First Contact Survival Kit - learn an undocumented language from scratch 

That actually makes sense :0

This is a brilliant idea, though like you wrote nowadays one must approach with caution and with the approval of adults.

This is exactly what I did when I went to Japan :-) I already knew a good chunk of Japanese that I had learned from self-study, so I could get by alright with that I already knew. The family I stayed with had a daughter of 8 years, and it was from her that I learned the most! I even still use the cutesy dialectal word ちっちゃい “chicchai” instead of standard Japanese 小さい “chiisai” (“small”). Whenever I say “chicchai”, everyone laughs because it kinda makes me sound like a rural child

As long as they are more than 8/9 y.o. though, as before they could lead you on the wrong path as they still haven't mastered the language themselves. And frankly, unless your friend is really a genius, I doubt he did actually learn a language in three week. He might have learned to get by with some basic sentences and vocabulary - which takes us normal humans a year to do while going to class.

@@idraote It's also possible that they already knew several other romance languages, so they were able to obtain some level of fluency with relatively little effort

😂😂😂😂😂WTFFFFFF

I see you've read some Discworld.

Sahara means desert

I love it when you try to figure out what a name of a river, a mountain or a town means it it just kinda translates to - river, mountain, town. I always find it hilarious, as a person who occasionally dabbles in writing I find it difficult to come up with good names for things and the whole of history is just like "we call our local river the river"

But humans also give very discriptive names. Lielupe means Grateriver, and Jaunpils means Newcastle.

It should be obvious that if someone is pointing next to a different object each time and asking for the name they aren't really talking about their fingers. I think most people would understand if someone gestured with their head or even their feet lol

In some Spanish speaking cultures pointing with fingers is too rude, people prefer to point with head and lips.

@@robertobahamondeandrade In Spain it's rude to point someone with a finger, at least where I live. Pointing at things with your finger may look a bit untrefined in certain situations. I thought that was common to most cultures, at least in the West.

In western java, we point with our thumb to make it more polite 😊

@@cassiuscyparissus5567 I use my whole hand instead of a finger. Seems less aggressive, idk haha

But- but- but what if I need to tell someone their dog is drinking water?

Excuse me, I am an apple. (すみません、私はりんごです) This is actually taken from Duolingo.

-duo, how do I say flower in Indonesian? -it doesn't matter until you learn the word for train engineer!!

Ich bin kopfchen. Jawohl, Duolingo.

my suitcase is brown

@@Thelaretus Me

@@BrazilianImperialist Me

@@superieur11407 👈Me

Well, that explains the skull emoji in your name.

Good luck lol. May the Lord Almighty be with you...ahem

@@rajdeepvijayaraj4243 he already died

another one bites the dust : (

I’m ashamed it took me so long to get it

What tribe is it? How do you keep the language alive? Do you have any written material? Do you mind if I join the preserving effort?

@@enricmm85 dude chill.. lol its gr8 u r so excited by this

Poluting a language with foreign words is nothing to be ashamed of. If the language users allow of it there is nothing you can do, for even large languages will take in foreign words if they are inclined to. I myself always try to talk in pure language not using borrowed words where ever possible, but I can not change the course of the langauges I speak for I am only 1 of many.

@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Languages will always change.

Quantum language

alex carter That was MKUltra. XD

k

alex carter was that language Esperanto? I know it was used in some simulations as the language the “enemy” spoke.

@@federicovolpe3389 Mi ne sciis. Esperanto estas logika lingvo, do estas adaptita pro la trejnado. Sed esperanto ankaŭ estas paca lingvo ! Mi ne ŝatas ĉi-tiun uson.

@@Marguerite-Rouge It's not *that* logical. A very Eurocentric language.

