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The Grammar of Romance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 6942 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes  Studies: Uzbek | Message 1 of 16 15 September 2012 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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Professor Arguelles, in some of his postings, has commented on the utility and the pleasure of learning an entire language family; I don't know that he ever provided a systematic method of doing so, but rather had the impression that, in his view, the way to do so would be to learn the languages individually and then "fill in the blanks" by learning the others individually as well, with the end result being that the family would appear to be a sort of continuum. (My apologies if I've misunderstood or misrepresented his thinking; I haven't checked any of his postings on this to refresh my memory.)
While many members of the board seem to have a pretty eclectic approach, learning languages from all sorts of different language families, and boldly taking up increasing challenges with ever more exotic and difficult languages such as Georgian et al, I don't think there's been a great deal of discussion of the "family" approach. There are various comparative grammars out there for different language families, but I think most tend to be pretty expensive and/or pretty heavy-going, and are rather academically oriented. I've just run across one recently published book on the Romance family that I think is more addressed to the needs of less-academic language learners, and I suspect it would be useful for almost anyone with knowledge of one Romance language and an interest, or just curiosity, regarding some of the others. It's The Grammar of Romance: A Comparative Introduction to Vulgar Latin & the Romance Languages by Joshua Rudder, 268 pages, ISBN 978-1475246636 and it deals with the various grammatical elements of all the Romance languages (including lesser-studied ones such as Romanian, Occitan, Romansh, Catalan, etc.) and how they developed out of Vulgar Latin. You can see samples of it here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Grammar-Romance-Comparative-Introd uction/dp/1475246633/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347720131&sr=8- 2&keywords=grammar+of+romance This one seems to be less academic than a lot of books on the Romance language family, but my impression (based on the Amazon preview) is that it would likely be an easy and interesting introduction to the family as a whole, and a useful prelude to other more demanding studies. The book is apparently affiliated with a website, http://www.nativlang.com/, which has a great deal of material on various languages and linguistic issues, and which I confess to not having looked very closely at. But the book seems to be a very user-friendly introduction to the language family as a whole and how it developed out of Vulgar Latin, and I think anyone with an interest in the family might usefully take a look at the preview to see whether it might suit their needs. (It's relatively new, and there are no readers' comments on it yet at Amazon.) Edited by daristani on 15 September 2012 at 5:13pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6395 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 16 15 September 2012 at 6:22pm | IP Logged |
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There's also a great book called The Seven Sieves.
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| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5059 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 3 of 16 15 September 2012 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for sharing this valuable resource!
There is another book (in German), Die romanischen Sprachen - Eine vergleichende Einführung by Georg Bossong, which also does not exclude the non-academic reader, but I don't have it, and judging from the preview on the publisher's site the 9 individual languages seem to be dealt with mostly in separate chapters. But it comes with a CD containing assorted samples of those languages. Professor Arguelles' comments on studying the Romance family: Romance language learning sequence (this post and two more further down on the same page) Similar thread on studying the Slavic family: Slavic Language Family Learning Sequence Edited by Kronos on 15 September 2012 at 9:04pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 6942 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 4 of 16 15 September 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for finding the above references, Kronos; these were some of the older entries I'd remembered but hadn't bothered to look up. I think they do rather conform with what I'd recalled of Professor Arguelles's approach, i.e., learning the various individual languages in sequence. The book I posted on takes a different approach, I think, focusing on approaching the language family as a whole, and showing how the Vulgar Latin forms evolved into the various forms seen in the individual languages/dialects today. Obviously the approaches can be combined; I expect that next to no one tries to learn the family as a whole without at least some familiarity with one or more of the constituent languages.
The Bossong book looks interesting as well as a systematic comparison, so many thanks for pointing it out. Re The Seven Sieves, I have a PDF of it, which I confess I'd forgotten about. Your note reminded me of it, Serpent, and taking a renewed look at it, it looks as if it is indeed very good. At any rate, I've ordered a copy of The Grammar of Romance, and I hope that I find it as useful and as interesting as it initially appeared to me. Another interesting book, which seeks to teach three Romance languages simultaneously, is A Comparative Practical Grammar of French, Spanish & Italian by O. W. Heatwole, which is out of print and quite difficult to find; again, I have a PDF of it. It doesn't enter into the historical development of the languages, and doesn't deal at all with the other languages and dialects. I don't know how practical it is for most people to learn all three languages at the same time -- I don't think I could manage it without getting them confused -- but I do think it could be helpful for someone who already knows at least one of them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5059 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 5 of 16 16 September 2012 at 6:15am | IP Logged |
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I have found a thread in which Professor Arguelles laid out his views on if or if not to learn languages simultaneously.
