Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

[Iversen]

I have just declared in another thread that I don't feel bad about nicking the expression "comprehensible input" from Krashen even though I intend to use it in ways he wouldn't approve of - like for instance about using bilingual texts to make otherwise incomprehensible texts comprehensible. Krashen's separation between an 'acquired system' and a 'learned system' does have a very remote likeness to my own dichotomy between extensive versus intensive studying, but I can't see any reason to accept that languages only should be 'acquired' through input without also using formal study methods which he would classify as 'learning'. Actually Krashen's restricted use of the term 'to acquire' is idiotic in my view - for me it should be used about the process of going from ground zero to being a fluent user of a language, with no reference whatsoever to how this feat is achieved.

And this made me think about other cases where I have used terminology in ways that others may not have approved of. For instance I once had a heated discussion on HTLAL with someone (NOT Arguelles himself) who claimed that according to Professor Arguelles only knowledge of great literature should be accepted as evidence of 'literacy'. My counterclaim was that I just as well could prove my literacy by reading newspaper articles or cooking books in a number of languages.

This also reminded me about some discussions I have been involved with about grammar, where I have seen it necessary to redefine certain notions.

FR: Je me souviens avec plaisir de l'examination orale finale de grammaire française à l'université, où j'avais préalablement tiré une question sur les phrases subordonnées adverbiales. Il faut peut-être dire qu'un vingtaine de mes co-étudiants éatiant assis dans le local d'examination pour écouter. Et ce que j'ai dit était que la notion the phrase subordinée adverbiale était superflue, voire fausse, puisque il y a certes des phrases subordonnées qui peuvent remplir les mêmes rôles que les adverbes, mais dans leur construction elles suivaient les mêmes principes que dans les phrases dites adjectivales or substantivales. Et j'ai prouvé que c'était ainsi en passant par tous les types de phrases subordonnées qui existent dans la language française et indiqué où il fallait placer chaque type dans mon système à moi.

Le système est grosso modo ainsi:

Il y a des phrases completives: je dis que..... (où "que" est une pure conjonction sans autres rôles, et toute la phrase subordonné fonctionne comme l'objet d'un verbe sur le niveau supérieur)

Il y a les phrases interrogatives: je me demande qui/quoi/lequel/où/quand/pourquoi ... (où la conjonction est un pronom interrogatif, qui peut remplir toute une série de fonctions dans la phrase subordonnée en plus de emplir le rôle de conjonctional - et toute la phrase subordonné fonctionne comme l'objet d'un verbe sur le niveau supérieur)

Il y a les phrases relatives: je dis un mot qui ....(où il y a un antecédent substantival sur le niveau supérieur et un élément relatif à l'intérieur de la subordonnée qui a une référence anaphorique à l'antecédent)

Il y a les phrases relatives reduites: je dis ce qui ....(où il y a un antecédent substantival pronominal 'vide' sur le niveau supérieur, mais l'élément relatif à l'intérieur de la subordonnée garde la référence anaphorique à son antecédent)

Il y a les phrases independentes (préalablement nommées relatives indépendentes dans la tradition grammatical danoise) comme celle-ci: "qui(conque) entre par cette porte doit avoir une bonne raison pour le faire" .

Dans cette dernière catégorie on note que la phrase subordonnée (ici "qui(conque) entre par cette porte" fonctionne comme sujet dans la phrase complétive initiée par "que" - et on remarque en outre que l'interrogatif "qui" en plus de sa fonction comme conjonctional aussi fonctionne comme sujet dans la phrase subordonnée. Autrement dit: il y a un étroit lien entre la fonction supplémentaire du mot anaphorique à l'intérieur de la phrase subordonné et la fonction de toute la phrase subordonnée dans le contexte superieur.

Le problème qu'on avait totalement négligé de remarquer dans la tradition grammaticale était que les même catégories de phrases peuvent avoir des fonctions adverbiales: il y a des phrases relatives où le mot relatif a une fonction adverbiale ("au moment où elle est venu"), mais en outre il y a des phrases indépendantes adverbiales ("quand elle est venu"), et on avait aveuglement nommées celles-ci des phrases adverbiales comme si c'etait tout ce qu'il y avait à dire - mais il fallait ajouter que leur construction est exactement la même que celle des phrases indépendantes substantivales.

