WilliamYiffBuckley's Log

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

(Realizing that I've never actually posted here before, just lurked...)

I'm attempting to get up to somewhere around passing a C1-level German exam by the end of this summer (currently somewhere around 'dormant B2'). I spent most of the 2019-2020 school year in Austria, then left for...very complicated reasons which are still complicated, so it should hopefully mostly be a matter of vocabulary acquisition and drilling, since my speaking, reading and listening are reasonably decent. Additionally, I'd like to finally break into a functional reading knowledge of Sanskrit this year. Depending on exogenous events, I may add something else onto my plate later on, perhaps Lithuanian.

I always had a 'knack' for languages in college, but mostly floundered around due, mostly, to difficulty with disciplined vocabulary acquisition. In my experience there's a long and painful plateau between about A2-"B0" and B2 (does this thing have a name?) where daily, routine life is no longer forcing you to acquire new vocabulary at a quick pace and you know most of the basic grammar, but a newspaper is still an exercise in mentally draining frustration. I tried something new during a bout of panic in October last year when I was sure I was going to have to fly to Albania imminently to wait out eight or nine months (again, long story) and got the Routledge Colloquial Albanian book:

--Given a dialogue, its translation or a key wordlist, and a transcript, listen between about ten to twelve times with the transcript and translation in front of you, listening for new words and trying to commit them for memory. As you do this, on repeat, the speech gradually ungarbles itself and becomes more comprehensible.

--After a short break (five or ten minutes), do the same thing, but now with only the transcript.

--After a second, longer break, ditch the transcript and fly totally blind, with the thing playing on repeat while you transcribe.

This will generally get most of the new words into your head, up to around eight to ten a day*; you can also repeat the second or third excercises later on in the day. I'm also using Anki for word review, but never for learning new words.

I'm waiting on a German dictionary to show up in the mail, and then we'll start cracking with some C1-level readings from Deutsche Welle with an mp3 player and no other electronics around (getting rid of them seems to have a strong and wholesome effect on my memory and attention--as do nicotine lozenges). Until then, lots of Rammstein...I need to go rummaging around for a cheap novel, too.

For Sanskrit I'm using the venerable Sanskrit Primer by Perry, published in 1936. This has had just one problem the last half-dozen or so times I've tried it since I was a teenager: there's a lot of vocabulary for each lesson. So instead, I'm moving through slowly, using the readings and exercises in dribs and drabs to learn about five to six new words a day, with intensive review and halfway-committing-to-memory of the (quite short) texts presented as exercises, rather than trying to rush through the book. The abundance of cognates to words I already know will also help immensely early on.

* I'm beyond ticked none of my Russian profs ever took me aside and explained that the actual secret to knocking B1 or so Russian out before a year in St. Petersburg had relatively little to do with what we did in class...This process has to have a name. What is it? 'Intensive Short-Text Review', perhaps?

Words learned Jan. 5-6 '21 (not all were necessarily unknown to me, but at least warrented a review)
atra 'here, hither'
adyā 'today'
adhunā 'now'
kva 'where? whither?'
√jīv, jīvati 'lives' (cf. vīvō, жить, βίος, quick)
√dhāv, dhāvati 'runs' (cf. θέω)
tadā 'then'
√pac, pacati 'cooks' (cf. coquō, πέσσω, печь)
yadā 'if, when'
√rakṣ, rakṣati 'protects' (cf. ἀλέξω)
sadā 'always'

die Ausnahme/n 'exception'
das Fach, Fächer 'subject, compartment, file'
> der Fachmann, die Fachleute 'specialist, expert'
wahrhaft 'veracious, honest-to-god'
Krieg führen (idiomatic) 'to wage war'
bleich 'pale'
das Antlitz/e 'face, countenance'
wickeln {haben} 'to wrap'
> entwickeln {haben} 'to develop, gain, grow (a skill, ability)'
die Wärme 'warmth'
> wärmen 'to warm (something)'

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

After a couple days of depressed hiatus, we return.

