Sir_Snooze

What sort of Latin? There is a connection between Latin and Italian (although it doesn't make much sense to learn it - it's kind of like learning French as a way to better one's English), but Latin's a really broken language.

It's probably High Latin that you learned. Still, that's rather unusual - thanks for sharing! Personally, I didn't much like Latin, either - it's wickedly complicated and the vocalizations (the syllables) are hard. It's still important, though.

Meh - no worries. Flemish is utterly useless for travel - it's spoken in its non-Dutch variant by about...15-20,000? The only reason I know it is family. In order to do language, you have to be right stuck in it. I did my university education partly in French; I hang out at community centres and listen for language tics and stuff (think like Canada's 'eh').

And no worries! Flemish is my first language - I learned English only after I went to school as a kid.

Edit because I forgot to mention that by no means does monolinguality mean slow learning. I'm sure if you had the same upbringing as I did, you'd be multilingual too. It has its downside, too - I can't count well in English, because I learned my numbers in Flemish...

The language in the "Sex and Relationship" thread is Flemish - my family's Belgian, so we all speak it to some degree. Being born to a first-gen immigrant mother, it's only natural I picked some of it up. It's very similar to Dutch, but it's spoken in a way that makes them almost mutually unintelligible. You can read them in either language, though.

If you want a sample of the language, here's the website of the brewery my cousin worked for, De Halve Maan (the half-moon). It's wonky.The only reason I posted it in here is because I don't want to derail the thread.

http://www.halvemaan.be/index.php?id=13

Do you speak Dutch, per chance?

Heh - true enough. I'm working on a pile of languages (I'm a linguhistorian by profession - that means I research old languages and try to preserve them): Mayan, Buryat, Khalkha, Navajo, and, believe it or not, Klingon. Yep - Star Trek's Klingon. It's a linguist's nightmare, which means that we want to try to figure it out.

Trouble is, nobody writes in my 'in-training' languages. Parlez-vous francais? Kannen U sprechen Vlaams?...Those are my only European languages. I intend to pick up German, Italian and Danish at some point, but, with the way research is going, that'll be when I'm retired...

Dude - no worries! Your stuff is thirty flavours of awesome. And that's exactly the mix, too - Cradle. Although it's still a kickin' tune, you've gained a ton of skill, too. Props, dude!

Thanks, man! Now that I see it, it makes a lot of sense.

That's actually a really good idea - my family's from Belgium, and we all speak Flemish to some degree. Thing is, my Flemish is really weak, and I'm always having trouble understanding things on the phone or in letters or whatever. I never thought to use forums - good call! Your command of English is impeccable in writing - is English common in Italy? I'd imagine not so much as in Belgium (almost everyone speaks it to some degree).

Hmm...now that's more familiar to Canada. Our Premiers get 4, PMs 5 (in theory), and they can call an election by asking the Governor General for one. He/she's never refused, to the best of my knowledge.

That's odd. So, does anything govern term limits or something for the executive? Or is it more like the ridiculously scattered English system, where everything's 10-million years old and set as precedent so many times it's immortal, but it's not actually in one place.

Seriously? Nothing? Then what checks your executive branch? Are there no safeguards at all?

I'm sorry for being inquisitive: it just sounds really weird. Case law is the entirety of your civil rights? Whoa.

Hey Wacky - out of curiousity, what covers Australian rights and freedoms? Canada has the Charter; the States the Bill of Rights et al., France has the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (or whatever) - what do the Australians get?