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So as an American, I realize that there are many who only speak one language (Some Americans can't even speak one language, at certain times). So I was wondering, how many people here are at least bilingual? For me I am a bilingual who speaks English and Chinese due to the fact that my adopted parents are Chinese. What do you speak and what other languages do you speak?

Hello. I'm trying to figure out what language and writing system is used by the ponies in Equestria, because I plan to use some of these informations in a fanfic I'm preparing to make. From this snapshot from S01E01 "Mare in the Moon" we can get some informations about the language and writing: http://sasq.comyr.com/Stuff/Jajca/QC/sci/Book.png I recreated it below as a vector graphics without any perspective to improve the clarity: Below the book there is a transcript of what is supposedly written there in English. I mean, we hear Twilight speaking English in the series, but I consider it just an English dubbing replacing the original Equine language This text couldn't be written in English, because there's lot more letters in it than is visible in the above book page. So the original language must be different, and written more compactly than just plain English when written in Latin alphabet. Besides, why should ponies speak English in the first place instead of some other language of their own? And this is exactly what I'm trying to figure out: what language they use, how does it work, and how is it written. We can see some interesting observations here: Words are separated by spaces. Text is aligned in horizontal lines. The writing system seems to be syllabic (that is, an abjad, like Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese or Ancient Egyptian), because words are quite short: 3 glyphs on average, usually 1...4 glyphs, longer words are rare. In syllabic writing systems words tend to be short, because only consonants are written down, and vowels are default, or known from context, or marked up with additional diacritics. In writing system where vowels are written explicitly, words are usually longer. The alphabet consists probably of only 10 glyphs (see the table below). There may be more, but only these 10 are visible in this particular book page. If you know about any more, please tell me in which episode you've seen them, with time stamp. The writing system seems to be hieroglyphic, similar to Ancient Egyptian or Paleo Hebrew. I suspect these glyphs could have started as ideograms (that is, each one represented only one idea, as a whole). But later on ancient ponies figured out that they can join those ideograms together to make composite words, joining the meanings of the particular ideograms together. And for these words to be possible to pronounce, they read the first syllables of the subsequent glyphs of a word. (I'll explain it further in a minute...) One of the glyphs seems to be some kind of a prefix (or suffix): the Pony Tail glyph. It is often attached to the rump of a Horse glyph, but both these glyphs can also be used alone. In one place it's also attached to a Star glyph, making a "comet". If it's really some kind of a prefix/suffix, it should correspond to a sound which is easily joined to any other sound, like "H", for example. But, maybe it's just a coincidence... I don't know which direction it should be read: left-to-right, or right-to-left, or interleaved. But if it resembles Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs in any way, then maybe the direction can be figured out from the glyphs themselves: In Ancient Egyptian one reads a line of glyphs in a way to "meet" subsequent glyphs "from their fronts". For example, if some figure looks to the right, you need to approach it from right to left to "meet it face-to-face". So one could read Egyptian hieroglyphs in both directions, according to the direction of "looking" of these glyphs. In pony alphabet, horse figures are looking to the right, so it is probably read right-to-left, as in Hebrew. But maybe other directions are also possible (when the figures are mirror-imaged and look to the left). There's some evidence for it. For example, when Spike writes his notes in Episode 1, the bump in the papyrus under his feather seem to move right-to-left and left-to-right interchangeably. So it's possible that the direction is switched on line-by-line basis. Also, when Twilight looks through her books in Episode 1, you can clearly see that she always flips pages from right to left (that is, starting from the last page and going "back" to the first page of the book). This may suggest that books are written from the last page to the first, from right to left line/page. I don't know what sounds should be pronounced for those glyphs, but I tried to figure out the sound from the ideograms themselves. For example, I thought the best sound for the Horseshoe glyph would be the clopping "K" sound made by horse hooves clopping on the ground. For the glyph depicting Snake (at least I see a snake there, but it might also be a rope) could correspond to the hissing sound, like "S" or "Sh". The Thunder Bolt glyph could be related to some violent, "bursting" sounds, like "B", "D", or maybe electrical buzzing sound, like "Z". But I really have no clue what sounds these should be. Any ideas? In the following table, I show the whole alphabet: Beside the original hieroglyphs, I also added my own ideas of their corresponding hieratic versions, that is, for quick hand writing purposes. They're simpler and easier to scribble by pen. For each glyph, I also tried to match some sounds (in the Transliteration column). If you have any ideas how these glyphs should be pronounced and you can justify it in some way, feel free to tell me in this post. I hope for some interesting discussion here. Maybe together we can crack this code I also wrote in the table what (in my opinion) any of these glyphs depict (I have some troubles with the 0'th one, so if anypony has some idea, please tell me). Below, I wrote some possible meanings encoded in that particular glyph. Composite words can be formed by joining these glyphs and their meanings together. I've tried some examples below: Some of them are actually there in the fragment of the book shown in the screenshot, so this may be the right track. Now how to read those words? Suppose that the Horn and Crescent glyphs represent sounds for "N" and "M" respectively (I don't know this for sure, this is just a guess, for the sake of the example). So their combination might sound like MaNa, which is really the name for magical energy in many other fantasy worlds! I wonder if the similar trick could be done with the glyphs representing Bright Magic to get the word PraNa, which is also a name for bright life-giving energy in Eastern cultures. Then we'd have "mana" and "prana" for Dark Magic and Bright Magic But this could be possible only if the Star glyph were pronounced as "Pr" sound (which is not so strange for a language of horses you know, this snorting sound horses make sometimes). What other sounds do you think of for the Star glyph to make some interesting word for Bright Magic? Maybe you have some better ideas of how those glyphs should be mapped to sounds? In the table, there are also numerical values assigned to the glyphs. For now, they're just for ordering and reference purposes (let's call them PEGASCII codes though probably UniCode would be a better name for Unicorn's code ), because I don't know anything about what number systems are used by ponies (but I have some guesses; I'll get back to this). But I tried to correlate them on some logical basis. For example, glyph number 4 is the Horse glyph, because the horse has 4 legs. I used the Horn glyph to represent 1, because it's simple, just one straight slash. It's good for tally marks & stuff like that. I used the Star glyph for number 5, because it is a 5-pointed star. The number 3 is Thunder, because it has 3 lines (but this is not necessary). I took the Crescent glyph for number 6, because I wanted it to be just after the Star glyph, but it will probably be better for number 2 (two horns of the crescent). Other glyphs are assigned quite arbitrarily. But there is some interesting pattern, that all glyphs related to Unicorns are distributed in powers of two. More on this later. Also, I wondered if it wouldn't be better to use the Tail glyph as last, and Head glyph as first, but this breaks the pattern a little bit, and the Head is less useful for number 1, because its shape is too much complicated. As to the number system used by ponies, I suspect some place value system or additive system at least, because just plain unary is too limited. And it would be obvious to notice by lots of repeating glyphs for number one. I haven't seen anything like that in any of pony books. If it's place-value system (that is, a small number of digits, reused in different positions representing greater and greater powers of the base), then it could be in base 4 instead of base 10, because ponies don't have fingers to count (with the only exception of Pinkie Pie, as usual ), but they only count their whole legs (4 of them). This is related to that "powers of two" pattern above: 1, 2, 4, 8 (one leg/horn, two legs each front or back or side, foul legs in a pony, eight legs in two ponies etc.). Also, if they were to use base 10 place value system, it could be easily spotted from the first screenshot: we should have some glyph repeated thrice in a row, representing those three zeros in "1000th year". But there isn't any. So either ponies don't use base 10, but some other base (in base 4, 1000 is 33220, but we also don't see any two subsequent pairs of glyphs there), or they use just additive system, which adds values of some glyphs together. But then, we either need many glyphs to depict a number, or we need some bigger values for the glyphs (for example, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000) to write down the number 1000 used in the Transcript. And we need some way to find out which glyphs represent numbers instead of words. But such a system, on the other hand, is more for encoding meanings, like Gematria in the Jewish Kaballah system: you can then count up a value of any word to express some interesting patterns, like similar words having similar numerical values, etc. This is still an open subject, so any ideas are welcome. If you know about any other evidence of pony alphabets, please tell me about where you've found it (what episode, what timestamp). The more cryptograms the better. But for now, my only Rosetta Stone is this single book page from the first screenshot. I hope that this will start an interesting discussion about linguistics of the Ponydom