Sanskrit words learned or reviewed, Jan. 9th

katham 'how?'
kutas 'whence? why?'
√car, carati 'to go, wander, graze (of cattle); (transtive) perform, commit) (cf. πέλω, colō, wheel)
tatra 'there, thither'
√tyaj, tyajati 'to leave, abandon' (cf. σέβομαι)
punar 'again; but'
√yaj, yajati 'to sacrifice' (with instrumental 'object' and accusative recipient, e.g. यजामि गवा देवम्, 'I sacrifice a cow to the god') (cf. ἅγιος)
√śaṃs, śaṃsati 'to praise' (cf. cēnseō, κόσμος)

(Also reviewed is the present indicative active of the basic thematic verb, but that's very old hat.)

German words learned or reviewed, Jan. 9th (words already quite known, but reviewed with derivatives, in blue)

greifen, greift, griff, hat gegriffen 'to grab, reach'
> begreifen (haben) 'to understand, conceive, comprehend fully'
>> der Begriff/e 'term, conception, idea, concept'
wahrhaftig 'true, real, veracious' (a slightly stronger version of wahrhaft?)
offen 'open'
> öffentlich 'public'
> offenbar 'apparent, evident'
niesen, niest, nieste, hat geniest 'to sneeze'
der Himmel/-- 'sky, heaven'
> himmlisch 'heavenly'
rasch 'quick, fast, rapid'
aus:halten, hält aus, hielt aus, hat ausgehalten 'to stand, take (it)' (e.g. 'I can't stand it')
die Gnade/n 'grace, mercy'
> gnädig 'gracious, merciful'
erstaunen, erstaunt, erstaunte, hat erstaunt 'to amaze, astonish' (with reflexive 'ich erstaune mich', I am astonished)
> erstaunlich 'astonishing, amazing'

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

Some more Sanskrit (German has hit a bit of a lull for various reasons, but German Anki review has continued.)

I counted up all the vocabulary in Perry's Sanskrit Primer this morning; it comes out to 1,317 words, of which probably around 1200 are "real" vocabulary words and not proper nouns, minor variants or already-known words given a second or third time with new meanings (e.g. ca 'and', the familiar IE *kʷe clitic that also yielded Latin -que and Greek τε, can also be used to mean 'if', and Perry gives this as a second vocabulary entry). At the current rate, I should have the whole thing finished by the end of this summer, but 'by the end of 2021' is probably a reasonable goal to set myself given the likelihood of extenuating circumstances.

Sanskrit Vocabulary, January 10th-13th, all from memory without checking

kadā 'when?'
kutra 'where? whither?' (=kva)
gaja (m.) 'elephant'
√gam, gacchati 'to go' (cf. come/kommen, veniō, βαίνω)
gṛha (n.) 'house' (cf. город)
jala (n.) 'water' (possibly cf. Lat. gelū, cold/kalt)
√ji, jayati 'to win, conquer' (cf. βία)
deva (m.) 'god' (cf. deus, Ζεύς, Tiw)
nara (m.) 'man' (cf. Nerō, ἀνήρ)
√nam, namati 'to bow, bend; (tr.) revere, worship' (cf. νέμω)
√nī, nayati 'to lead'
nṛpa (m.) 'king' (apparently from *h₂ner- 'man' like nara, plus a suffix)
√pā, pibati 'to drink' (cf. bibō, πίνω, пить)
putra (m.) 'boy, son' (cf. puer, παῖς, Persian pesar/پسر)
phala (n.) 'fruit'
√yam, yacchati 'to furnish, give' (with the same acc. + ins. syntax as yajati)
vad, vadati 'to say, speak'
vas, vasati 'to dwell, live' (cf. was, were)
vah, vahati 'to blow, flow, proceed; bear, carry' (cf. vehō, Eng. weigh)
vāta (m.) 'wind' (cf. ventus, ветер, wind/Wind)

...and the one I stupidly couldn't recall and had to check
√smṛ, smarati 'to remember, think upon' (cf. Lat. memor, remember)

Also reviewed the nom/acc/voc of a-stems (IE o-stems):

Code: Select all

    sg    du    pl
nom devas devau devās
acc devam devau devān
voc deva  devau devās
   
    sg     du    pl
nom phalam phale phalāni
acc phalam phale phalāni
voc phala  phale phalāni


Little new here for the IEist, except to remember that the vocative in *-e has spread to neuters, which also have a -ni formant in the plural that seems to come out of nowhere (and which, if I recall correctly, is mostly absent in Vedic).

