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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| lmasell Newbie United States Joined 5739 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 3 29 December 2008 at 12:41pm | IP Logged |
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Professor Arguelles, I thank you for the insight you have offered to so many aspiring polyglots and others with language related interests. I have several questions dealing with language learning and would much appreciate any guidance you or other readers might offer.
First, would you recommend studying Hindi or another modern Indian language before studying Sanskrit? What I’m looking to find out is whether or not learning Hindi or a related tongue would make Sanskrit considerably easier to the point of being worth the time delayed for its study. Second, if a person were to learn one modern Scandinavian language, which would you suggest? I intend to eventually study Norwegian Bokmal, though what I have read recently seems to indicate that knowledge of Icelandic would help to branch off into Old Norse, which is something I would like to attempt in the future. Similarly, I’d like to know to what extent the modern Scandinavian languages are mutually intelligible. Finally, I have a few questions about Semitic languages. Assuming that a learner had to choose either one or the other, do you recommend Modern or Ancient Hebrew? My last question is this, of all of the varieties of contemporary Arabic, which do you think is best to learn? Is MSA the best choice? Thank You L.B. Masell Edited by lmasell on 29 December 2008 at 12:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| stephen_g Groupie Canada Joined 6259 days ago 44 posts - 84 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Italian | Message 2 of 3 29 December 2008 at 1:33pm | IP Logged |
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Hello Imasell,
I'm not Professor Arguelles but I will comment on your first question, if you don't mind. If you have the desire to learn Sanskrit, I recommend you jump into it right away. Though there will be some cross over, you'll derive the most benefit when you learn Sanskrit first, not Hindi. Think of it this way: Would you learn Italian in order to get a leg up in Latin or vice-versa? Regarding Sanskrit's grammatical difficulty, Hindi would not be of much help. Hindi has scrapped most of the case system. It retains a nominative, vocative and "oblique" case which follows postpositions, but that's it. Hindi has lost the neuter gender and the dual number. It shares vocabulary directly with Sanskrit in its religious terms, neologisms and advanced vocabulary, but much of Hindi's common vocabulary has been influenced by Persian, Arabic and English. Verb conjugation in Hindi often makes use of what were participles in Sanskrit. This makes conjugation in Hindi extremely, extremely easy. Let me give an example: To construct the present tense, remove the infinitive marker from the verb stem, add "taa" and inflect its ending according to gender and number. Finish off with the conjugated verb "Honaa" (to be or become). Ex: Khaanaa (to eat) --- (First Person Sing.) Main khaataa/ii hoon --- (Second Person Formal and Informal Sing.) Aap khaate/ii hain Tum khaate/ii ho Tu khaataa/ii hai --- (3rd person Sing. This/That, not He/She) Yah khaataa/ii hai Vah khaataa/ii hai --- (1st plural) Ham khaate/ii hain --- (2nd plural) Aap khaate/ii hain -- (3rd plural) Ye khaate/ii hain Ve khaate/ii hain To make a past tense which is the equivalent of the imperfect in Romance languages, simply change "honaa" into "thaa/thii/the" based on the number and gender of the subject. This is all quite simple. There are around five irregular verbs and they are still regular in their own way. Sanskrit inflects according to person and number. There are ten different types of verbal roots in Sanskrit, each type subject to its own unique rules of conjugation. It isn't as easy as simply learning the ten types, though - you must know the special rules for what happens when two sounds come together ("internal sandhi", in this case). You must also know the rules for phonological gradation. It's consistent and most definitely conquerable, but it takes a long, long time to master. The issue isn't really there at all in Hindi. To summarize, if you want to learn Sanskrit, go for it without worrying about Hindi! Stephen Gucciardi Edited by stephen_g on 31 December 2008 at 2:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7186 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 3 of 3 30 December 2008 at 5:26pm | IP Logged |
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Mr. Masell, there is a common thread running through all three of your questions, namely: is it easier, or preferable, or more helpful, to study a dead language before a living one, or vice versa? Quite obviously, learning a dead language generally consists of acquiring literacy via analytical ability, and while a living language can be learned in the same fashion, far more often an entire other set of conversational skills also enter into the equation. So, it would initially appear that there should be less work involved in learning a dead language and thus that it should be an easier task. This is indubitably true for one kind of learner. Another type, however, may well find that, as speech is inherently the primary aspect of any language, learning conversational skills does not comprise an additional burden, but rather is that which vivifies and connects the entire process, and thus that trying to learn a language without a living voice might be akin to pushing a two-wheeled cart that is missing one wheel – obviously a harder task than if the cart were whole. In other words, some people find it hard, or rather deadening, to learn dead languages precisely because they cannot hear them, and thus they must try to gain a grasp of the alien thought structure of the past, with its almost inevitably more convoluted word order and complex and irregular grammar, in silence.
