Ogrim's Krambu - a plethora of languages, mostly European, both old and new

[PeterMollenburg]

I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your mother, Ogrim. It's never easy, even if you can see it coming, and even if a grand age is reached. Sometimes it can seem like the time we have together is never enough, and it isn't.

On the other hand it sounds as though you had a beautiful time in Seville. I really loved spending time there on our travels ten years back.

Edited to delete accidental duplicate of the message

[Ogrim]

Thanks to all of you for your condolences. One great thing about this forum is that we can share personal experiences and expect sympathy and understanding from each other.

I am getting more and more "sucked" into Latin lately, to the point that it is taking a lot of my study time to the detriment of other languages. I find that Latin is both easy and difficult - easy because I know several Romance languages and you can often infer a lot from them. Difficult because the grammar and syntax is complex, especially with many classical writers, and there is quite a number of important words than have not survived in modern Romance languages, so you cannot just rely on your Italian and Spanish. You have to study both grammar and vocabulary actively. I have the advantage of one year full-time study of Latin at university, but that was more than 30 years ago, and since then my renewed interest in the language only came along some four-five years ago when my children started with Latin in school. I must say that thanks to discovering Latinitium and the work of its creator Daniel Petersson, I've managed to progress in Latin much more in a few months than I did during a whole year at university, where the professors followed the old method of grammar analysis and translation from and to Latin. Hearing Latin spoken, even with a Swedish accent , has made a big difference.

I've realised that the title of this log is actually a bit misleading. I had a brief "fling" with Romanian a couple of years ago but it did not last, and right now Arabic is on hold. Russian continues to be important, but my focus has shifted lately to Latin, Classical Greek and Dutch. I don't want to change the title every time I shift focus to different languages though (because that happens regularly) so I invite you to give me ideas for a more general title that is both original and indicative of what languages I am working on. Maybe the winner gets a price?

On the other hand it sounds as though you had a beautiful time in Seville. I really loved spending time there on our travels ten years back and like a true language nerd finding the filming locations of Destinos. I'll have to look up La piel del tambor and read it some day in Spanish!

I just learnt the other day that they are making a film of the novel La piel del tambor, due to be released later this year. I am hopeful that they will stick to the book and they don't change the plot or the ending - I am often disappointed by film versions of books I like, but at least the scenery should be great, as mostly it is filmed on location in Seville.

[lichtrausch]

I don't want to change the title every time I shift focus to different languages though (because that happens regularly) so I invite you to give me ideas for a more general title that is both original and indicative of what languages I am working on.

Ogrim's Log - Running out of Indo-European Languages to Learn

[iguanamon]

"Ogrim's Koldtbord". I was thinking "smörgåsbord", but that's Swedish.

[Xenops]

"Ogrim's Language Smattering"

I also want to give my condolences for your loss.

[Ogrim]

Ogrim's Log - Running out of Indo-European Languages to Learn

Nice one, but not really true, as I still have to learn most Slavic languages, Albanian, Armenian, the IE Baltic languages, not to mention Hindi and Farsi. Your proposal would be more appropriate for Iversen's log.

"Ogrim's Koldtbord". I was thinking "smörgåsbord", but that's Swedish.

I've got nothing against Swedish. Good suggestion, but the thing is Norwegians don't use the word Koldtbord very much nowadays, we have instead adopted the international "buffet".

"Ogrim's Language Smattering"

Not bad either, but according to my dictionary "smattering" is a very small amount of something, and I do have ambitions to know more than a smattering of the languages I start studying.

So, more suggestions are welcome, before I make up my mind.

[BeaP]

'To infinity and beyond' from Toy story.
Because of the stars, the number and variety of the languages, and because although you could, you don't take yourself too seriously.

[Ogrim]

So I still haven't changed the name of my log, although I appreciate the suggestions made. Also it seems I am back to my old (bad) habit of writing here once a month. It's been a busy month, both our kids came back for a week or two and when they are here my study routines are always somewhat disrupted. Work has also been hectic, certain world events have had a very direct impact on my daily job and we are still dealing with the consequences of that.

Still I continue with my studies of Latin, Greek, Dutch and Russian as best I can. Apart from the excellent resource that is Legentibus for reading and listening to Latin, I have also found the website of the Vatican to be an interesting resource. They publish a lot of official texts in multiple languages, including Latin of course, and as it is a rather straightforward Latin prose, and you can cross-reference the same text in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German etc. etc. I find it really useful as an additional source for reading.

My forays into Classical Greek have slowed down somewhat, but I am well underway with reading Greek and I've decided to start working on Volume II of ATHENAZE - Introduzione al greco Antico. This course has been recommended by Luke from Polymathy on YouTube, and it does look promising. It is a fat book, over 500 pages when you count the reference grammar and the vocabulary lists at the end, so it will give me plenty of text to work on.

I've also bought Lucian's The Ass - an intermediate Greek reader, edited by Evan Hayes and Stephen Nimis. I'll wait a bit before starting on it, but it seems to be well made. The text is broken down into "digestible" segments followed by vocabulary lists and grammar points.

As for Dutch and Russian, it is mostly reading and watching stuff on YouTube.

[Ogrim]

The last few weeks have been very hectic but also very interesting. I've just been five days to the Netherlands to visit my son and do some tourism. We went by car, which meant that we had the liberty of movement around part of the country. As distances are relatively short in NL, we managed to visit Delft, The Hague, Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Kinderdijk (area of windmills, a Unesco heritage site) and Keukenhof (a flower garden, mostly tulips, open only one month per year). The more I see of this country, the more I like it, in my view the Dutch manage to keep a nice balance between tradition and modernity, and people were friendly and open in a no-nonsense way.

I managed to speak some Dutch. In a few instances they would switch to English as soon as they heard I was a foreigner, but with one waiter I actually had a small conversation that went on for more than two sentences - she said that I sounded Flemish. I also had a fun conversation in a pizzeria in a small village close to Keukenhof, it was a family restaurant and the Italian couple running it only spoke Dutch, Italian and some Spanish, so we ended up mixing the three languages during our time there. I am really going to work seriously on my Dutch now, as I most certainly will go back quite regularly as long as my son is living there.

The week before the trip to the Netherlands we were in Salamanca, Spain, for a long weekend. There was a family celebration we did not want to miss - it should have taken place two years ago but because of the pandemic it had been postponed until now. I love Salamanca, it was my first real meeting with Spain, it is where I met my wife, and its history, monuments and university are an important part of me. I always read some of the work of Unamuno when I am there, and also this time I went through some chapters of Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, which I would say is his most important philosophical work.

I keep reading Latin every day, but I've spent more time on Classical Greek lately, and yesterday I got the good news from Amazon that volume one of the Italian-based course Athenaze is finally available. I ordered it months ago but it was out of stock. Now it should arrive today, and I am really looking forward to it, as volume 2 is still a bit too hard for me, and I need to consolidate the basic grammar and vocabulary.

[Le Baron]

we managed to visit Delft, The Hague, Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht

Now why didn't you knock on my door!

Interesting that she said you sounded Flemish. I see your localisation is Alsace, so you're obviously mostly speaking French. Similar to the situation I was in and it caused me to transfer some sounds of French into Dutch. Even now people assume this of me. Or they think I'm French speaking Dutch as a foreigner. I've even been disbelieved when telling them I'm actually English!

That defaulting to English can be tiresome, but is easily thwarted by replying back in another language (and you have plenty to choose from!) which will quickly move things back to Dutch.