Hello Everypony! Sooooo.. I was just curious. The world is vast. And the Earth is, too. There are many countries, and many more languages and dialects! So, what does "biscuit" translate into your language and (optional: dialect)? In Malay, the word "biscuit" translates into "biskut", but in my dialect, the Kelantanese dialect, we call them "Sekut" (you'll have to press it on the S for it to sound right. But not too much that it sounds weird and absurd. e.g. SSekut) Well whad'ya know, you learn new things everyday! Twilight must've been proud of us! Well, I didn't know these translated into soo many different words! Diversity makes us different, yet it NEVER sets us apart. And it wouldn't ever! ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. “ If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. John F. Kennedy ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

So, I wanted to know what your first languages were, guys. I know a lot of you are native English speakers, but a lot of people here aren't. I just wanted to know the proportions. I added pretty much every language I could think of to give proper results, but I'm sure I forgot some here and there. Anyway, give us your first language and see how many there are in the forum with the same as you. Note: I know there are several chinese languages, but for the sake of them not taking half the poll, I just regrouped them together Oh, and my first language is French, by the way.

So I was watching some videos about accents, and I thought it would be cool to have a discussion about accents from our regions. So, lets talk about how silly we talk, or the people around us at least. I'm from Massachusetts, I really don't have much of an accent nor do most people I know, but I do notice I do sometimes say words a certain way sometimes although I think its subtle when it does comes out, but then again I might sound super off to somebody out of my region and I just don't notice. So here is a video of a lady speaking with the Boston accent, and she is so right about people faking the accent and calling it BAHHHSTON.

I was just wondering, are you currently learning a new language? If so, which one(s)? If not, are you planning on learning a new language anytime soon? I'm currently learning Burmese. When I visited Myanmar (Burma) I immediately fell in love with the language and I just had to learn it. It's so beautiful

There are a lot of very interesting words some with multiple meanings and even a few synonyms and some of us have a favorite word. My favorite word is the "F word", because it has a very nice ring to it and is a fairly versatile word that can be used in some particularly interesting ways. There is its literal context and of course as an insult, another way of describing getting ripped off or flim flammed and more. Even though it is my favorite I don't use it all that much because it does lose its power if used too much and there are certain situations where it might not be the best or place for it. So what is everyones favorite word?