Regardez par example l'example "Quand le monsieur arrive il faut le tuer", où l'on aurait traditionnellement catégorisé "quand le monsieur arrive" comme carrément une phrase adjectivale. Mais comme on le voit, la phrase subordonnée remplit la fonction d'adverbial temporal dans la phrase supérieur, et à l'interieur de la subordonné le mot "quand" remplit exactement le même rôle comme adverbial temporel.

Quelques mois plus tard j'ai écrit ma dissertation finale sur les constructions corrélatives où j'ai appliqué cette type d'analyse sur les construction avec des pairs de pro-mots comme par example tel-quel en français ou tanto-quanto en italien. Et je eu mon examen avec des notes qui grattaient le ciel, mais peu après j'ai découvert que les chances pour obtenir une emploi stable sur le niveau universitaire étaient quasi zero - et j'ai totalement abandonnés mes études de langues pour un periode de 25 années.

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[Iversen]

I have now returned to my computer from a minor disturbance called Christmas, and I would like to add a few words to my description of subordinate types in the message above. The special thing about relative pronouns is that they can retain a function in the subordinate clause and at the same time function as conjunctionals, and on top of that they have a reference to something at a higher level called an antecedent. I would like to clarify that notion, but first there is a confusing countercase to deal with, namely those constructions where the conjunctional function is outsourced to an 'empty' conjunction, whtile the pronoun takes care of the secundary function in the sentence. I used Mr. Blakeley's Teach Yourself Old English as goodnight reading over Christmas, and here I noticed a funny kind of relative clause on page 25:

..būtan hē hæbbe ðæs biskopes gewitnesse, ðe hē on his scriftshire sīe
"unless he has the testimony of the bishop, in whose diocese he is"

A more literal translation would be something like "unless he had that bishop's testimony, that he on his ('in whose') shire be". Something similar can happen in sloppy oral Danish - a true conjunction can dislodge the relative pronoun from its role as a conjunctional:

medmindre han havde den biskops vidnesbyrd, som at han havde fået det fra
(LIT.) unless he had that bishop's testimony, which that he had got it from

OK, antecedent ... Typically it will be a substantive (or substantival element) in a sentence to which a relative clause has been attached. The relative pronoun can have almost any function in the subordinate (apart from verbal), and apart from also having the role as conjunctional it has an anaphoric reference to the antecedent. And this inspires to the search to a more fundamental structure which through a transformation became a structure with an imbedded relative clause.

So behind the relative clause in "unless he has the testimony of the bishop, in whose diocese he is" we would expect a 'hidden' clause clause like "He is in [a certain bishop's] diocese". And behind the clause in the second example: "unless he had that bishop's testimony, whom he had got it from" we would postulate a sentence like "he had got a testimony from [a certain bishop]". With a loan from one of my old university teachers I call those 'hidden' sentences "intrapositional sentences" because you grab the antecedent and drop it in the midst of the 'hidden' sentence instead of a relative item.

I'm aware that the word 'transformation' makes people think of a certain mister Chomsky, who in the 1950's postulated that surface structures were produced through a series of transformations from a base structure. Unfortunately he took over some preconceived ideas about sentence structure from the constituent structure grammars with which he had been raised, but I'll not dicuss that further here. The contentious point right now is whether a surface structure actually is generated 'on the fly' from one specific base structure, which in Chomsky's 1957 formulation was formulated as NP + VP. Some of his disciples later came up with the idea that the real base was a semantic construct, but it turned out to be quite hard to formulate a strict system base on semantics (and it went squarely against Chomsky's original project). For my own part I think that the surface structures reflect transformations performed actively long ago rather than being performed actively now whenever we speak or write, but our utterances still closely reflect the mechanics behind those transformations.

OK, 'nuff grammar. For my Christmas family visit I had brought along not only the Anglosaxon textbook, but also my copy of Donald G. Swanson's Vocabulary of Modern Spoken Greek from 1959.

