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Ancient languages (the old ones) | ||
Tags: Dead Languages | Writing System | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ' Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5940 days ago 120 posts - 120 votes  Speaks: English*, Hungarian* | Message 9 of 24 25 August 2008 at 10:08am | IP Logged | |||||
fix'd (pet peeve) Wow, that's great, anyone have the title of a good dictionary or book that would list them? Or perhaps a website? I learned the Greek alphabet in about 3 days back in yr 9, Cyrillic took a bit longer but I didn't apply myself as much. Gaah, and Hebrew took a while too, but all up I can probably recognise 100 or so characters as is, so 300 should be manageable. I spent 4 years doign Latin and I still can't make heads or tails of most things, with or without a dictionary. Would Egyptian be any easier? It is said that most languages require a basic vocab of 300 or so words in order for one to be bale to communicate basic requirements, how large a vocabulary would I need to be able to read basic Hieroglyphs? Also, anyone read Hieratic, Demotic, or Coptic? Would learning Egyptian through Coptic help with the pronounciations and words? I think mayhaps a trip to the library will be fun, though it won't help write my essays... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 10 of 24 25 August 2008 at 10:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Check these out for a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_uniliteral_signs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_biliteral_signs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_triliteral_signs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner%27s_Sign_List It's like living languages I guess, although because you never use it actively you find you don't really retain (or need to retain) as much. There's a bunch of dictionaries out there, so you may wanna check one out. There's a small but incredibly useful one at the end of Allen's book. You will not find yourself reading it fluently or along the lines of living languages. You will always need lists for uncommon Hieroglyphs, and to dictionaries for weird words. And it almost has the feel of deciphering more than reading. I think the grammar is quite easy, but I am cheating. If you know a Semitic language it shouldn't be too hard. The verbal system is quite similar to that of Classical Arabic. The non-verbal sentence has a very weird syntax, though. I found by accident that it is almost identical to Egyptian Arabic non-verbal sentence structure (but not Classical Arabic). Coptic will not help with pronunciation. Words in most cases changed substantially (Many are not even recognizable). Coptic is instrumental as a first step at reconstruction, but that's a complicated process. Similarly, vocabulary is really quite different, the impact of Greek on Coptic was substantial. It would help a lot with grammar though (especially if you don't already know an Afro-Asiatic language). It is much harder to find resources for Demotic and Hieratic. As far as I know, Demotic is not really that hard as long as you already know Hieroglyphs. Hieratic sounds impossible from what I've heard. Edited by Karakorum on 25 August 2008 at 10:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ' Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5940 days ago 120 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian* | Message 11 of 24 26 August 2008 at 1:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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I picked up a book on basic Hittite today, on 6 month loan, should be fun.
Beginning Hittite by Warren H. Held, JR; William R. Schmalstieg; Janet E. Gertz. If I have time to read into it I'll report back. Edited by ' on 26 August 2008 at 1:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ' Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5940 days ago 120 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian* | Message 13 of 24 28 August 2008 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Cheers, decent prices too it seems.
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| Hebrewtext Tetraglot Newbie Israel Joined 5921 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, Arabic (Written), English, German | Message 14 of 24 08 September 2008 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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there are 22 letters in the original abjad languages, as Pheonician and the identical lang. Hebrew.
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| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5983 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 15 of 24 12 September 2008 at 2:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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But for Akkadian and Sumerian you will need to learn hundreds of characters.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 16 of 24 12 September 2008 at 6:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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I taught myself some Latin from a Beginner's Latin book by someone called Sharpley (forgotten the initials). I never did Latin at school, just modern languages. Edited by William Camden on 12 September 2008 at 6:22am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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