I was thinking about creating a realistic portrayal of how language(s) would develop in Equestria. Of course you would have different language families, most likely divided by the different sentient species in their world; the equine languages, the griffin languages, the draconic languages, etc. Each would have their own unique history, dialects, grammar, phonetics, and more importantly lexicon, which would be highly influenced by their culture and way of life. Now let’s focus on the Ponies’ languages, or possibly a common Equestrian language that would have developed with the unification of the tribes. I was thinking they could develop an interesting noun classification system based on three groups; Earth/Terrequine, Sky/Pegasian, and Magic/Monocerous. This classification would not only apply to the types of ponies themselves, but reflect in how they view the world. Their names could take on the appropriate endings depending on if they were an earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn, and all nouns would get classified into one of those three groups; the ‘earth’ group for more earth-oriented things, the ‘sky’ group for sky-oriented things, and the ‘magic’ group for more abstract concepts. This could even apply to a single noun, where changing that noun’s ending or classification would change its meaning. Let’s make a word in example; perhaps la phona could mean “the tree” in earth form, then le phone could mean “the cloud” in sky form, and li phoni could mean “the pony (sentient individual; conscience)” in the magic form. (This is just for example; if I really make this language, there will be much more thought put into making it natural and have historical context with phonetic changes, irregularities, historic spelling rules, etc.) Now historically, among the three tribes, each one would’ve had their own distinct dialect of a “proto-equestrian” language, which would eventually shape the accents, dialects and colloquialisms of their modern counterparts. The unicorns’ language would’ve probably been more archaic and formed the basis for the standardisation of modern equestrian grammar; hence, people from Canterlot and aristocratic unicorns/ponies tend to speak very clearly with a distinct accent and word choice that could possibly sound ‘posh’ and ‘ritzy’ to other ponies. You could even have a similar thing to English where, after the invasion of Normandy, we took words from French, which took on a more pretentious and sophisticated feel as they were used by the aristocracy, yet we also retained the same words from Anglo-Saxon which have a lower register as they were used by the commoners or working class. So words from historic Unicorn language would sound more formal and sophisticated, while perhaps words originating from Earth Ponies would sound more simple. The earth ponies would also develop many accents and dialects of this modern Equestrian language based on their historic language(s), which could be perceived by other ponies to be very ‘country’ or ‘rustic’ (i.e. Applejack and the Apple family). Of course in modern Equestrian times these colloquialisms won’t always hold true solely based on a pony’s type; for example, Octavia is an Earth Pony who speaks kind of poshly or ‘properly’. You could also have unique accents arising in the city, for example Babs’ accent. Princess Luna, then, would speak a very archaic, unicornish form of the Equestrian language, possibly an Early Modern Equestrian language based in Canterlot (comparable to Early Modern English). If I continue through with this idea of documenting/creating a theoretical linguistic background for Equestria and constructing actual languages, I’ll probably post my progress here. Maybe one day we can have actual language courses and an entire community speaking an Equestrian language? That would be amazing. I’ll try to develop this more when I can, and hopefully I’ll have an actual speakable language underway soon. I will, however, probably have to start with an experimental Equestrian language first, before I start something serious, to kind of get an idea of how it would turn out and to get a basis for the whole thing. So what are your thoughts on all of this? Any extra ideas or Equestrian history you'd like to point out that may contribute to this?

Does somebody here sometimes watch the show in a foreign dub? I prefer the English original version, but I like languages and their differences and many songs sound a lot better in French and Finnisch, but Greek, German, Arabic and Russian sound nice too.

Hey there! I've searched the forums if theres a topic like this but there's none so.... Yeah. But I might have missed it but I couldn't find it after going through like 5 pages. I can speak four languages! English (duh) Tagalog German (a bit) French (still learning but getting there!) How about you guys? What languages are you learning or can speak?

It is one of the most iconic repeated phrases in the show, (there are other similar words like somppony obviously) being a pun for "anyone"/"anybody etc." is clever, but how would it translate in other languages? In English, it is easy to replace "-body" with "-pony," however in other languages it would be morr difficult to have am equivalent it seems to me. I have heard the Japanese version some, and they say "ponitachi"/ "ponytachi" in it, which works very well. Poni is the Japanese loan word based on how it sounds, so it means pony. Tachi is a polite added word to make it plural or rather collective. So pretty much the same, and works just as well for it. Of course not just anypony, but other pony puns would be nice to know. What do you think?

A comedy story written by DEI Caboose of Fimfiction.net, which I then proceeded to do a reading of.