GR: Αυτό το λεξικό είναι διαφορετικό από τα άλλα, καθώς περιέχει μόνο λίγες λέξεις, αλλά με τη σειρά τους εξηγούνται λεπτομερώς με παραδείγματα (και για ρήματα: αόριστοι). Έφτιαξα γλωσσάρια με περίπου 200 λέξεις και θα μπορούσε να ήταν περισσότερο, αλλά δυσκολεύομαι να συγκεντρωθώ όταν δεν είμαι μόνος. Φυσικά, θα μπορούσα να το κάνω αυτό ως παιδί όταν έκανα την εργασία μου, αλλά δεν καταλαβαίνω πλέον πώς αυτά τα μέλη που ζουν με τις οικογένειές τους μπορούν να μάθουν τίποτα. Γι 'αυτό, έφτιαξα πρώτα τα γλωσσάρια μου αργά το βράδυ όταν καθόμουν μόνος μου στο σαλόνι με τα πόδια μου σ'ένα σκαμνί, και ένα λεξικό και και ένα φύλλο χαρτιού και χρωματιστές πένες σε ένα δίσκο. Έτσι κάνω γλωσσάρια στο σπίτι.

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[Iversen]

GER: Ich bin heute aus einem Traum aufgewacht, wo ich in irgendwelche deutsche Hafenstadt zu Besuch war - und wie gewöhnlich hatte hatte ich so was wie eine Stadtplan in meinem Kopf, so daß ich ganz präzise wußte, wo ich war bezüglich der Förde. Eigentlich möchte ich ein Seefahrtmuseum besuchen, aber ich wußte, daß alle Museen wegen der Corona geschlossen waren, so ich hätte nur gehofft, das Museum von aussen zu sehen. Es lag direkt am Förde, und dort habe ich einige Enten gesehen, darunter zwei Krickenten, (Anas crecca - und ich wußte bereits im Traum, daß sie Anas crecca hießen). Ich wollte sie photografieren, aber war zu langsam - so im Traum konnte ich mich offenbar problemlos von Lateinischen Vögelnamen erinnern, aber nicht meine Kamera schnell genug aus der Tasche ziehen - seltsam! Ich habe aber die Förde photografiert.

Dann habe ich deutsche Blasmusik links gehört, und ich bin in die Richtung die Förde entlang gegangen. Ich wußte irgendwie, daß die Deutschen als Trost ein Blechbläsermusikfestival organisiert hatten, weil ihre Museen nicht öffnen durften. Ich bin aber bald weiter gegangen, habe einige quergestellte Bänke passiert und bin eine reguläre Gasse mit Asphalt und so gefolgt, bis ich an einem Ort gekommen bin, wo es noch Hafenbecken links gab. und hier hat ein anderes Blasorchester Musik gespielt. Ich habe einige Jungen gesehen, die es versucht haben, auf einen Fahnenmast (ohne Flagge) zu klettern. Das ist ihnen selbstverständlich nicht gelungen. Ich habe diese Szene fotografiert, aber bin dann leider abrupt aufgewacht. Ich habe nichts von der Musik in meinem Traum wiedererkannt, aber ansonsten war es einer ziemlich guten und unterhaltsamen Traum als Beginn eines weiteren grauen und langweiligen Tages im Zeichen der Korona.

Platt: Op Deens heisst düütsche Blickblasmusik butendem "messingsuppe" ('brass soup'). Und ja, ik weet, dat ik all dit op Platt höff schriven sollen, aver dann harrn ja bannig wenig vun jo 't ja lesen künnen.

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EN: We have discussed dreams several times here at Llorg (and before that: at Htlal), especially those that contain scenes in other languages. I cannot say precisely why I suddenly decided to dream in German, but at least it is a language in which I can think quite effortlessly. And the town in question reminded me of Flensburg where I often have been in the past, but not in the area where the dream must have taken place - actually I have used the word "Förde" above instead of "Fjord" because of this northerly connection - but there ain't no museum at the location indicated in the dream, and as far as I can see from the map below, not even the same kind of densely populated urban environment, nor the second harbour basin. And one thing more: according to Wikipedia teals (Anas crecca) live in boreal coniferous forest zones and in shrub tundras so it would really have been worth a photo if I had seen them at a populated harbour promenade with brass bands scampering around in the background and people climbing up flagpoles.

