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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| Languagelover1 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6434 days ago 63 posts - 63 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 1 of 4 04 October 2007 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
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Dear Prof. Arguelles,
First of all I want to say thank you for devoting some of your freetime to help out would-be polyglots like myself, it is greatly appreciated. I'll keep my question short and general so that it doesn't take up too much of your time and is of as much help to others as myself. I read in one of your posts that you found a programme of study for Philology which helped you develop your skills as a Polyglot. Do you have any recommendations where I could look for such a programme of study? Personally, I'm concentrating on the Romance family at the moment (Spanish and Italian first and the others to follow) but I would like to learn German, Greek, Mandarin, Arabic, Russian and eventually others in each group of languages. Many thanks Edited by Languagelover1 on 04 October 2007 at 8:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7261 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 2 of 4 08 October 2007 at 8:34am | IP Logged |
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Indeed, at some time during my undergraduate years at Columbia I got my hands an actual program of study for a degree in Comparative Philology from early in the 20th century. Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of it. However, I do remember that it was very high on substance and consequently very low in abstract theory. In other words, there were a few methodological overview courses, but the program in the main consisted simply of the systematic study of a logical sequence of a large number of older and medieval Indo-European languages.
As the program no longer existed, I could not really follow it, but I tried to get the equivalent in my own way, and I think I succeeded as on my transcripts I can show years of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Old Norse, Old, Middle, and Modern High German, Old French and Modern French, and perhaps some others that I cannot now recall. I have little doubt that this solid formal training played a major role in the fact that I was later able to acquire most of my other languages by autodidactic study. If you are concentrating on the Romance family at the moment, you have an extremely exciting voyage of discoveries ahead of you: you will want to follow Latin from its classical through its medieval and into its neo stages, learn the language of the Troubadours, get the large anthology of medieval Iberian texts whose exact name as well as its author’s unfortunately slip my mind at the moment as a prelude to your modern Spanish etc., etc., etc. If you do not have it already, you should certainly acquire and peruse a copy of Carl Darling Buck’s Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages (University of Chicago 1949) as this is the crowning achievement of the type of etymological interest that characterized and drove the late lamented science of Comparative Philology. Edited by ProfArguelles on 05 November 2007 at 9:14am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Languagelover1 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6434 days ago 63 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 4 08 October 2007 at 9:13am | IP Logged |
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Thank you for the reply. I've ordered the book you recommended.
I'll let you know how I get on. Kind regards Stephen 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6914 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 4 19 October 2007 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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My copy arrived today (I too ordered the book, after reading the recommendation above). I've only glanced over it, and it looks great. Thanks.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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