Ahh, that's very disheartening to hear because I had the exact same idea Tlazcamati :)

I've had similar problems trying to find minority language speaking areas in China. Even Zhuang, which is spoken by tens of millions of people. I could find signs on buildings all over the place but I never heard anyone speaking it. In some places there is shame in speaking the local "dialect" or just a lack of pride in the younger generations who don't want to speak a "useless" language. In some places it's only in rural areas. In some places it's in whispers. Zapotecs in coastal Oaxaca can usually speak their language but never seem to speak it loudly. In other places that's not the case. Around Lake Atitlan you'll hear the locals talking about everything in three different Maya languages depending what village you're in. It was easy to find some local people to teach me a few words but not easy to find a language teacher. All the teachers were teaching Spanish (-: Sometimes there's just a mix of languages and dialects. When I was in a Tibetan area of Sichuan, the government classifies the locals as Tibetans but linguists classify their language on a completely different branch. Everybody loved it when I said "hello" in Tibetan but when I asked locals how to say different words it would be "in my village we say this in my wife's village we say that. If you find a rural village where everybody speaks the local language you'll need to be accepted and you'll need a place to stay and might not be any guesthouse. In some countries it's not even legal to just rent a room off any random local. But man would I love to see some RU-vidrs try this!

if you were there why didnt you try with teenek? for nahuatl i would have tried in the center area of mexico

It's a good idea to make contacts with local activist beforehand. They'll know the one guy in town who ownes a store, likes to talk and makes you drink too much vodka (or what ever the local drink is XD)

I tried to do the same with Sercquais, the language of Sark, only to be given a long lecture on how it was a "patois" and no one could write it down (even though people already had).

But you do realize that it's just a mythical place?

@@amadeosendiulo2137 it's all england

@@win_ini Always has been 🔫

@@win_ini (To zawsze była tylko Anglia)

Fun fact: When the Puritans landed near Cape Cod, the first Native American to greet them -- spoke English! Tisquantum (Squanto) had been kidnapped and enslaved by some early English explorers (who were mainly in search of fishing grounds), sold in Spain, and then made his way back to England where he lived for a few years before returning home with another explorer. Ever since then, American tourists have been convinced that anyone in any foreign country can understand them if they just speak loudly and clearly enough.

@@the-chillian Americans should try to learn more other languages, sticking with one makes your world view so narrow.

@@MinishMilly a lot of Americans do that on purpose so they want to have their horizons broadened.

@@MinishMilly Should? Maybe. But most Americans are monolingual because that's all they need. An American can travel 2500 miles or more without leaving his country, and we all speak English. In Europe you'd cross a half dozen national borders speaking almost as many languages in the same distance.

ChrisC the wasn’t always the case though. Native languages were once all over this country and there were hundreds. Hawaiian has been nearly wiped out as well, Louisianan Creole as well, and prior to WW2 German was widely spoken in the US. Americans have just had a habit of removing linguistic diversity

I love Okinawa but was too low on funds to visit any of the islands. Which ones did you visit? I'm aware of three languages which have at least one famous speaker each. There's Byron Fija on the main island, a famous rock band on I think Miyako, and I forget the third one.

@@andrewdunbar828 I went to Yonaguni first and Taketomi after that. I learned Yonagunian from five or six different speakers, one of whom was Nae Ikema, now 100 years old (but was *hati du duku* or 86 when I met her). Byron Fija is a great promoter of Shuri Okinawan; I'm not good at Miyako because they seem to have given all their vowels away :)

@@MarkRosa Wow. Have you taken an interest in Ainu? I spent a few days in Nibutani on my last visit to Japan but didn't meet any speakers, if there are still any to meet )-:

I reused footage from an older video about Kwaio taboos. Which other past videos feel relevant after watching this "kit"?

Papi

Dear NativeLang, I wish I had seen this video 10 years ago when I travel to Bangladesh and I came in contact with the Deaf community in Dhaka. It would have helped me to learn much more. Back then, I did not know ANY sign language OR Bengali. I am happy to say that I was able to use some of your advises (without knowing them, just out of linguistic instinct) and THEY WORK! I did not know the technical ones, but just being open to see them as teachers, accept and give, smile and try to be funny, don't see yourself as superior in any way while letting others see you with respect, all of those tips were useful while I was there. I was carrying a paper notebook all the time, pointing to everything, mimicking the actions I wanted to sign, drawing objects in the air or in the ground. It was a challenge. I made good friends and learned a few signs to communicate basic stuff. I would like to go back one day and study BSL in a more serious way, maybe then I will carry your "kit" with me and my experience will be even better. I wish I would have had your knowledge, I would have learn so much more. Anyway, thanks again for your video, I love your channel.