A consideration of whether you are the first or the second type of learner affects the answers to all three of your specific interests, to which I now turn: Regarding Sanskrit, Mr. Gucciardi has already provided an excellent and detailed response that pretty much covers the issue. If you already happen to know Hindi or another living Indic language, then certainly that will facilitate your learning of Sanskrit, but if your only interest in learning such a language is to make Sanskrit easier to study, then this is an unnecessary step. There are, however, three situations that might warrant this strategy: first and foremost, if you do ultimately aim at learning a number of Indic languages and you are the second type of learner discussed above, then it might make sense to begin with a living language so as to get the rhythm of this language family in your head first. Even if you do not have this aim, if you are emphatically the second type of learner, then it might be worth at least getting Hindi (or other) phonetics down for use with Sanskrit – it would be very nice indeed if there were a good source of spoken Sanskrit, but I have never been able to find one, and at any rate I am probably stuck with the ossified artificial/incorrect/bad Westernized Sanskrit pronunciation I learned in college. Using chant to learn speech does not work very well, and all the Radio India broadcasts I have ever heard in Sanskrit have been all but inaudible. Quite recently, I thought I had found such a source in the CD-ROM course Bhashika put out by the Vedic Wisdom Series and Vishwa-shanti Media, but alas, when I at long last received my 2 disks, they were both defective, and although the stated company policy is to replace such products, they have never responded to my e-mails, so let others beware of these Sanskrit swindlers and sonic hope dashers. Finally, do know that a serious engagement with Sanskrit is emphatically a commitment to life-long learning, and while there are considerable resources for doing this using European languages, there are also many, many more alternatives in Hindi and her sisters. All that said, however, I completely concur with Mr. Gucciardi: if your sole goal is to study Sanskrit, then go right ahead and study Sanskrit. Regarding your Scandinavian questions, I believe most of the points you question have already been discussed in detail in a number of places, namely in the Germanic language learning sequence threads, in the thread about my Germanic language introductory overview videos, and in the comments to the videos themselves, so please investigate there because there are no answers upon which all agree. All I will add here again for emphasis is that the path I myself took – namely to learn Old Norse thoroughly first and foremost – is a tried and proven way to open the doors of all the others, although here, too, beware of making the mistake that I did of getting an unreflective and incorrect idiosyncratic reading voice ingrained in your head, for while this does not seem to have affected my ability to acquire comprehensible continental Scandinavian communicability, it does seem to have given me an incorrigibly and positively ludicrous accent when I try to read modern Icelandic aloud. Moving on to Semitic languages – Hebrew is one of my great lacunae, and I have absolutely no experience with or knowledge of any of its forms. All I can do is point you again to the initial consideration I wrote about being the type of learner who can learn a dead language in silence versus being one who needs a living voice. I will add, too, that it seems that any philological type or any theological type, as well as anyone interested in that arcane strand of literature and mystic thought that appears so magical when hinted at in the writings of the likes of Borges and Eco, might do well to study ancient Hebrew. The effective learning of modern Hebrew, on the other hand, probably depends upon whether or not you yourself are Jewish: if you are, then most Israelis will probably expect you to learn it and encourage and help you to do so; if you are not, they will not have this expectation, and as most seem to be perfectly proficient in English, it will probably be hard to get the requisite immersion experience required to activate the fruits of your studies. To conclude, your final inquiry about Arabic has a short and simple answer: yes, MSA is the best choice for contemporary Arabic. I hope this has answered all of your questions? Study well! Alexander Arguelles 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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