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Languages with rich literary traditions | ||
Tags: Literature | Multilingual | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6233 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes  14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 63 16 November 2007 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just thought it would be very interesting to "rate" the body of literary works in different languages... That is, which language do have an extensive body of (ancient, modern) literature written, and which do not? I am saying this because I myself am interested in the literature of different languages, so it might be interesting for other people and me to know which languages can boast a long literary tradition with many works of great significance.
For starters, most 'big' Western European languages do. It might also be nice if you could name the writers/poets that made this language a great literary language. And for extinct languages, it might be interesting to know whether many works have 'survived'. For instance: German - Goethe, Schiller, Eichendorff, Hesse, Mann Dutch - Vondel, Hooft, Hermans, Mulisch, Reve English - Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton French - Dumas, Maupassant, Flaubert, Zola Russian - Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenjev That's just for starters, obviously. I just named a few names that instantly sprung to my mind. It might be interesting though to obtain such a list for lesser known/less heard of languages as well as for languages farther away from home which I personally know very little about (Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malay, etc.). I do hope people participate and we could make a list rating the 'richness' and/or availability of the literary output of many languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6445 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 2 of 63 16 November 2007 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Other languages to add (Italian having undoubtedly the longest European tradition of literature):
Italian - Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Tasso, Manzoni, Leopardi, Carducci, Pascoli, Eco Spanish - De Cervantes, Neruda, Garcia Marquez, Borges Finnish - Kivi, Aho, Waltari, Lönnrot Estonian - Kreutzwald, Kallas, Liiv, Tammsaare, Kross Icelandic - Sturluson (the famous saga writer), Laxness, PĂ©tursson, HallgrĂmsson Latin - Ennius, Plautus, Lucretius, Catullus, Cicero, Caesar, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Seneca, Tacitus, Dante Edited by bela_lugosi on 16 November 2007 at 7:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElfoEscuro Diglot Senior Member United States cyworld.com/brahmapu Joined 6280 days ago 408 posts - 423 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 63 16 November 2007 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Japanese literature is very rich. Some of the earliest works include Kojiki & Nihonshoki.
Korean literature also is rich. Some of its earlier works include Samguk Yusa & Gyunyeojeon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6682 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 63 16 November 2007 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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How rich are Chinese and Arabic literatures?
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| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6233 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes 14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 5 of 63 16 November 2007 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||
I thought Greek held that position. Could anyone elaborate? Just in case, sorry for my ignorance... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jankagan Tetraglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6273 days ago 31 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Afrikaans, French Studies: Modern Hebrew, Spanish | Message 6 of 63 16 November 2007 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese has one of the longest continuous traditions, spanning about 3000 years: Kongfuzi's (Confucius) Analects, Sunzi's (Sun Tzu Art of War, Sima Qian's Shiji, Tang dynasty poetry, Hong Lou Meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), and Xiyouji (Journey to the West) by Wu Chengren, all come to mind.
Greek literature goes further back than Italian's existance. The Odyssey, the Iliad, and Sappho are some of the classical. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mabajsas Newbie Sweden Joined 6425 days ago 16 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 7 of 63 17 November 2007 at 2:57am | IP Logged | ||
I'm not sure, but I think Arabic has a rich literary tradition (the Quran). Doesn't One Thousand and One Nights include Arabic literature as well? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6333 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 8 of 63 17 November 2007 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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China is the world's oldest civilization, therefore I presume its literature is very rich culturally. Edited by Asiafeverr on 17 November 2007 at 6:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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