Saluton "ponefratoj"! Does somebody here speak Esperanto? Currently I learn it. That's an artificial language created in the 1880s by Dr. Ludwik Zamenhof to serve as world language. He lived in a city with Poles, Russians, Germans and Jews and thought that many conflicts arose due to the language barrier, so he got the idea for an international auxiallary language. It's created to be as simply as possible to learn, while still having the precision and subleties of complex natural languages. It's special point are the same endings for all words of a grammatical category, for example, nouns all end in -o and adjectives in -a. With those endings and certain a-, in- and suffixes one can create neccessary words from word stems, so the number of words you actually have to learn is quite low. "Poneo" means "pony" and "frato" is "brother". They can easily be melted into a compound noun, like in Greek and German. The -j is the plural marker, like -s is in English and French, while "fratino" (the suffix -in is for the female gender, as it's used in German) means sister (literally "female brother"). The word Esperanto itself means "the one who hopes", esper- is the word stem for hope (it's taken from several Romanic languages), while the suffix -ant (from French) is for "people that do something", and then comes the -o to make it a noun. "La espero" (la is the definite article, just like "the" in English) means just "the hope" while "espera" is "hopeful". You can create whatever words you want, like "spacbatalanto", my ponysona's name Space Warrior (spaco = space, batalo = fight, -ant = the one who does something, -o = ending for nouns) or "planedestrino" for "female ruler of a planet" (planedo = planet, -estr = boss of something, -in = female gender, -o = 'cause it's a noun). "Doktoro Esperanto" was the pseudonym under which Dr Zamenhof published the first Esperanto book (Unua Libro aka The First Book). He called the language just "La Internacia Lingvo" (The International Language), but since that's a bit long and generic, the name of the book's author became a synonym for the language. He choose that name because he hoped that his creation would one day become the global lingua franca. "Global" means that all people on the planet learn Esperanto, to use it in international situations, like as a foreign ex-change student, on a vacation or when reading a translated novel. Dr Zamenhof never thought of Esperanto to replace other languages. It's a point of critic that modern-day English is used in non-English speaking countries in situations where it isn't neccessary and many fear that a world language would totally destroy diversity. But Esperanto wouldn't. Esperanto gained a lot of attention shortly after it was published. Millions of people in all of Europe started to learn it. There were congresses and clubs all over the continent. It could have become a world language. Unfortunately, this changed because World War Two. The Nazis hated Esperanto because Dr Zamenhof was a Jew. Adolf Hitler called it a Jewish secret-language for world domination in Mein Kampf. The Nazis banned Esperanto, closed all clubs and murdered many Esperantists. Dr Zamenhof's family was targeted for extermination. After the Second World War the rise of the United States as global superpower lead to English as de facto functional world language. But English is not international - just like Latin isn't Vaticanian - , it's imperial, since it's only so popular because the British Empire once ruled the seas and the United States are so dominant in politics, economy and culture of the Western world since World War II. But who knows what's going to happen in the future. Another constructed world language (that never became one) was Volapük, created by the German Catholic priest Johann Martin Schleyer after the had a dream where God told him to create a world language. It's name means "world speak", vol means world and pük is speak, both where taken from those English words, in fact nearly all words where derived from German, French and English. Volapük was a bit popular after it's publication, too, but Esperanto replaced it. Menade bal, püki bal - Eine Menschheit, eine Sprache - One humanity, one language Interlingua was an international auxiallary language that was used for diplomacy during the Interwar period. It has an extremely simplified grammar and takes all words from Latin and Romance languages. The most recent project for a real world language is Lingwa de Planeta. People at a Russian university work on it since 2010, it's based on the most wide-spread languages in the world. There are also lots of artistic languages that belletristic writers create for fictional worlds. The Elvish tongues Quenya and Sindarin from J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion) and Klingon from the Star Trek TV series are the best-known examples. Those three can be used, but most others have only fractual grammar and a restricted vocabulary, so they can't be spoken. But that doesn't bother somebody, since it'd be useless except at SciFi/Fantasy cons.^^

What languages do you like? Languages you don't? I don't like English, but I want to know Japanese some time. English is weird.

My mother tongue is English but I've always had a knack for watching shows and movies in other languages besides English. It's fun and I like seeing other's interpretations on the characters. MLP is all around the world, with many different dubs. What's your countries dub like? Is it good? Is it bad? Are the voices somewhat good? My personal favorite is the Latin American dub. I am part Mexican and I have a few younger cousins who don't speak English and watch the shows Spanish dub, so I watch that one sometimes. I think it's quite good! The voices may not be the most accurate but they do their jobs well enough! My favorite VA is Carla Castaneda who voices Twilight. She's a very good impersonation and sings very well for Twilight! But for some reason, for episodes 14-21 they replaced her VA and it was pretty noticable. Not sure who voiced her but while she did a good job she didn't quite match Carla's voice for Twilight. Since I'm a huge weeaboo XD I love the Japanese dub as well! My favorite VA from there is Pinkie's VA (or seiyuu) Suzuko Mimori who also voices Sonoda on Love Live. She impersonates Andrea Libman's voice flawlessly and she promotes MLP quite often on her Twitter. She also voiced Maud in Rainbow Rocks. Sadly, the show never got passed Season 2 in Japan but the Equestria Girls movies exist over there and the merchandise is quite popular too. I've heard rumors of it coming back through Netflix but I'm not sure if they're true. So, what's your favorite dub? If you don't speak English and MLP airs in your country what's it like?

