History of the Romance Languages

Youtube suggested me a video with History of the Romance Languages. I watched it and liked it. Starting from Proto-Italic it shows on the map the spread of the languages along with a time-line. So much information in so comressed format.

And Verbix conjugates the verbs of much of the Romance languages shown in the video:

Moreover Verbix docs has a lot of information of the other languages mentioned.

See the video here

Cognates

In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin.

For instance today’s Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan, etc.) all share the same “parent” language, the Latin. And therefore these languages have a lot of cognates.

Starting from October 2019, there are verb cognates on the Verbix website. On the cognate pages you can check out how the Indicative present looks like in different Romance languages.

As can be seen, sometimes the differences are relatively big. And what’s more, sometimes the meaning of the word may have changes.

Italic Peoples 500BC

The Italics were all the peoples who spoke an idiom belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages and had settled in the Italian peninsula.

As seen on the map, the Italic tribes and Italic languages were spoken on a very small area in the beginning. One of the languages, though, was Latin. The Roman conquests eventually spread it throughout the peninsula and beyond in the Roman Empire. The evolved dialects of Latin gave birth to the Romance languages; French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc. that are nowadays spoken allover the world.

Links:

 

Verbtable with Awesome Layout

Years ago there was the possibility to print out high-quality verb tables from Verbix for Windows.

This was in the ages when there was a very limited number of supported languages in Verbix; designing state-of-the-art layouts was tedious and time-consuming, and therefore the Verbix for Windows started to use HTML as the “layout engine”.

In early days of the HTML layout the internal webbrowser used by Verbix was very limited. Therefore the verbtables didn’t look so nice. Little by little the design has been improved, yet the printouts still don’t look like a “book page”.

Now with the latest version of Verbix for Windows, there is the possibility to export Spanish verb tables as PDF.
And these verbtables are again like “book pages”.

Links:

New York, Maps, Languages

I visited New York a month ago or so.

New York City is home to the largest population of overseas Chinese outside of Asia.
New York City is home to the largest population of overseas Chinese outside of Asia.

What’s amazing is that your hear so many languages and people from different parts of the world there.

Not only are there tourists coming from all over the world, but a lot of people have found their home there. New York City is home, for instance, to the largest population of overseas Chinese outside of Asia.

I took the photo at the right in Chinatown, where you could hardly see any text in English.

While Chinatown is in the South-East of Manhattan Island, the largest concentration of Hispanics is in the north, as seen on the map.

Hispanic people in Manhattan Links:

Spanish Verbs on Windows Phone

You soy, tú eres, él es, … now on the Windows Phone!

Yes, Verbix is now available for Windows Phone. This totally new version of Verbix is able to conjugate any Spanish verb on a Windows Phone (7 or 8).

Spanish verbs can now be conjugated on Windows Phone: you sou, tú eres, él es...
The Spanish verb “ser” on Windows Phone.

This Spanish verb conjugator is redesigned to meet the needs of the mobile user:

  • It’s faster, it’s even faster than on my PC.
  • Store favorite verbs. So instead of typing over and over the same verb, simply tap it and your done.
  • As you type, the verb list of 11,000+ verbs scrolls. You seldom need to type the whole verb.
  • The verb tables were designed to fit as well as possible on the screen. So instead of using Verbix in the web, you no more need to zoom/zoom-out.

More information:

How to Use the Spanish Verb Conjugation Book?

There’s an “Easter Egg” in Verbix 9 for Windows.

An Easter Egg in software is a hidden feature that is not documented. In Verbix 9 the hidden feature creates a Spanish Verb Conjugation book and saves it as PDF. This article describes how to use the book. As a matter of fact, this book is used exactly in the same way as any verb conjugation book that you can buy in a bookstore!

1. First look up the verb from the verb index.

As in many verb conjugation books, the Spanish Verb Conjugation book created in Verbix for Windows 9.0 has an index of verbs.

Let’s find for example ‘ser’ (English ‘to be’).

 

2. Check the verb model that the verb refers to.

In the index the verb ‘ser’ is marked with number 1. This number refers to the verb conjugation table 1. Now that we browse the book to verb conjugation table 1, we find the verb ser conjugated in all tenses.

As in Verbix, irregular forms are displayed in red and regular forms are in black.

About the Spanish Verb Conjugation Book

The book has an index of 38,395 verbs.

The book comprises 231 pages.

Color coding clearly shows additional information of every verb form:

  • regular forms in black
  • irregular forms in red
  • forms that have changes in spelling due to orthographic rules are in blue
  • archaic forms are in purple
  • non-used (hypothetical) forms are in grey

The book is free!

 

Verb tables in PDF

One of the new features of the upcoming Verbix 9 is the possibility to create PDF documents of the verb conjugation tables.

This makes it possible to put your favorite verbs on your iPhone or any other gadget that supports PDF.

Or simply print out the verb table.

The PDF is supported first for Spanish verbs. Please vote for getting PDF support for other languages, too.

  • The verb cocer ‘to cook’ conjugated in all tenses: Cocer verb.

Korean or Arabic

The Korean and Arabic languages were added about in the same time on the Verbix website. Both languages support conjugating verbs since a few months back.

It has been interesting to follow how many verbs have been conjugated since then. Today (9/21/2011) Arabic verbs have been conjugated 59,241 times and Korean verbs 58,226 times.

In the all-time ranking these languages now have the 44th and 45th place in the number of verbs having been conjugated. The most conjugated language is Spanish with verbs having been conjugated 76,986,823 times!

Links to go: