The Human Love Affair With Language

A to Zebra Language is an awesome language vocabulary building product developed by, well, my husband at our publishing company World Trade Press.

It’s about building vocabulary in foreign languages but not just any languages. You can learn 15,000+ vocabulary words in two of the traditional romance languages, French and Spanish and two Germanic languages, German and English. What!? ENGLISH a Germanic language?

I’m no linguist and was more than a bit unhappy to learn that English is considered a Germanic language. Perhaps if you are an Anglophile like me and you love all things British (well, I confess I’m off the queen lately) you prefer to think of English as one of the Romance languages. I like to think of sun splattered vowels and wine soaked verbs. But no, the so called Romance languages are those that grew from the continuation of colloquial Latin spoken by commoners or non citizens of the Roman Empire. They aren’t called Romance because they are romantic but because of their connection to Rome. They include Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. Romanian? Who knew?

The empires that arose after the decline of the Roman Empire in the fifth century did such a good job establishing themselves overseas that today about two thirds of Romance language speakers live outside Europe.

They are mostly Spanish (386 million speakers to French’s 75 million) and that’s why A to Zebra Language has two kinds of Spanish, the Castillian and Latin American versions because the accents and vocabulary on the two sides of the Atlantic are that different.

But I want to get back to English being considered “speaking in Barbarian”. The Roman Empire called every language spoken by people living outside the Roman Empire the equivalent of “gibberish”. Sounds like New Yorkers!

Wait a minute! What about Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England? The Roman Emperor Hadrian started building the wall in 122 A.D. to keep “intact the empire” because one of his gods instructed him to do it. Britain was part of the Roman Empire so I confess, I’m confused but never mind it’s 2014.

So much for speaking Barbarian Gibberish 2,000 years ago. Today English is the official language of the European Union with 375 million native speakers and over a billion second language speakers the world over. It is the official language of the United Nations and agreeably the language of global commerce…and probably the World Wide Web. Yes, you can call it linguistic imperialism. Or is it just the irrepressible human drive to communicate with each other using the most accessible language? I prefer the latter.

English had all the makings for accessability and becoming the language that dominates the world scene because of its mongrel roots. Northern Germanic, Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Norman and French all heavily influenced the formation of modern English. What came out is a high-bred language that is flexible, expandable and can be simplified for quick learning. Unlike any other language English expands by between 8,000 to 25,000 words each year! No wonder we can’t understand teenagers!!!

And even with English domination, the world is filled with people who long to learn the languages spoken by others; many different languages! It is part of the grand love affair humans have with each other and our compulsion to communicate. It is also an important way to develop the brain. Languages are taught in schools because it is important to understand how language is formed and how to speak in another tongue. It is an academic challenge and it is FUN.

So that’s why my husband developed A to Zebra Language, the vocabulary builder that rocks! He developed a way to learn vocabulary that is fun and that really works because you see the word spoken by a native speaker, see a photo of the object and see the written word/s. I especially like the visual art and romance glossaries, romance as in “I love you”. Body parts is interesting too!

FREE! I want you to give it a try and see for yourself for free. We sell it but I want my readers to enjoy it without charge until July 1, 2014. For a quick look at A to Zebra Language watch this introductory video.

GO FOR IT AND JOIN THE HUMAN LOVE AFFAIR! Have fun building your vocabulary in French, German, English and two kinds of Spanish!

?Quires casarte conmigo?
Veux-tu m’espouser?
Willst du mich heiraten?
Will you marry me?

Copyright © 2014 Gayle Madison