So as I was writing something recently I came across a block in my flow, this block came in the form of not knowing what languages are called in the MLP verse. Can anypony here think of or direct me to the most 'offical' names of these languages? Note: The ones I am looking for are Latin and Greek, anything else is just a nice tid bit for future reference. At a dead end I decided to take a more etymological route. So the word Latin is derived from the word Latinus, which means "of Latium" But then in this case you would need to have a pony name for Lazio as that is the ancient name of Latium.

Warning; there is a spoiler for past sins in this, even though you know it two chapters in. If you haven't read, turn away. We good? What the hell is wrong with you guys? In what universe is Nyx a Mary Sue? Oh, you say, waving your hands around, just look at her. Well then, be prepared, because I'm about to rip you guys a new one! Ahem. I have always been a big fan of Past Sins. It's well written, everypony is in character, nothing is too fast paced, and yet, the best thing about all of this is Nyx, nightmare moon brought back. So, imagine my shock when I find that many, if not all the fandom,consider her to be a Mary Sue. After spending an hour ranting about this to my friend, who clearly thought I was insane, talking about magical ponies, I decided to do some research on Mary Sue's to prove she cannot possibly be one. Lets go (info found of tv tropes and how to; The personality of a Mary Sue - if she has one - is not nearly as important as how other characters react to it. No matter how shy or socially awkward Mary Sue is supposed to be, other characters will be drawn to her and inexplicably prefer her company over that of anyone else, all of her ideas are brilliant, all of her jokes are funny, all of her advice is an amazing breakthrough, people will trust her immediately, or very quickly, and feel more comfortable talking to her than to anyone else (even their own family or their significant other) even if she hasn't done or said anything to make them feel that way about her. Okay,yes there's Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, but before she became evil, Celestia was nervous of her, as were the townponies after the tug of war thing, and after many ponies who we like became wary of her. Heck,even Twilight and Spike were scared of her at first. If another character doesn't feel this way about Mary Sue, it's usually to portray them as either bad or just an idiot. Again, above Mary Sue doesn't have to actually do anything to be considered a good person, she just is good and by extension anything she does is good and even when she does nothing she brings more good into the world simply by existing than any other character ever could. Goodness just seems to seep out of her body like radiation. Nope, sure she has hesitations, but she still blocks out the sun, attacks Celestia and Luna AND threw the CMC in jail. Highly Persuasive, regardless of the actual content of their conversations. Everyone finds her opinions are just better than their own - even when they're usually stubborn bastards. Remember how she couldn't convince Twilight to let her go to the play? Friend to All Living Things The cake twins are scared of her. Ponies want to kill her. She loves everyone and forgives them all for their imperfections, plus she is willing to save, protect or risk all for the sake of someone she has met just seconds ago. Is either brave and cheerful (despite her past— not unheard of in real life, but with Sues it tends to come across as Angst? What Angst?), or unnecessarily mopey and depressed. That first part, she herself admitted it was mostly trying to make up to them. And she hasn't had a really angsty past,Nightmare Moon did. She's NOT Nightmare Moon. And she's not cheerful Incorruptible. In fact, unaware of the possibility of temptation. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Occasionally a complete asshole, especially when she's supposed to be all of the above. Nobody will call her out on her abrasive, casually abusive behavior. Strong badass characters who would normally rip someone's spleen out for squeezing the toothpaste from the wrong end, are instantly cowed and become meek, spineless Wangst factories as soon as she "puts them in their place." No, no she was told off MANY times. Full-on Jerk Sues will routinely be flippant, snide, and rude, yet will be treated as a charmingly sarcastic character. They will flout authority as a matter of course and never suffer the consequences. Even if said authority figure is known for a tough stance on disrespect, they will either gamely ignore the Sue's challenge to their authority, or—worse still—praise her for her "cheekiness" or "boldness." She's not this Her "major flaws" will be stubbornness and a bad temper. These will only ever help her, never hurt her — because she's always right, so whatever cause she dedicates herself to with such stubbornness will be a good cause, and whoever she loses her temper with will deserve it. Despite later books saying she gains a hot temper and stubbornness, her biggest flaw is her awful shyness and social skills Sometimes they'll mess her up once so she can learn an important lesson. And then they'll help her for the rest of the story. No, She learned her lesson then she almost died in the battle against The Everfree, and again against Celestia/Luna A character who's described as being blunt to the point of rudeness or tactlessness will be praised for being "refreshingly honest" or for "telling it like it is." Only the bad guys or other unsympathetic characters will ever say, "What a bitch." Rainbow calls her a crybaby, right to her face. If she has any flaws intentionally written in by the creator, expect them to be Informed or not really flaws to begin with. Bonus points if they're genuine flaws that would actually be pretty awesome were it not for their drawbacks (e.g. substance abuse, nymphomania, etc.), and of course the drawbacks will never be shown. She is petrified of meeting new ponies Clumsiness in the Mary Sue is not seen as a flaw, but a potentially cute character trait. If it is implemented heavily enough into a character to be a flaw, the character devolves into Plucky Comic Relief and if they are the protagonist, the story risks becoming pure slapstick. She's taking lessons