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Languages with rich literary traditions | ||
Tags: Literature | Multilingual | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Cisa Super Polyglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6410 days ago 312 posts - 309 votes  2 sounds Speaks: Hungarian*, Slovak, FrenchC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin, SpanishB2, RussianB2, GermanB2, Korean, Czech, Latin Studies: Italian, Cantonese, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Hindi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakh, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew | Message 9 of 63 17 November 2007 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Some Hungarian names if somebody is interested. :D
Poetry: Arany János, Petofi Sándor, József Attila, Ady Endre, Radnóti Milós... Novels: Szabó Magda, Gárdonyi Géza, Krúdy Gyula, Jókai Mór, Rejto Jeno, Eszterházy Péter... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_literature Edited by Idril on 17 November 2007 at 3:51pm 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 10 of 63 17 November 2007 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks Idril. I plan to learn Hungarian in the future.
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| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6324 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 11 of 63 18 November 2007 at 12:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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Of course, it depends on what kind of literature you are talking about, but anyways, what about Tamil, with a very looong literature tradition: Tamil literature?
The same for Persian: Persian literature, there's more to it than just Omar Jayyam. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6278 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 12 of 63 18 November 2007 at 2:21am | IP Logged | |||||
Asiafever,
Are you sure that it is the oldest civilization? I think you should re-check this, as that is something that can be up for debate. As for literature-wise. Sanskrit and Hindi is a good resource. I'm not Hindu, but I can confidently say that Hinduism is probably the oldest organized religion on Earth. And with religion comes alot of literature. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| FaWzY Triglot Newbie Egypt Joined 6208 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English, Arabic (Written)*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 13 of 63 18 November 2007 at 3:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Arabic has a very very rich literary tradition, in the past, almost all Arabs wrote poetry, well structured, vocabulary richened, grammatically perfect poetry.
There are way too many writers that have written in all domains, but unfortunately nobody knows about them outside the Arab world. Also the Persian, Indian & Turkish have a solid literary tradition 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 24karrot Diglot Groupie United States speakingboricua.blog Joined 6375 days ago 72 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 14 of 63 18 November 2007 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I second the Persian literature comment. There is incredible poetry in Persian that has never reached the West (or has but escaped unnoticed). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6404 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 63 18 November 2007 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think Judaism might be older. From wikipedia, "Modern Hinduism grew out of the Vedas, the oldest of which is the Rigveda, dated to 1700–1100BC." "the history of Judaism begins with the Covenant between God and Abraham (ca. 2000 BCE)" 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7123 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 16 of 63 18 November 2007 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think what Asiafever was referring to is the commonly accepted notion that Chinese civilization is the oldest continuous civilization in existence today. Whereas there are other older civilizations: ancient Egypt, Babylon and Assyria, etc which are definitely older than Chinese by at least a thousand years. However, their modern successors have not kept the language (at least written, modern Mandarin is a far cry from the Chinese of the classical period) nor built a modern identity around their earliest civilizations.
Now that I've said that, I've long had doubts about whether one really claim 3000 (or 5000 as the government does) years of Chinese culture. I tend to think of Chinese civilization/culture really beginning around the Qin and Han dynasties (c 221BC to 200AD). To answer the question of this thread: yes, China has a very long literary tradition beginning around 800BC (roughly the same time as Homer) and includes poetry, drama, belles lettres and fiction. Nearly any time period you pick in China from the Warring States on has a wealth of writers still known and taught to school children today. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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