Language Jokes

The origin of Estonian language according to Douglas Wells

The real story behind why Estonian is the way it is. A long time ago, about 100 or 9100 AD, three Estonian guys were sitting around the campfire. Their names were Billy, Ray and Duke. They were bored.
Billy spoke first. "Ya know Ray, what we need is a new language".

"Damn right!" said Ray, "Talkin' this way is gettin' boring and besides, everybody almost understands us. We need a language that's soo crazy, soo complicated that nobody will ever understand what's going on!".

As the idea picked up steam, Duke piped up. "Lets do it this way, that you can't say he or she. That way you won't know if you're talkin' about a man or woman. Also, we gotta think up names for people that give no clue to foreigners about their gender, names that change with the grammar so you never know what to call somebody!"

Ray nodded in approval. "Yeah," he said thoughtfully, "that's it. Then we can eliminate the future tense. Think of trying to ask someone out on date when you can't say the right name, whether it's a boy or girl or when it is going to happen!"

Billy, the smart one, was thinking in more technical terms already. "OK, let's make it this way, that when you learn a noun, you don't have to learn just one word but 14. Yeah and instead of just saying that you are going to or from something, you have to change the noun in some weird way." Now Ray was excited and spilled his beer. "Yeah! And ... the nouns can't change the same way, let's make like, a hundred different spelling groups that all change in different ways!"

This appealed to Duke who added slyly, "Ya wanna make it real hard, a real nut-buster? Let's make it so all adjectives change, too. In boring old English, you say 'five small, red houses', 'small, red houses' and 'many small, red houses'. Small and red always stay the same but in our new language? Whoaaaa Nellie!"

Then they started practising how to say 'Oh, you're learning Estonian' without busting up laughing.