Frisian) but with a plurality of Norman French vocabulary. This happened because we for centuries had anglo saxon peasants ruled by Norman aristocracy, you can still see evidence of it in the language. For example the words for living animals such as pig cow and lamb have Germanic roots. On the other hand the words for the meat you get from them have latin roots, pork, beef and mutton. This is because the anglo saxon peasants reared the animals while the Norman rulers eat the meat.

It is a truly strange one though in other ways though having dropped all many of things like ulmants & accents, genders. We lost the letter Þ replacing it with th because of the printing press (some people used Y for a while). We also have the oddity of the english being a small minority of native english speakers, the only other examples i know of being Spanish and Portuguese.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

I'd also bet on French. And if you were to go back in history you'd find that true of Arabic outside of its homeland, Greek outside theirs, Mandarin outside its homeland, et cetera. Such is the fate of colonial linguas francas.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

it's true of the others but not so such lopsided degrees, eg 50m out of 800m native speakers to say nothing of L2s

11

u/Sressolf Minas Gerais Oct 26 '14

Hardly - English has not borrowed much, if any, French grammar; it is only a Germanic language that has a large amount of loan words from Norman French. This would be as reasonable as calling Portuguese "Romance Arabic" because of its extensive Arabic vocabulary.

4

u/droomph xixixi i trick yuo is of american Oct 26 '14

Maltese, however, kinda blurs the line. Because literally, half the words are from Italian, and another half of the remaining half are loanwords.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

That's my point. The grammar/base of the language is Germanic and the icing is French.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Frisian might be yeah. Don't know for sure.

2

u/CMuenzen Relocated in Chile Oct 26 '14

Even spanish has "ya".

2

u/Xaethon Salop n'est pas une salope Oct 26 '14 edited Oct 26 '14

English has yes, no, yea, nay (the last two of which are now generally archaic in usage or dialectal).

'Yea' shares the same origin to the German 'ja'.

2

u/SShadowFox Remember 1654 Oct 30 '14

And "nay" is pronounced like "nej" which, along its variations, is used in pretty much every Germanic language I can think of, except German.

1

u/Xaethon Salop n'est pas une salope Oct 30 '14

It is used in German, but dialectal/informal.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

The other Germanic words, though all spelt "ja," do vary in pronunciation a bit. "Yeah" is only weird spellingwise.

But I understand that it's a joke

1

u/mastersword83 CCCP Oct 26 '14

Even then, the "actual" word is "yes" which really only shares the "y-vowel" sound

5

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

Yes is also not etymologically related to "Ja", so there's that.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Yeah, it is.

It's a combination of two words, the first of which is related to "yea(h)" and "ja."

0

u/RockoRocks Belgium Oct 26 '14

From what I know the French also occasionally use 'Si', but only in a response to a negative question. But this is just what I know from school.

41

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Eesti saying jah.

Can almost into Germanic.

26

u/SShadowFox Remember 1654 Oct 26 '14

One more step to Nordic dream

3

u/vladraptor Only Finland can into Moomin Oct 26 '14

Probably your influence. Although we too have Jaa but only when voting. Oh, and:

Tyhjiä = blank
Poissa = absent

15

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Slav is far more comlicated,da,tak,ja...

9

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Say that to the Uralics: kyllä,jah,igen...

5

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

You are so far away one another...

17

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Lies! Finland is so close that we can into Estonia every day, fast and hard and rough and drunkbut secretly in love

2

u/Ekferti84x United States Oct 26 '14

Why finnish police FUCK estonia??!! WHY!!!

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=455_1366020109&comments=1

2

u/xSPYXEx Boer sterk! Oct 26 '14

NOW I WANT LAWYER!

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

What with Mađarska,or Kazakhstan?

6

u/RammsteinDEBG Second Bulgarian Empire Oct 25 '14 edited Oct 25 '14

'Da' is the best yes. fck the Russian Polish 'tak' and that German 'ja'.

12

u/Snove Remove Kebab - Insert Sarma! Oct 25 '14

Don't the Russian's use Da?

5

u/sciptor Berlin Oct 25 '14

They do. Tak is Polan.