from Rarity. Trust me darling, she's not clumsy Unjustified I Just Want to Be Normal: Being super awesome is a curse. Now in a franchise like X-Men, a character can find their awesomeness a curse, but at the very least it's because mutants are feared and their powers can cause them serious problems. The Mary Sue, on the other hand, will claim she wishes she was normal even when there's no actual downside to her powers. She's basically an X-Filly,being shunned. Inexplicable and/or poorly-defined abilities in general, especially if they play no factor in the plot after their introduction (not even as a Required Secondary Power) and are only there to make the character seem even more awesome. No,no they were nescessary for the end, and she is an alicorn Regardless of what skill level the canon characters have established, she might just simply be better than them, often in ways that do not make sense. Not to mention that if she isn't already skilled at something, she'll pick it up in a fraction of the time required - if she even needs to learn them at all. She/he may have powers similar to what the other characters have, only with all of the downsides and limitations removed. Yes, she did defeat Celestia, but she does have limitations. She almost died in the fight of The Everfree A perfect singing voice. Most often shows up in Mary Sue Classic. This died out for a while, but is returning due to the popularity of pop divas. She may also have an extreme proficiency with an musical instrument of her choice. (Bonus Points if said instrument is something that would be highly improbable for her to know how to play, such as a Princess Classic from medieval France who knows how to play the didgeridoo.) We have yet to hear her sing, but she can't play an instrument, and Sweetie is definately better than her And if it's a Song Fic, she'll possess the ability to compose her own lyrics and songs. Of course, they're NOT her own lyrics, they've been ripped off the internet by the author. It's not She tends to not have normal sex, but the most mind-blowingly divine sex ever, regardless of how experienced she actually is. (She is usually, though not always, explicitly a virgin.) And her lover is often a Draco in Leather Pantsquickly Heel Face Turned by her vagina. Um . . .. Speaks several languages fluently. This can vary depending on the setting, of course. A modern-day diplomat is expected to know at least one or two other languages, but a 14-year-old peasant girl in Medieval Europe shouldn't speak Japanese and Hindi fluently. It's much worse if it includes animals. Bonus points if an alien lands in her backyard and she can communicate instantly (provided it doesn't speak the language already). She may be able to speak Batpony and possibly old Equestrian, but that's because of her past The most common second languages are probably Romance languages (because they sound awesome), Japanese (for the otaku) and Lakota (many Suesnote are of American Indian admixture, but never more than half). Not in this universe Skilled in a type of martial arts in a setting or with a backstory that doesn't allow for it. Not regularly skilled either; she could kick the ass of the resident ninja of her choice. She just uses her magic to fight, not that she can now Just random magical powers, such as telepathy in a universe where it's never even been mentioned. No Absurd natural athletic ability - she can run like the wind without ever having worked on her running, and has impossibly high acrobatic skills. She may have Earth Pony Powers, but she hasn't shown them And with all this - don't expect the Green-Eyed Monster to show up. Envy appears in the Mary Sue's life only as a means of angst, and so does not appear just because the Mary Sue has everything. Nyx was jealous of Princess Luna and Celestia for being loved Alternately, anybody who does get jealous is a bitch and is wrong. This is typically a single other character and may be Die for Our Ship or for other reasons. This, I'l give to them Mary Sues always has excellent fashion sense, even if she's meant to be a rough-and-tumble Tomboy type who doesn't care about that sort of thing, she will always look effortlessly beautiful and other characters, often males, will frequently talk about how they like that she isn't as high maintenance as other girls (if she has a female rival they might mention her specifically.) It's more Rarity than her All skills and traits unusual for the setting can pretty easily fall into this, since young authors usually forget to portray all consequences of picking a certain trade. For example, a medieval peasant girl will have no problems becoming a respected genius scholar. No, these are all usual for this setting. So Beautiful, It's a Curse™. While being attractive isn't a qualifier of Mary Sue (who wants to be ugly?), it's a bit excessive to try and play it as being some sort of disadvantage. Alternatively she may only be Suetiful All Along. In an Anti-Sue, this is reversed into a hideous monster. Regardless, her astounding beauty (or astounding lack of it) will make her stand out from the crowd - or so we're constantly being told. She's an alicorn because SHE'S NIGHTMARE-BUCKIN-MOON, and because of Nightmares design, she was given cat eyes. But she wears normal things to hide them, so she blends in. Unusual hair relative to canon is another common characteristic of Mary Sue. Alternatively, these features may be amazing in other ways - shining and shimmering eyes, or Anime Hair in non-Anime fandoms. Rapunzel Hair is also common. Her hair is actually very plain. Note that White Hair isn't really considered all that unusual in anime-based fiction. It only becomes Sue-ish if it makes her special. More important than colour is highlights. Of course hair dye is nothing special, but somehow Sue's streaks are not only a colour completely different from the base, but also natural. Nature allows some leeway here - blonds with dark roots aren't unheard of, but that's not what Sues are after. Similarly, these "natural" highlights are often a color such as blue, pink, purple or any other color that doesn't occur naturally in hair outside anime. No white and no highlights Kaleidoscope Eyes: Seeing it in text is practically an instant Mary Sue qualifier. Mismatched Eyes or heterochromia, are a common alternate choice. No,she's good If the setting is at