Learning languages simultaneously? There are a couple of posts there. His general advice is to not start learning two languages at once until one has at least already 5 or 6 under one's belt (same in the Romance and Slavic threads). Indeed he goes so far as to claim that without a great deal of experience you are most likely to confuse any two new languages even if they are not related, and thus at the very least waste your time. He calls it a somewhat foolish attempt. Sorry, but that is beyond me, really, all the more since after overcoming this threshold himself he went to the other extreme of beginning the study of dozens of new languages simultaneously within a 3-4 year period, reportedly without ever confusing them. There must be some room between such opposite extremes. I have noticed however that the core issue he is pointing at in these and similar posts is the necessary experience and ability to keep different languages apart in one's mind, and once you can do that beginning several at once would actually be easier in the long run than studying only one. For that case he recommends Assimil and shadowing, but that is naturally what he himself did and likes best. Actually I saw an article this week portraying a course teaching ten languages at once, including the four 'big' Romance languages. The teacher knows all the languages herself, the 16 participants are of various nationalities and different age, and obviously highly motivated. As could be expected, the course aims at communication and immediate practical goals in the first place. And at removing inhibitions - right after class they go to pubs or shops run by foreigners, to 'level up' (as Laoshu would call it). What strikes me are the teacher's ideas about opening different drawers for different languages in the learners' minds, deducing knowledge from the similarities and differences between the languages taught, and training the mind to switch between languages quickly. An innovative approach. Maybe a shock treatment, but the participants are still attending after 56 class hours, and the experiment is followed with interest by a linguist who is very impressed with the results. Apparently the course is a success. Edited by Kronos on 16 September 2012 at 6:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4290 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 16 16 September 2012 at 7:10am | IP Logged |
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Frederick Bodmer's old book, The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages, discusses comparative grammar of the Romance and Germanic language families and suggests learning several in a family at once. He gives parallel lists of vocabulary arranged according to thematic or functional categories. By no means is he giving a complete course for either family, but rather suggesting that one can efficiently learn multiple related languages at the same time while noting differences and similarities among them.
While not necessarily a practical book, it is good for anyone interested in linguistics and learning methodology. Edited by Peregrinus on 16 September 2012 at 9:51am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4466 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 7 of 16 16 September 2012 at 4:02pm | IP Logged |
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But to native speakers, whether you make mistakes because of the interference or because of bad learning,,,it's the same thing.
If I, while speaking Italian, use apprendere instead of imparare (due to interference from Spanish and Portuguese APRENDER), the native speakers will consider it mistake and label me as a poor speaker, To them, it does not matter if you made a mistake because of the influence of Spanish, they want you to respect their language and not throw foreign in-mix into it. OOPS, I just checked the Italian DeMauro dictionary, there is a verb apprendere in Italian, and it means imparare ;) The problem is: I've yet to hear an Italian using apprendere instead of imparare ;) I think it's a very formal word. Edited by Medulin on 16 September 2012 at 4:06pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5059 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 8 of 16 16 September 2012 at 4:19pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for reminding us of Bodmer's book, which I had almost forgotten. I just had a look into it, and found to my amazement that it looks like an ideal starting point for anyone endeavoring to study the Romance languages en bloc.
Apart from the very useful chapters (about a hundred pages in length) explaining how Latin evolved into the modern Romance languages and how they compare with each other grammatically, drawing on many examples and providing numerous charts, Bodmer gives us this wonderful wordlist that covers almost 3,000 English words and their equivalents in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. - There is a similar chapter and list with almost the exact same words on the main Germanic languages (Swedish-Danish-Dutch-German). Those parallel lists are worth memorizing. I wonder how Iversen would integrate such a multi-language format (1 native + either 4 or up to 8 target languages) into his wordlist method; I believe he once either made the attempt or at least ruminated on something like this somewhere. The book is quite wonderful, in spite of Bodmer's NWO and language planning agenda. I think if one makes a deliberate effort to become aware of the differences and similarities between those languages right at the outset, facilitated by intelligent resources such as Bodmer's book, the danger of confusing them later on cannot be all that high. Besides, there are various accomplished polylgots that have been advocating studying two, three or more Romance languages together, among them Mario Pei (with the qualification that you do not focus on speaking right away). Judging from the mere page count, Rudder's book appears to go into much more detail. However, the print in Bodmer's book is smaller, and Rudder covers a dozen Romance languages, Bodmer only five, so for those five languages the amount of content must be about the same. Maybe it is worth to have them both. Unfortunately we know nothing of Rudder's background, whereas Bodmer was a trained PhD philologist teaching at MIT. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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