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Dead Languages & Polyglottery | ||
Tags: Sanskrit | Polyglottery | Romance Languages | Dead Languages | Alexander Arguelles | Greek | Latin | Reading | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6944 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 89 of 115 31 July 2006 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
If we replace "valuable" with "high impact", somewhere between Fanatic and Ardaschir a lot of people in this forum learned about and started using Assimil, and have felt that their language-learning experience has not been the same since. To me this is far more important than worrying about someone's remarks of the sort that one needs to know six foreign languages in order to be considered an educated person - specialists often see the world through the prism of their passion, be they linguists, mathematicians or scientists. I think most people here are smart enough to understand that and pick out what's relevant to their own language goals. Edited by frenkeld on 31 July 2006 at 7:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6745 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes Speaks: English* | Message 90 of 115 31 July 2006 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
I just wish mainland Europe and the US would finally allow their citizens to take classes in irony, never mind foreign languages ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6944 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 91 of 115 01 August 2006 at 9:41am | IP Logged | |||||
In the US we admire all things British while typically practicing the more heavy-handed and less refined versions of those. In particular, while we are not as good at irony, we do pretty well with its first cousin sarcasm. Better watch out. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tjerk Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6758 days ago 54 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, English, Spanish, French Studies: Swedish | Message 92 of 115 02 August 2006 at 5:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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On the mainland, we also most value british irony, especially the most subtle version.. the best ones are the ones you hardly notice and understand five minutes later :-)
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| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 93 of 115 02 August 2006 at 5:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I must say, the dry, ironic wit of Brits on TV is a lot more entertaining than
the slapstick antics of actors on American comedies. :) I say this coming from Canada, the country that invented Red Green and Leslie Nielson. Hm, how do I tie this in with dead languages to stay on-topic? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6944 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 94 of 115 02 August 2006 at 9:04am | IP Logged | |||||
I kind of like Charlie Chaplin, I must say. He was a bit of both, not surprisingly. But yes, let's get back to the topic. Here: BACK TO DEAD LANGUAGES FROM THIS POINT ON! Edited by frenkeld on 02 August 2006 at 9:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 95 of 115 31 August 2006 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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... and the thread died when we had to return to the subject.
However I have one more question: the participants in this discussion have focussed on Latin as an element in the study of Romance languages. Whether or not you think that Latin is useful for students and if yes, when it will be most relevant, then at least Latin has one thing that speaks for it, namely that it has had a lot of offspring. What about Anglo-Saxon, Old Hoch-Deutsch, Ancient Greek? Or Tocharian, Hittite, Sumerian? Apart from the sheer fun of being able to read Beowulf and Aristofanes and the Gilgamesh thing in the original versions, knowledge of these languages would open thousands of years of history for us, just as listening to Middle age music does. One of the main reasons for not learning these languages is the complete utter dullness of anything written about them, in particular the textbooks (in so far there are any). Only in Latin there has been attempts to make modern reading materials, but in a time of general decline in the interest in the classics I guess that they have come too late. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tjerk Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6758 days ago 54 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, English, Spanish, French Studies: Swedish | Message 96 of 115 01 September 2006 at 3:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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not much to add iversen.. what you say is true.
but i guess if you want to learn one of those, you are really motivated to do so and you don't mind that much exploring dull grammars.. You have also to take in account, that there is also discussion about these languages. I mean scholars don't always agree about the specific meaning of words or grammar rules, neither are they complete.. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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