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[Iversen]

Almost as an afterthought to yesterday's rant .. I'm amazed at the utterly wasted creativity a human brain musters several times every night (or maybe even continually, but in different forms). If you don't recapitulate your last dream immediately after you wake up - preferably even before you open your eyes - then the whole ting is forgotten. Today it seemed that I somehow had been inscribed to a course at a university. First I was sitting in a room where I wrote something (mostly forgotten now), but I knew that 'my course' should start at 8 o'clock at the office of a certain professor. Okay around 9 o'clock I went to see whether he still was there, and I saw him at his desk, looking quickly and nervously through a lot of papers - nobody else there. Then I went two floors up to a library, where I found a big book about Egypt (in English, but mostly photos). I went down again, and now the professor had left, but the floor in his office was full of plastic dolls (!!). OK, I went back to the first room and left the Egypt book there, then returned to the office of the professor, and now several students were coming (and the dolls had been removed). I tried to find something like a study plan among several slips of paper plastered on the wall around the door opening, but to no avail. So finally I sat down on an arm rest (not enough chairs in the room) .. and then I woke up at 9:20 (real time in the real world).

The amazing thing is that it also would be around 9:20 in the dream world, but equally amazing that my brain had invented so many details which simply would have been lost forever if I had just walked to the loo immediately - only because I recapitulated the whole dream before moving around some of it is still with me with all its details. For instance there were books on all shelves in the library, and all rooms had doors with door knobs and the stair to the library had steps all the way up. Why does my brain bother to invent all those details if the normal destiny of a dream is to be lost without a trace?

Another thing is that the book was in English, and a third thing is that I continually had a map over the whole institution in my head - almost like some of those TV productions they have started to make where you see a subterranean town in 3D. But actually I didn't have any conversations during the dream - I wrote something at the beginning of the part I remember, and I read several book titles in the library, but I didn't speak to anybody. However when I have read descriptions of other people's dreams they seem to be interacting continually with other people (often family members), and their dreams appear to be much more surrealistic and confused - which is strange since I'm the one who have painted surrealistic paintings - and I have never ever read descriptions that mentioned Google world-like maps, but I continually have such maps in my head when I'm dreaming. I wonder whether I'm the only one to be a tourist in my own dreams.

So much for the irrelevant rant. At some new years I have concocted long messages with passages in all my languages. I have not yet decided whether I'll do it this time too, but it won't right be now at least. I have already written more than enough, and to boot about a subject that only superficially touches upon language learning - but the alternative would have been to write it directly for the paper bin. Like a dream...

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[Iversen]

PREPARE FOR THREE MESSAGES IN A ROW TO CELEBRATE THE APPROACHING NEW YEARS CELEBRATION:


EN: So finally we have left 2020 behind us with all its trouble. Just think that the whole worldwide pandemy could have been avoided if the administration of one hospital in Wuhan hadn't persecuted and threathened those employees who first warned against some cases with a strange new virus instead of isolating the patients concerned and sending adequate warnings upwards through the administrative system.

SCO: Sae a wheens of breindeaid heidies at a hospital in a faraway corner o the warld have condamt the hale warld tae ane lost year wi closed shops, museums, schools and restaurants, quarantine, moothclaits and stapped borders - and a heap o dead peeple. But the fousome mentality o these fouterin fools is livin on...

DA: Jeg er ikke særligt socialt indstillet, og jeg kan godt undvære håndtryk og det der afskyelige krammeri ('hugging') som inden coronaen bredte sig som en steppebrand. Så det jeg personligt har savnet mest har været muligheden for at rejse udenlands - og i perioder også adgang til mit eget lands museer, zooer og biblioteker (vi er lige nu i en sådan periode).

JYSK: Ved ded at a ik har ku't rejse udenlands har æ kompensert ved å ræjs rundt i Danmark, men nu har a set Danmark å a længs etter å komm væk å besøw nowed andet i 2021.

SW: Svenskarna försökte undvika hårda begränsningar, men experimentet gick inte så bra - antalet dödsfall talar sitt eget språk, och till och med den annars helt och hållet opolitiska kung kom att medgiva att den svenska strategin fullständigt hade misslyckats. Ironin är att strategin dikterades av hälsomyndigheterna - tills premiärministern tappade tålamodet sitt nån gång på hösten.

NO: Det motsatte er Norge, der politikerne umiddelbart stengte alle grenser og dikterte hårde restriktioner. Det må imidlertid være vanskelig å hermetisk stenge en grense (til Sverige) som er flere tusen kilometer lang og passerer mange tynt befolkede områder.