least semi-realistic and she isn't Caucasian, expect her to have eyes that aren't brown. Blue, green, and grey are popular choices (not counting unnatural ones like violet, gold, or cat/lizardlike), even though 90% of the world's population has boring brown eyes. Also expect those eyes to be described in overly poetic or specific terms ("celery green," "cerulean," "slate-grey"). Expect these adjectives to be repeated more than once. A very easy way to identify a Mary Sue is by looking at beauty magazines, note all physical attributes praised in them and look at a fanfic at the time of the beauty magazine's release to notice that all of those attributes praised in those magazines are part of the character, but taken Up to Eleven. If height and weight figures are given, expect it thus to violate physics (unless she's made of Styrofoam or something). Yes, she has cat eyes, but,once again, her design had to be based off Nightmare Moon. Mary Sues tend to be drastically underweight, and their authors may attempt to even instill Angst, claiming that their character is extremely overweight (or at least believes herself to be) and even abused by other characters for their weight. Nah, we're good. I haven't seen any pictures of her, but it was never brought up This particular trait is magnified if her role in the story has her doing things that would require a lot of upper body strength and therefore bulk, such as wielding a sword or fighting hand-to-hand. It's magnified even more if there are other female canon characters with similar roles who are built more like female mixed martial arts fighters. Having one lone waifish and delicate young girl in that group because the author thinks muscular women are gross-looking and to have that lone waif fight just as well or better than someone with more muscle mass despite her physical limitations is a bog standard Mary Sue trait. Not a guard, despite what her cutie mark is. Too young Mary Sue is also never depicted as putting too much effort into maintaining her body; she may get an Adrenaline Make Over, but she never has to diet or exercise (she may exercise for other reasons, but never just to maintain a certain weight or to look a certain way) or use any cosmetic products, she just naturally looks (the author's idea of) perfect and usually doesn't understand why everyone is so impressed by her effortlessly flawless appearance. Most real-life models—male and female—spend hours a day working out and maintaining their physique because being beautiful is literally their job. She's a filly. She should wait a couple more years first No matter how thin the character is in other areas, however, there will be one area in which she is more than amply endowed. Authors with some interest in actual biology should note that women who are mistaken for anorexic are rarely G-cups. No matter what she's been through, Mary Sue will never look ugly. The worst she'll ever be reduced to is Unkempt Beauty, and even if she is somehow injured and scarred or handicapped, the scar will always be a cool-looking, Bond villain-type scar that serves as more of a decoration than anything else. Plus, when she overcomes the handicap, she will be just as amazing as she was before getting injured (or better). Ponies outright say she looks creepy and weird Likewise, if Mary Sue has a birthmark, it will be in a significant shape (heart, half moon, etc.) and never in a place that compromises her beauty. Expect the Mary Sue to consider the birthmark to make her unattractive. This will be despite the fact that other characters insist that the birthmark makes her more attractive, especially in comparison to physically flawless characters. She'll often wear revealing outfits with tons of gems, fishnets, Frills of Justice, and other extraneous details, even if it may be difficult or impossible to find such an outfit in her world (or be well outside of her realistic price bracket). Such flashy outfits will likely be just too impractical to wear in Real Life. Even if the rest of the cast wears uniform. No to both of those Purple seems to be popular. After all, Graceful Ladies Like Purple, Purple Is Powerful and Supernatural Is Purple. This applies especially when the canon characters are a Five-Man Band color-coded with red, yellow, green, blue and white/silver/black/pink. Gold is about the second most popular. Her color is more blue or dark navy or black. Descriptions of her looks are usually overly-detailed and distinctly violet-hued. Because saying she's slim with long black hair and blue eyes only tells you what she looks like. Saying she's a delicate, willowy goddess with flowing tresses that shimmer onyx like the feathers of a raven and sparkling cerulean orbs that shine like the ocean and radiate with femininity tells you she's special. Likewise she will describe her clothing in pretentious Purple Prose. Sometmes she'll do it with every outfit she wears. Most descriptions we got are 'a black alicorn filly with no cutie mark and cat eyes.' If they are some sort of animal or generally nonhuman species, they may have strange and unnatural fur colours - even outside of the aforementioned purple. Also expect colour combinations that clash horrifically (especially in text where thought won't have been put into how they actually look). Rainbow colored manes, Pink pastel fur,Griffins There's also a tendency to give animals humanlike hair and Non Mammalian Mammaries. In many cases, she'll possess some animal-like physical trait, such as wings, cat ears, or a tail, but otherwise appears human, in a world were such traits are rare or nonexistent. Bonus points if she believes this makes her look ugly even when all the other characters tell her the exact opposite Well yes, she is a horse Obscenely long eyelashes. Appears on Sues of both genders. Not really Their skin color either the same as the author's or what the author views as the prettiest/ideal skin color. Because of this, Mary Sues are usually white (and often a pale shade of white,) but darker-skinned Sues are not unheard of (see the section on ethnicity below.) A Villain Sue may have physical flaws, but a "good" Sue never will. Especially so if she happens to be a Purity Sueand/or a Relationship Sue. SHE HAS CAT EYES SO, THERE YOU GO, NOT A MARY SUE. I rest my case. XPICKS NYX UP AND CARRIES HER WITH MEX p.s sorry if some words are blue