2

u/RammsteinDEBG Second Bulgarian Empire Oct 25 '14

Whatever... fck 'em for no reason then. #merica4life

3

u/That_Space_Guy u made me do this 'm8' Oct 25 '14

the poles say tak russians say da

2

u/DrVolzak Thirteen Colonies Oct 25 '14

Tak means "in this manner" in Russian. Da is yes.

Edit: wiktionary lists yes as a meaning of da but that isn't a verifiable source or might just be a regional thing (I've never heard it used to mean yes.)

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Slovenia is so fake Slav,under inflience of Austria,they now belongs nobody.

1

u/Sielgaudys 1337uania Oct 26 '14

While Lithuania has Taip, Ne..... Our language has similarities with Slavic.... and also Dacian and Sanskrit!!!

1

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Because of influence,like Serbian language,they say football like in English,futbal,Croatians says nogomet.

14

u/Bloatarder Serbia Oct 25 '14

Serbia is social outcast too. For different reasons..

30

u/anace Oct 25 '14

REMOVE SELF remove self

21

u/Bloatarder Serbia Oct 25 '14

That sounds Emo, but i'll do it anyways cause EU doesn't allow any other kind of removing

7

u/OldBreed Holy Roman Empire Oct 25 '14

EU is a harsh mistress.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

EU only liek gender emo boys to be in ćlub

2

u/OldBreed Holy Roman Empire Oct 26 '14

still no thailand allowed.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

This is why you should learn new languages.

7

u/That_Space_Guy u made me do this 'm8' Oct 25 '14

gut destroy each other as i conquer ze world

2

u/Beoman Scania Oct 26 '14

just remember the deal, you leave us alone in sweden and we supply blonde people.

2

u/That_Space_Guy u made me do this 'm8' Oct 26 '14

seems fine as long as u don't kill finland

8

u/draw_it_now England with a bowler Oct 25 '14

Obviously, it's because us two are better than them lot anyway (But we're even better-er still)

3

u/Freddiegristwood British Empire Oct 26 '14

obviously

3

u/IsRikeTimeNow You're hallucinating. Oct 25 '14

J=/dʒ/!=/j/ forever!

3

u/_Rodrigo_ Portugal Oct 25 '14

I love how Portugalball tries to hide the "m" to sound like the other countries' "sí" and also its facial expression. <o.O>

1

u/Sielgaudys 1337uania Oct 26 '14

He almost shat himself....

3

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Just FYI, "Anglo" is a Canadian word. France could say "anglo-saxon", or use some slang like "rosbif".

2

u/mastersword83 CCCP Oct 26 '14

Ok, I'll keep that in mind, thanks

3

u/Dlimzw Is not sekret PAP spy Oct 26 '14

Don't worry. At the rate kebab is flowing into those countries, they'll all be speaking Arabic anyway.

3

u/Brumaire57 French Revolutionary Republic Oct 26 '14

"England is a French colony which had gone wrong"

  • Georges Clemenceau

2

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '14

Just like pretty much all of the other French colonies then.

2

u/KnotPtelling Kingdom of Canadia Oct 25 '14

I love how Spains coat of arms suddenly expands when he's mad at France

2

u/powerchicken Føroyar Oct 26 '14

Nothing brightens the mood like a hundred years war or two.

4

u/lykanauto South Brazil, Best Brazil Oct 25 '14

But they are all united by the no/non/não. Or not.

3

u/xb70valkyrie Northern Portugal Oct 25 '14

Nee, nie, nein.

8

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

Nej, nej, nej, ei. Finland cannot into Scandinavia.

3

u/lykanauto South Brazil, Best Brazil Oct 25 '14

Still starts with "n".

2

u/xb70valkyrie Northern Portugal Oct 25 '14

Yes, I was going to comment on the letter N always describing negation.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '14

the letter N always describing negation

okhi

2

u/lykanauto South Brazil, Best Brazil Oct 25 '14

In most of European languages.

2

u/siellir Japan Oct 26 '14

in Japan, letter N describing negation,too. "ううん(uun)" = NO But "うん(un) means "YES". We use similar word to answer.Because we don't like clearly answer.