IC: Íslendingar voru fyrstir til að uppgötva að smitaðir veisluöpar streymdu inn frá tilteknu skíðasvæði 'Ischgl' í Austurríki. Þeir sendu Austurríkismönnum strax skilaboð, en aðeins einn viku síðar yrði drykkjuskemmtuninni í borginni hætt - og það voru ekki sveitarstjórnirnar i Týrol sem tóku ákvörðunina.

PLATT: Ok di Grenz twischen Däänmark un Sleswig-Holsteen wöör sparrt för Turisten, un die Eegners vun Ferienhüüs die hele deense Waterkant henlang waren vertwiefelt, om dat die meeste vun sien Kunnen gang un geev uut Düütsland kommen.

GE: Aber auch innerhalb Deutschland wurden Sperren zwischen den deutschen Bundesländern eingerichtet. Soweit ich weiß, ist die Unterbringung von Touristen in Hotels dort unten immer noch verboten, auch für andere Deutsche. Und alle müssen Mund-Nasen-Masken überall tragen, ausser in ihren Privatwohnungen (wo ein großer Teil der Weiter-Infektion wohl ironischerweise stattfindet).

AF: Daar is lank gedink dat Afrika saggies ontsnap het - maar dit was waarskynlik omdat daar nie genoeg pasiënte getoets werd nie. Suid-Afrika se getalle was ten minste sleg - en daar het pas 'n nuwe variant van covid verskyn. Ek sal beslis ingeënt word voordat ek weer na Afrika gaat!

DU: Er is echter één ding dat tijdens de pandemie heeft gewerkt, en dat is onz internet. Zonder dit zou de situatie volkomen ondraaglijk zijn geweest - en dan denk ik terug aan de Spaanse griep en de Zwarte Dood, waar het internet nog niet uitgevonden was.

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[Iversen]

FR: Dans certains pays d'Europe, les authorités ont expérimenté avec des couvre-feux presque totals - à l'exception des courtes excursions d'achats et de la aération de chiens de manière qu'ils ne chient pas sur les tapis à l'intérieur des foyers (dont les résidents n'étaient pas autorisés à sortir). Mais la grande question est de savoir si les restrictions extrêmes ont eu plus d'effets positifs que des restrictions moins brutales auraient pu avoir - je me demande si c'est une coïncidence si les pires bilans en ce qui concerne la mortalité viennent des pays où les baisers sur les joues étaient une coutume répandue.

PO: Pode ser uma surpresa que as autoridades em todo o mundo começaram a tomar cobiça solenemente em março de 2020 (e no Brasil ainda há pelo menos UMA pessoa que não percebe que há uma pandemia acontecendo ao redor dele). Eu estava visitando o sul da Índia em janeiro-fevereiro de 2020 e escapei de Kerala no mesmo dia em que a primeira pessoa infectada no estado foi descoberta - e eu sabia que isso poderia ficar muito ruim!

SP: Uno de los países más afectados de Europa fue España (otro epicentro de besos amables). Pero, irónicamente, los daneses descubrieron por primera vez que había una epidemia amenazante en el horizonte cuando un grupo de huéspedes daneses en una de las Islas Canarias fueron atrincherados dentro de su hotel en febrero debido a un solo caso de corona. E irónicamente, cuando estas islas más tarde se convirtieron en un área casi libre de corona, se invitaron a la gente de los países más contagiosos de Europa a apresurarse visitarlas.

CAT: La situació a Madrid va empitjorar tant que les autoritats van decidir muntar una xarxa de ferro al voltant de la capital espanyola. Però d'altra banda, la zona més afectada va ser Catalunya, i aquí especialment la ciutat de Barcelona.

IT: Ho appena visto le notizie dall'Italia. Un giornalista stava nella piazza deserta davanti al Duomo milanese, un altro in una spopolata Piazza San Marco a Venezia ... Il primo epicentro in Europa è stata la città di Bergamo in Lombardia, e alcuni hanno segnalato la precoce coincidenza di un'epidemia di covid e di una partita di calcio a Milano, verso la quale migliaia di bergamaschi si sono recati in pellegrinaggio per assistere a una idiota partita di calcio che purtroppo la loro squadra ha vinto. E perció i tifosi bergamaschi si sono abbracciati e baciati e hanno cantato, e poi sono tornati a casa in pullman affollatissimi. Ci sono anche voci che negano una tale connessione, ma potrebbero appartenire ad accaniti tifosi di calcio questi voci.

