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Dabbler’s Log: Ancient Egyptian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 7 22 September 2009 at 8:54pm | IP Logged |
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Well, this was unexpected. I've been trying to overcome my chronic language-hopping for months now, and have so far managed to stick to just Italian without straying too far into the realms of other languages that interest me. I've mostly been a good girl, honest. Up till now. For reasons I don't quite understand - I mean, I can't think of anything specific that's happened recently - my love for all things Ancient Egyptian (language-related or otherwise) has been rekindled, and I can't seem to fight the urge to at least make it my pre-booked vacation destination, for when the wanderlust hits me.
And it has, sort of, except I don't plan to give up on Italian - Ancient Egyptian (which is too long for me to write in full again and again in this log so I'll simply refer to it as AE from this point on) will just be an added bonus, something I can play with after I'm done with Italian for the day if I have time, but won't be the main star of the show until I'm 'done' with Italian (whatever that means), and possibly not even then. Italian is still my number one and on any one day I won't prioritize this over Italian, that's just how needs to be. I'll be posting here only sporadically, because I'll be studying it somewhat sporadically. I'll update the first post when I add more resources for study. Beware that long rants about my reasons for doing this may appear in this log without prior notice. There, now you can't say I didn't warn you. For now - for no other reason than because I already have them here - I'll be using How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs by Collier and Manley to start me off, as well as having a look at The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day to refamiliarise myself with the content, even though I can't read any of it in the original language yet because I've forgotten even the next-to-nothing I knew about hieroglyphs once upon a time. (Honestly though, has there ever been a more intriguing title to a book?) I also have The Book of the Dead by Budge somewhere, I wonder where that's gone off to... But I'm OK with not knowing where it is at this stage, because Egyptologists don't seem to like him much - one wrote in a review of another book by Budge that "When I first started studying Egyptian myself, my instructor started off the class by writing "Budge" on the board and enclosing it in a circle with a slash through it. That's how bad this book is", so I doubt if I'll be looking too closely at the translation I have. Goals? Plans? Timeline? Most definitely not. I'm not going to make this into an intensive project, I don't even know how much work there is that needs to be done before a student can be anywhere close to being able to read an authentic text, but I'll figure that stuff out as I go. I'm mostly just doing this because it's fun, and it inspires me. There's just something about Ancient Egypt that fascinates me, and I've never been able to let that feeling go. I used to have concrete plans about wanting to at least try to pursue a career in Egyptology - life obviously didn't turn out that way, but my interest remains anyhow. And I might as well start pursuing the dream now rather than leaving it for 'later' - I can start studying it now and in a few years I might actually know something I value, and I'll certainly know more than if I don't start at all. It's been a long time coming, so I'm really looking forward to this! Comments, thoughts, ideas, constructive criticism etc. are always welcome :-) Liz Edited by Lizzern on 22 September 2009 at 10:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 7 22 September 2009 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
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So I started reading my old textbook, and it turns out I've forgotten, well, almost everything. Some things ring a bell - sort of - but mostly I think I can just assume I'm starting from scratch here and it won't be far off. I guess a couple of things might come back to me, but it doesn't look like it's going to be much. It's fun to be reading again though, I don't remember when I first started actually reading a bit about the details of hieroglyphs but it's been several years, and so much has changed since then both in terms of study technique and exposure to various aspects of grammar. It's quite a different experience, reading this now, compared to how it felt trying to make sense of it all as a total newbie years ago. It's going to be much easier this time around, and much more enjoyable too, because I have a different kind of motivation for it now, and a different approach. I guess we'll see how it goes, but I'll leave the book somewhere nearby so I can just reach out and grab it when I have time and feel like reading.
Liz Edited by Lizzern on 22 September 2009 at 11:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rhoda Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5602 days ago 166 posts - 196 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, Swahili, Ancient Greek, German | Message 3 of 7 23 September 2009 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
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Good luck! I'll look forward to reading your log, since I've also got a thing for Ancient Egypt.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 4 of 7 23 September 2009 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
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Liz, you broke your promise to do only Italian!? [gasp]
No, but really though, this is a pretty cool idea. I like reading all of your posts, so I'm sure this will be very entertaining and fun to read too. Good luck! Philip 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 7 28 September 2009 at 12:49am | IP Logged |
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Thanks guys :-)
Found a website that has a word-a-day type thing going, as well as a lot of other cool materials. Has its own Youtube channel and everything, with review of the new words for each week, and a couple of other things. Very cool site! I'm trying to keep up with the daily dose of vocabulary, but I still have very little to pin it on. I'm sure this will make a lot more sense once I know the basic framework of the language to a reasonable degree, which will probably take a while, but the vocabulary is interesting anyhow, and reminds me why I'm doing this. I suspect this log is going to be full of scattered mini-updates like this one, but I'll have more to say later when I know a bit more and can start working with actual texts. Can't wait :-) Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 6 of 7 06 January 2010 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
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I never got past chapter 3 of Manley and Collier's excellent primer on Egyptian hieroglyphics, so much kudos to you. All I bizarrely remember now is "never before have I seen the like of this goose" or something similar. How did you get on with it?
I still get a buzz from watching Stargate and have studying the rest of this book on my guilty secret "to-do" list somewhere next to Finnish and Aramaic, but it'll have to wait for a good while now...must learn "control"... :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5508 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 7 03 February 2010 at 12:43am | IP Logged |
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Please let us know if you find any other resources! This is definitely on my list of
things to do as well. I also thumbed through the Manley-Collier (and remember the goose), but that was ages ago as well. I remember not being very fond of that particular textbook but I no longer recall why. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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