Just a random suggestion for a future videos: there's languages that have a gender-based dialect, meaning that men and women speak differently, perhaps using different words or using a different sounds for a letter in an otherwise identical word. Ecamples of this are found in Chukchi, Garifuna, the Irish Sign Language, Kalmyk, Tangoan and Pirahã to name a few. They all do this for different reasons.

@@NativLang Hi!

But that's the exact opposite of my "strangers in public bathrooms" policy! :/

@@swine13 uh oh...

Okay simp boy.

@@apalsnerg this literally isnt simping but okay

@@apalsnerg how is he a simp?

I need to see a first contact with aliens story written by a linguist. I just remembered 'Arrival' as I was making this comment

@@iron54eagle I will be forever salty at how bad that movie is.

@Evi1M4chine Oh wtf. Treating people normally = with respect. Yes, it may be a bit of a false friend here - respect is also just basic Rücksicht und Achtung, like taking the other serious as a human being. That should really be common manners, "even" in Germany.

​@@varana I believe that it is. What you're describing is also called, "civility," a term that, to us Americans, sounds stilted. But, "civility," and, "respect," are not synonyms in _every_ language. "Civility," is "treating people normally" _by the conventions of what that culture thinks "treating people normally" means._ Not by what *you* think that phrase means. What is considered the basic minimum-respect that every person deserves simply by dint of being born a fellow human being. But that basic minimum, and how it's expressed, will vary from culture to culture. "Respect," in many laguages and cultures implies valuing an individual for something special about them, even if it's just a bit of their experience that only you personally admire. "Respect" will vary from one person to another - actually, from one pair of people to another. When I was in Germany 30 years ago for junior-semester in college, Germans still distinguished between „Bekannten“ and „Freunde“, words that in American English _should_ both be translated to, “friend,” even though the first words normally is translated to, “acquaintance.” But in America, “acquaintance,” is someone you met once or twice in some social situation, someone who's only one step removed from a stranger. Not so for „Bekannte“, at least not back 30 years ago. Culture shapes language. Language encodes culture.

Ok U r a simp.

please try to leave the word "normal" out of the conversation, I do not think that word necessarily conveys the meaning you intend my friends.

@@Kalleosini Well normally (😜) I would try, but I wrote that comment while washing the carpet. So naturally, since I was taking a break because I was tired, I was too tired to bother hunting for the alternative.

on a similar note, the dutch say _bowl fucker_ for construction worker

@@DrWhom don't get me started on kippensoep. Little hint: kippen is not the dutch word for cigarette buds.

What's the video?

What's the video? (2)

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EoWDwF51RuQ.html I'm honestly surprised I was able to find that!

@@Oddn7751 It's fake, those natives were mostly acting (especially in the beginning) and had been contacted before

@@nichl474 It's a controversial topic, but it's not conclusive. There was one guy who claimed to have visited them before, but the natives themselves say that's not true. I'd be surprised to see everyone in the tribe being such good actors.

Yeah with big world languages that are related it's a lot easier. I got to conversational in Spanish living and travelling for six months in Mexico, but didn't succeed as well with any Asian language or even German. Even Romanian which is a lot closer to Spanish than Spanish is to English.

@@andrewdunbar828 Yes, that's true. I learned German in school and it's pretty similar to English in many ways. But being fluent in Spanish and French doesn't seem to help in understanding Romanian in spite of being a Romance language, although Romanian people are able to learn Spanish very easily. And Spanish has many similarities with English (via Latin and Greek) which make it similar to to English in many ways.

YES IT'S SO GOOD! We played Where Are Your Keys in my Yurok class in high school a lot, and it really helped my vocabulary get solidified.

What about Altaic

@@jcxkzhgco3050 doesn't exist

best comment ever

@@andromeda1903 thanks

Yea u alive back in *~5000 BC*

You again

Sir are you a bot

Best method ever

That requires you to know the language beforehand.

How did you do?

Thank you! It's been a long road to open up this voice - a lot less sparkle in old videos.

@@NativLangWell then, bravo, sir! It's one of the most pleasant I've heard. And your pronunciation skills are ASTOUNDING! From Mandarin to Sentinelese, the words roll off your tongue with ease!

@Evi1M4chine So compliments are double plus ungood? Thank you for reminding me about our Orwellian world, comrade.

