@Ƙatarina If discussion about anything close to politics is not allowed, I will go back to talking about tv series and the weather, making the most out of my life for sure....

@Miriam That is a whole other question on where to draw the line between fluency, a frequently asked question.

However when it comes to determining "variants" of languages, in my opinion people should be as neutral and objective as possible without taking in any political consideration, especially on a place like Italki and other international language sites.

If you showed a non-native speaker (ie random person) clips of spoken Croatian and Serbian, saying the same sentences, from their neutral viewpoint they would say both are the same language and they couldn't tell the difference because there is no difference. In this case written form is different (as is the case with Urdu and Hindi - Hindustani), but the core of the language is in its spoken form. You can use the term "Variants" for these cases, since they are one language but written in two separate scripts. Back to the example of Farsi, the Dari

"language" (according to Afghanistan) is no "variant" because it's written in Arabic script, the same as Farsi, so there are no excuses for this one.

I would like all these languages websites to adopt new labels and classification based on objectivity. "Variants" can exist when one language is written differently in two separate countries (ex. Croatian and Serbian), but for the ones which have no script difference (Farsi and "Dari", Romanian and "Moldovan", Bulgarian and "Macedonian") they should be under the same label.

@Ƙatarina Serbians are the main proponents of the fact there is only one Serbo-Croatian language in existence, which is the language of Croatia, Serbia, B&H, Montenegro. Good news. However, the Croats hate you people and they insist on using the term "Croatian".

There is this Serbian teacher on here who won "Polyglot" of the year award. She speaks many languages besides Serbo-Croatian, ironically also Farsi (so she gets +2 with Dari and Tajik), and she claims Croatian and Bosnian and Serbian and Montenegrin are different enough that they need their own curriculum. I can understand the difference in writing Cyrillic vs. Latin between Croat and Serb, if someone wants to learn either of these languages, however what about Bosnian and Montenegrin? It's just ridiculous. People in these countries push for difference. The Bosnians say "we have a Turkish loanword so our language is unique!", which is just ridiculous, and the Montenegrins say "we use an additional letter (barely used at all) in our alphabet, so our language is our own different from Serbian!". This is just pure political division.

@Ian I'm not an expert on Asian languages, but I've also heard they are very similar Laotian and Thai. Not confident enough to say they are the same. Also the Malay languages like Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia etc. are the same just named after their countries.

@Alkhatib. I know Islam very well, and the concept of the "Ummah" (the community/Muslim creed), and this concept isn't existing in modern Christianity that much since the concept of "Christendom" in the middle ages. The Ottomans were just an Empire that turned evil for both Muslims and non-Muslims. Islamic Caliphates from what I know of history, like Ummayad Rashidun Abbasid Fatimid, are not meant to be supremacist and ethnic-nationalist empires. The Ottomans by the 20th century were both pan-Turkic and extreme Turkish supremacist/nationalist. Not a worthy Caliphate by any stretch of the imagination. More like a major disgrace.

The reason Turks don't learn languages is the same reason many persons in Russia do not learn languages. They are used to exporting their own language and shoving it down peoples throats through oppressive rule, and they think so highly of their culture that they don't bother to learn languages. I'm sure Russians and Turks would have close stats relative to knowledge of a second language, both were former Empires. I will leave the US and UK out of the picture because English is more of a global language today, and English is neutral.

@Alkhatib. Turkey only has a high approval with Arabs and Pakistanis because of Islam, in particular the mainstream Sunni Islam. Is this a sufficient reason to support a country? it seems like absolute blind support if you ask me. Just because I am from a Christian background does not seem I love Russia, because its Christian, and I have blind unconditional approval when they go to war with "Muslims" and commit war crimes. This isn't the year 1300AD. On the contrary, I disprove of Russian aggression and view the country neutrally as I would any other.

Getting back to the original question, Turkey has a supremacist attitude over other cultures, including the Arab one. This is just a societal problem. Why does Turkey want to eradicate the Kurdish language so badly?? Why does Turkey bully and harass its neighbors like Greece and Armenia?? They seem to have a major inferiority complex and they take delight in tormenting other people.

Day 3. "<s>The</s> An interesting fact about our DNA"

Today I read an interesting article. And now I want to tell you about it)

Did you know that women see colors better than men because of their DNA? I didn't know about this before <s>it</s>.

Scientists say the reason <s>is</s> lies in our DNA. Our chromosomes contain DNA, which <s>controls</s> dictates many things about us. For example, the ability to see the color red is carried by the X chromosome. Men have only one X chromosome, but women have two of them. This means that it’s easier for women to see red.

This ability was important in prehistoric times when women <s>were looking</s> looked/searched for <s>a</s> fruit to eat. They needed to choose a ripe <s>right</s> fruit, so they had to be able to see a clear difference between the <s>different</s> colo<s>u</s>rs. If they made a mistake, through picking a poisonous fruit, they could kill their families and themselves. So, it was more important for women to see different colo<s>u</s>rs, while men had <s>a</s> other important skills.