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What are the oldest books for learning?

  Tags: Textbooks | Book
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
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phonology
Groupie
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 Message 1 of 15
18 February 2015 at 2:58am | IP Logged 
languages

What language learning books existed before 1900?



more before linguaphone Year 1920

Edited by phonology on 18 February 2015 at 3:10am

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shk00design
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 Message 2 of 15
18 February 2015 at 5:00am | IP Logged 
In ancient times people don't travel as much. The ones who did such as Arab traders in E. Africa or on the Silk
Road would learn to say a few common phrases from the people they met along the trade routes. I don't think
there were any official travel guides back then where you can see photos and description of places before you
visit. As far as language learning books there may be ones to explain the rules in a language written in that
language but nothing for foreigns like a language reference for English speakers trying to learn German or
Japanese for instance.

"The Ashtadhyayi" is arguably the oldest book on Sanskrit grammar rules.

Edited by shk00design on 18 February 2015 at 5:01am

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robarb
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languagenpluson
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 Message 3 of 15
18 February 2015 at 6:05am | IP Logged 
People didn't travel as much, but there were plenty of multilingual areas and classical/liturgical languages that
required study. What kind of books or other materials were used in medieval times to learn Latin? What about Jewish
and non-Arab Islamic scholars learning Hebrew and Arabic?

The predecessors of today's language books were certainly already taking shape before 1900--Berlitz was already
publishing books in the late nineteenth century.
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Ogrim
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 Message 4 of 15
18 February 2015 at 12:24pm | IP Logged 
If one can trust Wikipedia, Iohannes Amos Comenius was maybe the first to write a course for learning Latin in the early 17th Century and he also published the world's first illustrated children's book in Latin.
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patrickwilken
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 Message 5 of 15
18 February 2015 at 12:26pm | IP Logged 
What did Richard Burton do?

Edited by patrickwilken on 18 February 2015 at 1:07pm

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Glarus Girl
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 Message 6 of 15
18 February 2015 at 1:03pm | IP Logged 
shk00design wrote:
I don't think there were any official travel guides back then where
you can see photos and description of places before you visit.


Baedeker were a famous travel guide publisher from the 1820's so they did exist.

You can find old language books on Google Play going back to the 1800's. I have a
physical book for learning German from 1840.

Edited by Glarus Girl on 18 February 2015 at 1:14pm

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Josquin
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 Message 7 of 15
18 February 2015 at 1:29pm | IP Logged 
patrickwilken wrote:
What did Richard Burton do?

Learn the languages in the country through immersion?
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akkadboy
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 Message 8 of 15
18 February 2015 at 1:47pm | IP Logged 
See here for a 18th century Manchu textbook designed for Chinese speakers.
Part 1 is about the writing system and pronunciation
Part 2 is the main one and consists of dialogues
Part 3 deals with grammar
Part 4 is mainly about words that may be mistaken one for another.

There's an English translation by Wylie.

The oldest learning material I can think of now of are bilingual lexical lists from Mesopotamia but I guess they do not qualify as textbooks.

Other than that there are quite a few examples of Latin-Ancient Greek dialogue books (from Late Antiquity, if my memory serves me well).


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