GR: Η Ελλάδα είχε σχεδόν τον ίδιο ρόλο με τα Κανάρια Νησιά, σαν μέρος με χαμηλά ποσοστά μόλυνσης - και ένα μέρος όπου προσπάθησαν να προσελκύσουν τουρίστες. Ωστόσο, μίλησα με μια κυρία από την Αθήνα που έπεσε στη Δανία και είπε ότι η κατάσταση στην Αθήνα δεν ήταν καθησυχαστική - ούτε καν πριν από το δεύτερο κύμα - και στα μικρά νησιά μόνο ένας μολυσμένος τουρίστας θα μπορούσε να είχε τελειώσει την τουριστική περίοδο.

RO: Nu am auzit prea multe din România aici în Danemarca, dar probabil asta-i pentru că mass-media daneze nu știu unde este asta țara - cel puțin nu au corespondent acolo.

AL: Unë nuk e di se si është situata në Shqipëri, por edhe gjuha ime shqipe është në çrregullim.

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[Iversen]

BU: Прекарах доста време от няколко месеца, за да получа още повече ред в музикалната си колекция през втората половина на годината. И струваше много време, което за съжаление най-силно удари изучаването ми на славянски езици, защото те не бяха на същото ниво като германските и романските ми езици. Но сега с нетърпение очаквам да ги полирайте, докато заблестят като злато.

SE: Овде у Новој години, мој добављач ТВ каблова престаје да испоручује моје црногорске, хрватске и пољске програме - зато сам морао да смањим свој допунски ТВ пакет са 36 на 20 канала .. и као што сам рекао телефоном на њега запосленом: Једноставно више немате додатних 20 канала које сам желим да гледам.

SLK: Nikdy som nemal kanály v slovenčine alebo češtine alebo ukrajinčine alebo ruštine, takže teraz sú všetky slovanské jazyky rovnako znevýhodnené.

POL: Dotyczy to również języka polskiego. Poza tym jest coś, czego nie rozumiem: w tej chwili Litwa jest mocno dotknięta przez koronę, ale Łotwa i Estonia mają znacznie niższe liczby. Zastanawiać się, dlaczego?

RUS: Русские разработали свою вакцину, и сейчас они проводят вакцинацию своего населения. Но в начале декабря я прочитал, что вакцина была проверено на нескольких людях ... и вот сюрприз: среди этих нескольких испытуемых были члены семьи Путина. На самом деле это звучит маловероятно. Китайцы испытали свою вакцину на бразильцах и на Филиппинах.

EO: En Danio, ni estas en la procezo vakcini loĝantojn en flegejoj (kaj iliajn flegejajojn), kaj ni ankaŭ starigis testan sistemon, kiu probable estas la plej dense kunplektita en la mondo. Eĉ mi mem faris unu fulman teston (negativa - hurrra hurra), sed mi atendis ricevi pruvon pri la bona novaĵo. Verŝajne okazos, ke vi devas montri vakcinan atestilon aŭ tute novan negativan teston por povi vojaĝi, do la problema kun dokumentado estas importa detalo, kiun la aŭtoritatoj devos aranĝi antaŭ ol la vakcinoj atingos mian aĝan grupon.

LAT: Post vaccinationem populationis danicae senectae, vaccinaturi sunt danici juniori qui infectionem maxime dispersant. Et isto facto, ego forsitan rursus prorsus per mundem peregrinare possum. Dum annum MMXX pecuniam colocavi et sitem peregrinationis mei vagandi semper crescabat, sed restrictiones forsitan longius quam pandemia durabunt.

IND: Dan dengan kata-kata ini, persediaan bahasa saya hampir habis.

IR: Athbhliain Shona ...

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[Iversen]

As you can se above I celebrated new year 2020-21 with a multilingual spree of writings in all the languages I can talk or write more or less fluently plus a few where I have to construct my sentences with the help of one or more dictionaries and my own green sheets. The first message after that mighty burst of multiconfusion and Wanderlust will follow in its footsteps. Yesterday afternoon and evening and part of this morning I harked back to an old activity, which I haven't had time to do for a very long time due to my occupation with music: extreme wordlisting.