I'm starting to remember how important a Daniel Jackson type character would be.

Shaka, when the walls fell

@@ecurewitz Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

Untrue Lie Temba, his arms wide!

Picard and Dathon, at el Adrel

Thank both of you I am going (God Willing) to Finmark to study Sami Languages

Thank you ! It was very interesting and enlightening

More! More! I'd love to have more of this. Dan is my linguistics hero. Piraha is totally fascinating. Hmong is the most prominent tonal Asian language that's not a national/majority language or related to one. And watching the process leaves me without words since I already used up "totally fascinating".

@@ShaareiZoharDaas Good luck!

Funny Linguistics Compilation

Probably best to smile without showing your teeth just in case!

@@thriceandonce sounds like an optimum strategy :)

@Master Yoda no. Smiling is not genetic. They really dont smile when they are happy, and they misunderstood our reasearchers when they tried to apply european norm on them. They asked them, why they always loojed angry on their language, because russian reasearchers smiled scared them a bit. They really had an another way of facial expressions, gestures and body language. It actually more rscist to assume that every culture should have the same patterns your culture prefer. Yes, due to communication, most contacted tribes knows smiles today, but there are still ones who does not. That tribe also was very suprised, when they heard a question, about gods of their cultures, which of them good and which of them evil. They answered :"All gods are evil, how can a good god exist?"

@Master Yoda Smiling and facial expressions are largely cultural thing. Because children, raised by animals and neglected ones does not develope any facial expressions until they are exposed to them and taught them by people they later gat attached to. Until then, they are "faceless" and have animal body language and ways of exoressing affections.

@@eyennordic348 Nope. Even people born blind who have never seen anyone expression smile, there are some expressions that are definitely universal different cultures do it to different *extents tho* - see when Walmart came to Germany, told its employees to smile at the customers who then felt creeped out or like they were being hit on, and that's still a culture that speaks a closely related language

Darmok at Tanagra. Sails unfurled.

@@ANTSEMUT1 that was the episode yea. Darmok?

@@sarasarah1810 i think so it's a while ago.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

Sokath. His eyes uncovered!

Like the big desert desert or the the the tar tar pits.

I recall seeing an anthropologist, possibly Alfred Cort Haddon, say that if you can't get an introduction to the people you want to study, you should sit in a public spot and start making string figures -- cat's cradle and the like. Invariably, someone will walk up and say the local equivalent of "hey, let me show you one." Few if any human societies don't make string figures! The Leipzig-Jakarta vocabulary list has "rope" and "to tie" as the technological words most likely to have native (as opposed to borrowed) words across languages. I suspect this is related.

Right because there are no cultures who think images of people are bad or evil. 🙈

@@eritain that is actually a good point. binding things together is a pretty basic technology. from making firewood easier to transport, to securing the tent against weather, to connecting pelt or leather pieces.

我吃面 ah you eat bread/noodles too nice 🥖🍜

Is that Spanish?

My man playing the long game

This is actually such a good idea! But it is indeed rather in theory a good idea than in practice and real life! xD But it would probably be the best way to really develop a perfect translator between two languages...kids! They are the answer! xD Thank you for this input, it's really good and it sticks to me for some reason

By the time you're immersed enough to found a family, you most likely spend enough time with than to have learned the language anyway. And by the time your kid is old enough to speak, you should be pretty much at native fluency.

This is like that one post where someone says to get pregnant to find out who your real friends are.

go to siberia

😂😂😂 Go to New Guinea

North Sentinel is the way to go

@@oyoo3323 Thanks. I had to look both of those up, but boy was it a perfect fit to illustrate my point. :)

@Evi1M4chine I know, right? The United States that I was born in is gone. It's now a country where sociopathic behavior is promoted and lauded. "Individualism" has twisted into sociopathy "Community" is treated as identical to "communism." Selfishness is promoted as "good," and sharing is decried as "evil."

@Evi1M4chine I mean, he is talking about an alien planet. If the sapient inhabitants are basically fire ants brutally subdueing everything I would be scared I would get myself killed too lol. Though you should not assume every human will kill you.

Realistically. You couldn't survive on an alien planet, at least not without very advanced tech.

@@JJM8043 if the food and air is compatible, chance for survival is pretty high. Now the locals, that is a different question.