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Mastering a branch of languages | ||
Tags: Linguistic relationships | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4057 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 24 25 September 2013 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Feel free to move this to the advice center or anywhere else if that is deemed necessary but this topic is at least intended to be so vague that I'm initially putting this here.
I fathom a great interest for Germanic languages, and I would indeed like to know them all. I know the task sounds ambitious, but it has been done (we all know by whom) and each additional language will be easier than the one before. I came to thinking that learning a language family requires much more planning than learning just single languages, as one would expect. The amount of resilience needed needs probably not be stressed. Upon first thought one would expect that the best way to get to this is "climb the tree up", from a common ancestor to the branches. I'll have to cut this here now but I'll expand on this later. In short; What would you (especially seasoned learners, but others too) do, if you were to embark on learning a language family, especially Germanic? Where would you begin, and so on. As for myself, so far I know English and Swedish (and B1~ Norwegian) and I just begun studying basic German in anticipation of an upcoming trip. I have dabbled in probably all other Germanic languages and the resemblance is striking, especially among the ones that have retained cases. A Germanic "hitlist" if you will; German Danish & Norwegian (understand both well on paper but would like to speak too) Icelandic Faroese Dutch Afrikaans Old English Old Norse other old Germanic literary languages Gothic //I apologize for the rambling style, I'm very tired and my mind is hazy. Edited by Henkkles on 25 September 2013 at 10:05pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5149 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 2 of 24 25 September 2013 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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One thing to keep in mind, especially given the degree of depth and comprehensiveness involved in your undertaking, is that in order to truly understand how these languages came into being you should also take a look into other non-Germanic languages that have had a strong formative influence on them, namely French and Latin and perhaps the Celtic languages.
Other than this, I figure it is just a matter of getting down to work. If it were me, I would probably start with the modern descendants since there is so much more material both for learning as well as for experiencing them, so that one may impress them that much more strongly upon one's consciousness. I would also study one Scandinavian and one West Germanic language concurrently at a time. It would be advisable too to invest some time in the study of linguistics since it is bound to be a big aid in establishing meaningful connections among them. Edited by Juаn on 25 September 2013 at 10:35pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4632 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 24 25 September 2013 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||
[Edited - this was an attempted joke against myself, no one else! :-) ]: A simple country boy writes: Do we? Are you referring to Iversen, or perhaps to Professor Arguelles? If neither of those, then I have no idea who you are talking about. Also: How do you get two "studies" lists in the left hand column with your forum name? Anyway, this sounds like a great project, and maybe you should start by asking the one whom "we all [apparently] know". Edited by montmorency on 26 September 2013 at 8:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4813 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 24 25 September 2013 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, if I were you, I'd start with those that have the most resources available and may open you a whole new world of resources for others. You have already got English so German seems to be the logical next step (and you have an immediate use for it which is awesome). And Swedish (and the B1 Norwegian) will surely be a huge help for half of your list (at least). Perhaps the best source to consult would be the Iversen's log. He is the Supreme Master of the Germanic and Romance languages.
I admire your courage. Will you keep a log? I'd be thrilled to read of your progress. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4057 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 24 25 September 2013 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was referring to professor.
I would like to think that I'm pretty competent when it comes to linguistics and phenomena related to linguistics. I came to the conclusion that I will do German semi-intensively since there is an abundance of resources and I'm also doing Icelandic on a slower pace. I have read quite a lot about language shifts over time and sound shifts and whatnot, and also the tendency to merge every god damn thing with the dative (I'm looking at you, German.) So on that frontier, I should be kind of ready. Useful things to keep in mind doing this project (according to my weary brain) 1. Strong verbs are not "irregular" 2. Subject marking languages have a tendency to merge first and third person forms 3. There are three stems for "to be" 4. Dative is not "dative" but a hodgepodge of locative and instrumental too (I've studied Russian)
I might, if people indeed show any sort of interest towards this. This thread was made to discuss similar projects concerning any other language branch. Edited by Henkkles on 25 September 2013 at 11:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6506 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 6 of 24 25 September 2013 at 11:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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The other thing I'd suggest is, especially since you already have a background in other Germanic languages, is to start listening to media in your future target languages. Try to hear what you can already understand in them. You'll probably get a decent amount of comprehension considering your background. I only really know French out of the Romance branch, but I've been doing that with Portuguese and it's helped a lot. It also gets you used to working through the audio for meaning. Edited by Raincrowlee on 25 September 2013 at 11:53pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6507 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 24 26 September 2013 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Learning whole language families is a perfectly sensible strategy (I suppose it would be a surprise if I said anything else), and you seem to have some background and affinity for this kind of study. I would suggest one thing, namely that you make a clear separation between the languages and dialects you want to learn as active languages/dialects, those you just want to be able to read fluently and finally those you just want to know superficially - if you don't prioritize your study time you will drown in all the variants from past and present. Likewise you should do an effort to learn the formal basics (phonetics and grammar) of those languages you plan to learn 'for real' even if you can read them based on knowledge of related languages - but well, I probably don't have to say that to a person who already has delved voluntarily into the quagmire of historical sound changes.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4057 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 8 of 24 26 September 2013 at 10:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you all for your encouragement. I have settled on a solution;
(Some) modern ones first; one west Germanic and one north Germanic at a time. This would give me a very decent grounding both in Old Norse and Old English too, which would be a breeze to acquire a reading knowledge of afterwards. North Germanic languages, plan in (parentheses) Icelandic (advanced knowledge) Faroese (contrastive knowledge with Icelandic, intermediate stand-alone) Old Norse (reading knowledge) Danish (speaking and listening comprehension) Norwegian (-||-) (x)Swedish (polishing it up) -Reading knowledge in older variants of each (given resources are to be found) West Germanic, similarly; German (advanced knowledge) (x)English (-) Old English (reading knowledge) Dutch (active knowledge) Afrikaans (intermediate knowledge) Low German (intermediate knowledge) --Reading knowledge in older variants of each (given resources are to be found) East Germanic; -Gothic (reading knowledge) -??? This approach would create the following study-pairs, so to speak; Icelandic-German Faroese-Old English (this would be a shorter phase) Old Norse-Dutch Danish-Afrikaans Norwegian-Low German (suggestions on alternate orders are welcome, although I have begun the first phase) These should keep me busy for at least the next ten years but likely I'll never stop studying something Germanic. With living languages, I'll try to get a rather well rounded knowledge of reading, listening and speaking. With older variants a reading knowledge will suffice. Edited by Henkkles on 26 September 2013 at 10:13am 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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