If you look at the photo below you will see 29 wordlists in 29 languages with each around 30 words plus translations in my usual three-column format. The missing one down right is Finnish, but I still haven't started to study this language so that's not a must-have - just something I added to the collection last time to reach a nice round figure. And of course I can't speak 29 languages fluently. I have included Czech and Ukrainian because they are closely related to languages I already am working on (Slovak, Polish and Russian), and I have actually planned to try to read stuff in those languages. I can speak maybe half of the languages on a good day, and even on a mediocre day I can concoct written messages in the rest - though my Irish and my Albanian have become somewhat rusty during 2020 and I still don't own a decent French to Old French dictionary. As for Finnish (like Hungarian, Basque, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian) I am definitely tempted to have a go at it in 2021, but only if I succeed in keeping my musical addiction under strict control.

The languages represented below are (from upper left to bottom right) English, Scots, Afrikaans, Dutch, Platt, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Latin, Old French, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian, Modern Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Slovak, Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Esperanto, Irish and Indonesian. If you wonder what happened at the beginning of the Esperantean list, then the explanation is that I came from writing in Ukrainian and Russian, and I automatically transcribed the first three words in Esperanto into Cyrillic before I sensed that something was wrong.

Wordlist-mania-January-2021.jpg

[Iversen]

I have just spent some time concocting a long syntactical rant about English sentence patterns, so I'll be slightly more concise below.

I have been working my way through one page in the book about language learning which its author, Ivan Kupka, was kind enough to give me during one of the gatherings in Bratislava. The problem is that it's in Czech, and I have not studied Czech. So what to do?

But let's start in another corner. The night after Sunday I read four monolingual pages in Neapolitan, Sicilian, Sardinian and Lombard as goodnight reading without using any dictionaries, and by and large I understood the lot at substantially higher than 'getting the gist' level- actually I could have written a translation of eact text with just a few empty spaces here and there. The point was that I could use Italian as my reference language, and once I got into the mood of each dialect or language it was just like reading stuff in for instance Swiss or Austrian German using high German as my reference. The essential trick is to 'listen' to the sounds inside your head while you are reading - then there seems to be a brain mechanism inside a human brain that automatically adjusts the input mechanism according to the specific 'sound' of whatever you are listening to, just as you can listen to an old man or a little girl with the same pair of ears - well, even to people who speak different versions of your maternal language.

My reference languages for Czech are Slovak and Polish, and my level in both is still far below that I have got in Italian, so when I used Kupka's book as goodnight reading yesterday evening I was almost back to the level I experienced when I first looked it through the book shortly after I had received it in Bratislava. But there is a catch here. If you have problems understanding something you may try to 'get the gist', which essentially means that you find a few comprehensible words (mostly loanwords) and then you try to guess the general meaning given the context. Which may save you if you are stranded in a faraway country, but it is not a viable way to learn a language

The irony with Kupka is that I actually understood the syntactical structure of the text rather well - my problem was a lack of vocabulary, including the inflected forms of pronouns and irregular verbs etc., and if I frantically had tried to 'get the gist' I might easily have forgotten to track the syntactical web in favour of just looking for isolated comprehensible words. So in this situation I prefer to leave some glaring holes in my comprehension at the semantic level, but keep my picture of the syntactical web intact.

Which in a sense is the same thing I advocate when I suggest 'listening like a bloodhound' in case you have problems understanding the spoken version of a weak language. If you frantically try to get the meaning you lose your contact with the basic tissue that keeps the utterance together (plus long passages of speech while you think). Instead you should try to separate single words, compunds, clauses and sentences and then let meaning pop up (or not) along the way as you are listening. The more words you already know, the more meaning will pop up by itself, and until the whole caboodle begins to coalesce into a semantical whole you should be content with getting essential training for your parsing skills.

However yesterday I also used the book in a very different way. Given that I don't have a translation the obvious solution is to make one myself - and then it turns out that I feel an urge to check almost all words in the beginning, which takes a very long time. But as part of an intensive study strategy it isn't totally idiotic to make translations in writing, where the physical movements prevent you from just skipping through the text in a misguided attempt to 'get the gist'. I could of course make the text study easier by using bilingual texts (which is my normal choice), but I have a fairly good German <> Czech dictionary (from Langenscheidt) so it is not totally infeasible to do the translation thing instead. Well, maybe not the whole book, but ..

The result can be seen below.

Kupka_bio.jpg

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Wordlist-mania-January-2021.jpg

Cute how you have arranged the sheets for the photo