Irregular Expressions

It looks like there are two types of posts here: links to things I find funny, and updates on my personal life. If you're looking for something more substantial, look elsewhere - like here :)

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Name the language

Yesterday me and Vishy saw an ad on the NY subway: "Learn English!" Repeated in about 8 different languages. We identified each of the languages and were quite pleased with ourselves :)
That got me thinking, what is it that makes a language identifiable? Perhaps it's the prefixes and suffixes. Consider names: you can usually tell what country a name is from. How about:

Clinton (English)
Clintonoglu (Turkish)
Clintonescu (Romanian)
McClinton, or O'Clinton (Irish)
Clintonberg, or Clintonstein (Jewish)
ibn Clinton (Arabic)
Clintonomoto, or Clintoyama (Japanese)
Oluclinton (Nigerian)
Clintonsson (Swedish)
Clintonowski (Polish)
Clintonoshvili (Georgian)
van der Clinton (Dutch)
Clintonetti (Italian)
Cliiinntonnen (Finnish)
Clintonez (Spanish, Hispanic)
Clintonho (Portuguese)
Billjeffersonclintonan (South Indian)
William Jeffersonovich Clintonov (Russian)
Clintonhazy (Hungarian)
Clintonporn (Thai)
Cllintonopoulos, or Clintonastakis, or Clintonides (Greek)

Truly, Bill Clinton is a man of the world.
We noticed it was a lot harder to do this with the name "Bush"....

Thanks to Vishy for helping me compile the list.

Corrections/additions welcome!!

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