Just curious: How many bronies out there watch MLP FiM in different languages? Allow me to explain: I take German in school, and my father speaks it fluently. I personally think it's a beautiful language and I dream to speak it someday So, being my curious self, I looked up MLP in German. I discovered the cutest little pony voices and funny accents. The cool part is I understood some of it! Anyway, go ahead and try it out: Listen to all the Mane 6's voices in German. Super cute! "20% Cooler"

In Swarm of the Century, Twilight asks Zecora for advice and when she gets there Zecora's balancing on a stick and then gets a fright, falls off, and asks "Have you gone mad?" but doesn't rhyme. Why wasn't she rhyming then, and on an unrelated note, why was she balancing on a stick?

Hello everyone, I need help of all of you. I’m doing a multilanguage video of the mitic "Laughter Song", it’s going to have 32 languages with the lyrics and translated into english, and some languages are missing. I have been travel into all the Internet to find someone who could help me, even I have been in tons of chats but everything was in vane. Even I asked in Derpibooru and I had a bit of help (which I thanks a lot!). Could anyone help me please? ALSO: I have posted each video of each language which I need with the correct timing, but if it isn't enough, below you would find the concrete file . I would need the translation of these: _____________________________________________________________________ Japanese: 怖いものはすべて笑い飛ばそう はっはっはっ! Romaji: Kowai mono wa subete warai tobasou Ha-ha-ha! _____________________________________________________________________ Languages which I need both lyrics and translation _____________________________________________________________________ Cantonese: From 0:50 to 0:58 Press here to hear the song Thai: From 0:56 to 1:06 Press here to hear the song Croatian: From 0:43 to 0:48 Press here to hear the song Romanian: From 0:24 to 0:28 Press here to hear the song Slovene: From 0:46 to 0:50 Press here to hear the song _____________________________________________________________________ The MP3 file with all the languages and timing below of each one: (bold and red languages are the ones which I need). http://www.mediafire.com/listen/beb7iuxhggbadyy/Multilanguage_Laughter_Song.mp3 Germanic Languages: English: 0:00 - 0:05 (Done!) Danish: 0:05 - 0:09 (Done!) German: 0:09 - 0:16 (Done!) Swedish 0:16 - 0:20 (Done!) Dutch: 0:20 - 0:25 (Done!) Norwegian: 0:25 - 0:31 (Done!) Slavic Languages: Slovak: 0:31 - 0:38 (Done!) Polish: 0:38 - 0:43 (Done!) Slovene: 0:43 - 0:47 (Need) Croatian: 0:47 - 0:54 (Need) Czech: 0:54 - 1:09 (Done!) Russian: 1:09 - 1:15 (Done!) Serbian: 1:15 - 1:18 (Done!) Romance Languages: Latin American Spanish 1:18 - 1:24 (Done!) European Spanish: 1:24 - 1:30 (Done!) Italian: 1:30 - 1:35 (Done!) Romanian: 1:35 - 1:40 (Need) European Portuguese: 1:40 - 1:48 (Done!) Brazilian Portuguese: 1:48 - 1:53 (Done!) French: 1:53 - 1:57 (Done!) Uralic Languages: Finnish: 1:57 - 2:00 (Done!) Hungarian: 2:00 - 2:12 (Done!) Semitic Languages: Arabic: 2:12 - 2:18 (Done!) Hebrew: 2:18 - 2:28 (Done!) Slavic Languages Serbian Mini TV: 2:28 - 2:34 (Done!) Helenic Languages Greek: 2:34 - 2:41 (Done!) Austronesian Languages Indonesian: 2:41 - 2:50 (Done!) Japonic Languages: Japanese: 2:50 - 2:57 (Need translation) Koreanic Languages: Korean: 2:57 - 3:07 (Done!) Sino-Tibetan Languages: Cantonese: 3:07 - 3:15 (Need) Thai Kadai Languages: Thai: 3:15 - 3:28 (Need) _____________________________________________________________________ That’s all, it’s a pretty hard work, because I will also do a karaoke style with ALL THE LANGUAGES. This video if you want to see, will be able to see in some days in my YouTube channel (I hope) And thanks in advance! _____________________________________________________________________ A little capture of how it would look like the video, for the curious ones: And another capture of my organization:

So, I was browsing a website called Knowable, and I happened across this poem. I feel like it perfectly sums up the entire English language and the strange way we pronounce words almost exactly the same as something completely different. Enjoy! Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!! (I don't know who wrote this, if it was the OP or if it was copy and pasted. If anyone recognises it, do tell. Here's where I found it.)

This might give some interesting results. Given that MLP Forums is on the international English-speaking web, intuition would say that most would likely be from primarily English-speaking countries. The reason I chose to put attention on the language of the national anthem is because that language would most likely be a big part of that culture's identity. Perhaps not totally (I'm looking at you, Quebec) but large enough.

How many other ponies out there use alt commands? I use them when typing out Sēkr's name, since he has that macron above the 'e', but that's the only place I've seen any accent mark on the forums.

I'm translating the transcript of the first two episodes into Latin! Trying, at least, I haven't been studying for too long

IS there anymore instances that show the Ponies having there own written language like is shown in this episode (The Show Stoppers) because there language seems to consist of ϟ, ♞, ★, ☾, ☋, and a few others that I can't find (Swirl, Unicorn Horn, Leaf, etc.)...