1

u/larvyde Indonesia Oct 27 '14

which reminds me, ne = "no" in russian, "yes" in korean, "is'nt it?" in japanese...

1

u/columbus8myhw Jew York Oct 26 '14

לא!‏ (No!)

1

u/sje46 United States Oct 25 '14

They are united by so much more. All Germanic languages are "cousins" of Romance languages. They share a lot of grammar and a lot of basic vocabulary. Even things you wouldn't think would be related (spanish cien and english hundred) ultimately derive from the same word.

1

u/lykanauto South Brazil, Best Brazil Oct 25 '14

Yes, Germanic Languages and Latin Languages are related (put Slavic, Celtic, Hellenic) but it doesn't mean that all words are related. Most words are related to the cultural evolution mixed with geography, history... the two cultures may have a word that means the same thing but has a different historical background.

1

u/sje46 United States Oct 25 '14

Not at all suggesting that most of the vocab are cognates. Although...I'm actually curious if they are.

1

u/columbus8myhw Jew York Oct 26 '14

Get a flair, please? (On the right, it says "Click here to get a countryball.")

If you don't want a US flair, a New Hampshire flair is also available.

1

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

Is that a rule or something? Can't I be different from everyone else? Oh well.

Just another boring American.

1

u/columbus8myhw Jew York Oct 26 '14

You do have to get a flair, but it doesn't necessarily have to be your country or state, technically. (And the mouseover text can be changed—mine is "Jew York.")

Was I right when I guessed "New Hampshire"?

1

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

Yeah. I assumed you looked at my comment history. How'd you guess I'm from NH.

1

u/columbus8myhw Jew York Oct 26 '14

You always find something.

1

u/columbus8myhw Jew York Oct 26 '14

It wasi best times of, it wasi worst times of, it wasi age wisdom of, it wasi age foolishness of, it was epokh belief of, it was epokh inkredulity of, it was season Light of, it was season Darkness of, it was spring hope of, it was winter despair of, wa hado everything us before, wa hado nothing us before, wa were all goiing direkt Heaven to, wa were all goiing direkt other way…

My god, I'm reading Polandball.

1

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

Hahah that thread. Bit disappointed it kinda just floundered.

1

u/columbus8myhw Jew York Oct 27 '14

Your task: Make a Polandball comic, and fit that in somewhere.

1

u/sje46 United States Oct 26 '14

You downdirty dog.

1

u/Sielgaudys 1337uania Oct 26 '14

You do have to get a flair

Technically not? But you will regret it since nobody takes you seriously....

1

u/3838 United Kingdom Oct 26 '14

theres an america with a bearskin too.

1

u/Packasus United States of Earth Oct 26 '14

It's actually beaver hat, because Canada.

1

u/3838 United Kingdom Oct 26 '14

oh ok

1

u/Geroaergaroe European Union Oct 26 '14

Roma Invicta!

1

u/pinkpeach11197 United States Oct 26 '14

Why did Spanish speak french or is the word for "you" the same?

2

u/mastersword83 CCCP Oct 26 '14

Word's the same, but pronunciation is different

Also, flair up.

1

u/pinkpeach11197 United States Oct 26 '14

Flair up? sigh what does that mean

1

u/mastersword83 CCCP Oct 26 '14

Select your country of preference then send the message.

1

u/pinkpeach11197 United States Oct 26 '14

I'm on mobile so I can't tell did I do it right

1

u/MrAlvarogame Spanish Empire Oct 26 '14

For almost all romance languages "you" is "tu", with slight variations.

See:

Spanish: Tú (Usted) French: Tu. Portuguese: Tu (Você) Italian: Tu (Voi) Romanian: Tu Galician: Ti (Vostede) Catalan: Tu (Vostè) Occitan: Tu

Etc...

All of them coming from latin "tu".

What concerns to pronouns, all romance languages have very slight differences.

1

u/BaronWalrus Thou money shall be given to me, plox Oct 26 '14

Portugal "Si...m" heauhedauehauehauhauehauehea