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TAC 2014 - Rare Languages Team Thread | ||
Tags: Nahuatl | Armenian | Team Thread | Sanskrit | Georgian | Indonesian | Rare Languages | Hebrew | Arabic | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 161 of 223 22 May 2014 at 5:00pm | IP Logged |
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Something curious happened today: I posted this month's challenge at iTalki for correction and there was one expression I took from a lesson from 'Culture Talk'. So, the native speaker 'corrected' it to a better phrasing. This goes to say we should always pay more attention to ostensive grammar/spelling mistakes and take style corrections with 2 grains of salt and HCl.
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| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4332 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 162 of 223 30 May 2014 at 2:39am | IP Logged |
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Sorry for waiting pretty much until the month is over to do my challenge, guys! It's been one hell of a month for me.
My May challenge: direct and indirect object prefixes. Before going on to the actual subject, I want to share an anecdote with everyone: when I started learning Nahuatl, my tutor told me it is an extremely reiterative language. I didn't really understand what he meant until I started studying these suffixes, and here's why: As Nahuatl is an agglutinative language, you add prefixes and suffixes to conjugate words. In the case of Nahuatl, one of these is always added to the verb (to state the object of the action), except in the case where a noun takes the position of that object. Here's a short, broken-down example of both situations. Niccua atetl = I eat (the) egg. NI-C-CUA ATETL (I)(it)(eat)(egg) Niatecua = I eat (the) egg. NI-ATE(TL)-CUA (I)(egg)(eat) (Note: -tl is removed because nouns lose their ending when assumed by a full expression.) There are nine prefixes that differ in two things: who does the action, and what kind of subject receives it (as in, human or not). They are the following: -mo: (action) to myself (reflexive) -nech: (act.) to myself (causative) -tla: (person) (act.) unto it (non-human) -te: (p.) (act.) unto him or her -c/qui: (p.) (act.) to it -quin: (p.) (act.) to them -mitz: (p.) (act.) unto you -tech: (p.) (act.) unto us -anmech/mech: (p.) (act.) unto you (plural) Additionally, here are some examples and their translations to exemplify how this works. Whenever you see ( ), it means third person in singular, since there isn't a personal pronoun for the 3rd person in this language. ni-mo-maltia = I bathe myself ( )-nech-cocoa = (it) sickens me ni-te-palehuia = I help him/her ni-tla-cua = I eat it ni-c-nequi = I want it / ( )-qui-nequi = he wants it ti-quin-maca = you give it to them ( )-tech-maca = he gives it to us t-anmech-ihtah = we look at you ni-mitz-ixmati = I meet you 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6059 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 163 of 223 30 May 2014 at 7:41pm | IP Logged |
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I was thinking of presenting a bit of Sanskrit grammar, but I guess doing it a few hours after a teammate's similar post for a completely unrelated language would be counterproductive.
Therefore, I'll just post an appetizer: a simplified map of the languages of India. More to come next month. 
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| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4649 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 164 of 223 31 May 2014 at 3:26pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Luso for the map idea, that means I get to squeeze in an answer to the challenge on the last day!
Ethnologue map Yemen is (in)famous for the insane dialectal variation. One work available on the net recognizes no less than 16 dialects (http://www.ebooksmagz.com/pdf/arabic-of-yemen-lemma-3-14-co untry-profiles-llacan-cnrs-42852.pdf). Luckily for me, my original tutor happened to teach MSA with slight dialectal influence (pronunciation, mostly). She hailed originally from Aden and the three Yemenis I had classes with this year were from Ibb. Both these cities happen to fall under the same dialect, known as Ta'izzi-Adeni. Wikipedia says Ta'izzi-Adeni substitutes /t/ and /d/ for the interdental /θ/ and /ð/. It also says that ظ and ض are pronounced the same. There might be other features, but the Llacan PDF above, curiously, recognizes imperfect, perfect and present tense separately... I cannot make heads or tails of it. Edited by Zireael on 31 May 2014 at 3:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 165 of 223 31 May 2014 at 7:38pm | IP Logged |
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I'm still around! Busy organizing the Polyglot Gathering, but still updating my log
every two weeks or so. Planning to update more as I have more time to study, after the conference. I'm glad we have these challenges because otherwise I might not have studied Indonesian today. As my challenge contribution, let me tell you about Indonesian Affixes Indonesian is really simple on a beginner level. Words are combined seemingly without any rule at all, nor any morphological change. However, once you study vocabulary in- depth, you suddenly run into a lot of words based on the same root, often with only slight differences in meaning. Many of them have to be learned from exposure. But here are some examples of easier-to-use affixes that actually change the meaning in a quantifiable way. Watch out for how they change the roots "ajar" (instruction), "jalan" (road/way), "beli" (buy), "jual" (sell) and "kerja" (work): ber- prefix for many basic verbs (EO: -i) bel-ajar = to study something ber-jalan = to walk be-kerja = to work me- prefix for more active actions (EO: -igi) meng-ajar = to teach something mem-beli = to buy something men-jual = to sell me-...-kan prefix+suffix for "beneficence", usually means there will be two objects without prepositions (EO: -igi) meng-ajar-kan = to teach something to somebody men-jalan-kan = to run sth. (e. g. a business) mem-beli-kan = to buy something for somebody meng-erja-kan = to do something (e. g. a report) men-jual-kan = to sell something for somebody per- prefix for a person who does the ber- action (EO: -anto) pel-ajar = student be-kerja = worker pe- prefix for a person (either related to the base word or doing the me- action) (EO: -iganto) peng-ajar = teacher pe-jalan kaki = pedestrian (kaki = foot) pem-beli = buyer pen-jual = seller -an suffix for something concrete (EO: -aĵo) belian = things that were bought jualan = things that were sold kerjaan = works per-...-an prefix+suffix for an abstract noun related to the ber- action (EO: -o) pel-ajar-an = lesson per-jalan-an = trip pe-kerja-an = job pe-...-an prefix+suffix for a more abstract noun related to the action (e. g. used after "manager of ...") (EO: -ado) peng-ajar-an = education, teaching pem-beli-an = purchases pen-jual-an = sales ... and these are just some of the affixes. There is also a similar set of affixes for adjective base words. ... and if you look closely, there are funny things happening with letter assimilation. These are the bane of my existence right now. Much prefer the affixes in Esperanto. At least they prepared me for this. I added the equivalent Esperanto suffixes in parenthesis. Edited by Sprachprofi on 31 May 2014 at 7:43pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6059 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 166 of 223 01 June 2014 at 1:29am | IP Logged |
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Wow. Once again, our team proves its vitality. If you are like me, you feel compelled to participate. Like in April, we've had quite a few last moment entries.
I'd just like to leave a small appreciation note to Sprachprofi: she's presently organising / hosting a Polyglot Gathering and she still found time to participate in this month's challenge. I must say that I didn't expect to find out that in the Arabian Peninsula exists a language which is not an Arabic dialect, but a different (albeit Semitic) language. Thanks, Zireael. I'd also like to remind you that the challenge for June is the same as the one we had in April and May. If you don't feel particularly inspired, you can always make a cultural presentation. Have a nice month, everyone. Learning and otherwise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 167 of 223 02 June 2014 at 9:47pm | IP Logged |
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I'll pass then. 3 identical challenges in a row don't work out for me. Ifg others agree we can propose a different challenge. I was thinking of trying to translate a song, this can prove really challenging and innovative, given the diverse backgrounds of our target languages.
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| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 168 of 223 02 June 2014 at 10:09pm | IP Logged |
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I like the idea of translating a song.
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