Characters and Language

[Russia]

I was just thinking, as a Linguist so I couldn't really help it, what languages do you think your characters can speak and why? You don't have to go into the absurd depth I did and believe me, I could have made it so much worse, just as far as you want to.

For instance...

Russia speaks fluent:
-Russian (natively)
-Ukrainian (because of his sister)
-Byelorussian (because of his sister)
-English (because it is a lingua franca and was necessary for trade/war/etc)
-Old East Slavic (because of headcanon reasons that Kievan Rus was his mother)

He knows snippets (I.E. nowhere near fluently) of:
-Polish (because I have headcanon that Russia and Poland are first-cousins of dealings with Poland all through his life)
-Lithuanian (because of dealings with Lithuania throughout life)
-Old Prussian (because he got beat up by he Teutonic Knights)
-German (because of the whole GDR fiasco)
-Old Church Slavonic (because of the Russian Orthodox Church)
-Language of the Ancient Tatars (I have no idea what it's called or if it's related to the modern Tatar language, I can't find anything on it)

He used to speak fluent French due to having looked up to France for a very long time and having good relations with him save for the whole... Napoleon fiasco. At one point in time, Russian aristocracy spoke in almost exclusively French. Now, however, his French has fallen into the dreaded level of... rusty. He cannot speak any of the languages he knows snippets of, only understand bits and pieces spoken to him... save for German, Polish and Lithuanian. He can communicate very crudely in those.

I don't want to even think about all of the nearly forgotten Slavic tongues like Rusyn and the native languages of various ethnic groups like Ingush, Georgian, Uzbek, etc... Russia! Stop being an absurd polyglot!

[rydia]

<sup>My interpretation of Seychelles says she speaks several languages. Mostly it's because Seychelles's economy is supported by tourism nowadays more than trade. As such, you have to speak the languages of all these people that come to visit. It's also why I have her major fear as being alone...since Seychelles couldn't live without imports and tourism. Anyways, since she was a colony of both France and England, she speaks French and English. Since there were tons of Africans taken as slaves, she'd have a creole French type of accent. (Then again with as many times as she's drawn white, she might just speak French with no accent.) The population has also Indian, Arabian, (but I would expect considering where the islands are) and Chinese (which I didn't expect) descendents, so I'd say she could know Hindi, Arabic, Chinese.... Wikipedia says Spanish and Turkish are also spoken there.

That being said, I assume she's fluent in English, French, and terrible, terrible Creole since the Hetalia description is "country girl" and I assume she'd speak a bad pronunciation of French if she has a country or even an African like accent. But since considering how hard it would be for anyone to figure out what the heck she's saying if I wrote out a phonically (unless you know french then it will be slightly easier). "Bonzour" instead of "Bonjour." "Ja tem" instead of "Je t'aime." As for Spanish, Chinese, Turkish, Hindi, and Arabic, I say she understands them and can almost speak them. Still, I go with more she speaks French over anything based on how strong of a French influence there is.</sup>

[southitaly]

Oh, this is a fun topic. I won't bore you guys with too much depth, but these are my basics:

My head canon has it that Romano can speak/read fluently;

- Latin [Catholic, the scriptures were written in Latin as mass used to be held in Latin plus the origin of the language in Italy.]

- Italian and Sicilian [Sicilian being an offshoot of Italian (often argued to be a different language entirely--it really is crazy different from standard Italian though) spoken in the deep south of Italy; when extremely pissed off, he might spout off in this particular tongue and then you'll know shit is going down.]

- Spanish [As much as he'd like to have Spain think otherwise.]

- English [My other head canon is that all countries have proficient English language skills as this is their default language to use at world meetings and interacting, Italian influence in America...so on and so forth. And I do imagine he speaks a bit like Dub!Roma.]

Can Get By With;

- French [French influences in Italian culture as well as involvement in Italian history; probably can get by with this even better than he'd like to let on.]

- Or any country in which Italy has close economic/political ties with modern day. [Greek, Romanian, general Mediterranean populaces, etc.]

Knows The Least;

- Arabic [Past Arabic influence in Sicily (Islam was the dominant religion before Catholicism arrived in the form of the Norman Conquest) and a small relevance of present day Africans in south Italy.]

- Some Slavic Languages [Geographic proximity and once again, past history's sake.]

-German [Influence of past alliances.]

On a more trivial note, Romano knows how to curse in even more languages, if anything else.

[gimlinator]

Hmm.... This looks like fun!

In my opinion, Belarus can fluently speak:
-Belorussian (native language)
-Ukrainian (Sisterly influence)
-Russian (Brotherly influence)
-English (lingua franca)
-Lithuanian (they grew up together and have had much connection with each other throughout history, especially when she was living with him during the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Soviet times)

Languages Belarus knows a tad bit of:
-Polish (Lived with him during Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and due to Poland visiting Lithuania all the time.)
-French (Learned a bit from Russia when he used to speak it.)