Also some external sandhi rules for vowel combinations with a final -a/ā. The trick here is to remember that the length of both vowels is essentially meaningless, and the rules don't precisely line up with historical development--e.g. -ā#i gives you /e/, not /ai/. Using a circumflex to represent a vowel of either length:

â + â = ā
â + î = e
â + û = o
â + e/ai = ai
â + o/au = au
â + ṛ = ar

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

January 14th, 2021

Sanskrit: New Words
gandha (m) 'scent, odor, perfume'
grāma (m) 'village'
√ghrā, jighrati 'to smell' (tr.) (cf. ὀσ-φραίνομαι 'I track by scent')
dāna (n) 'gift, present' (cf dōnum)
nagara (n) 'city'
√bhū, bhavati 'to be, there is, to exist' (cf. φύω, fuī, be, быть)
√vṛṣ, varṣati 'to rain; rain down, overwhelm with, be generous with' (cf. οὖρον 'urine')

German: new words

Quite a few of these today, with a marathon audio session, in no particular order. Those in blue are also on the German B2 list.

verabschieden, -schiedet, -schiedete, hat verabschieden 'to say goodbye, take leave' (+sich); take leave of (+von)
begrüßen (haben) 'to welcome'
fest:legen (haben) 'to set, determine'
schaffen (regular) (haben) 'to accomplish, achieve; manage, cope with'
der Haufen/-- 'heap, pile'
vor:verlegen 'to move forward, "prepone" ' (um zwei Monate, 'by two months')
der Termin/e 'date, deadline'
häufig 'frequent'
das Altertum 'antiquity'
die Reform/en 'reform'
zurück:gehen auf (wen?) 'goes back (to who?)'
die Regelung/en 'ruling, regulation[/i]
(mit etwas) einverstanden 'in agreement with, agreeing to'
endgültig 'definitive, ultimate, final'
ausbreiten, breitet aus, etc. (sich) 'to expand'
gelten, gilt, galt, hat gegolten 'to be valid, hold true, be effective/in force'; + als/für 'pass for, be regarded as'

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

January 18th Log

Sanskrit

Today we review the oblique cases of o-stems (a-stems). There's no gender difference here.

Code: Select all

     sg       du         pl
ins  devena   devābhyām  devais
dat  devāya   "   "      devebhyas
abl  devāt    "   "      "   "
gen  devasya  devayos    devānām
loc  deve     "   "      deveṣu

Most of these are old hat, though it's important to get the lengths right on the dative singular (the feminine ā-stem instrumental singular is -ayā). Diachronically it's the old IE dative in *-ōi (<*-o-ei; cf. Greek -ῳ) plus the allative in *-o, which doesn't otherwise survive.

New Words, Jan. 15th-18th--in no particular order and from memory.

megha (m) 'cloud' (cf Eng. mist, Gk. ὀμίχλη, Russ. мгла)
√sic, siñcati 'to drip, drop, moisten'
kṣetra (n) 'field'
hasta (m) 'hand' (cf. χείρ, دست)
kunta (m) 'spear'
kaṭa (m) 'mat'
√sad, sīdati 'to sit' (cf. sit/sitzen, сидеть, sedeō)
mārga (m) 'way, road, path'
√diś, diśati 'to show, point out' (cf. zeigen, δείκνυμι, dīcō[/i]
√viś, viśati 'to enter' (cf ἱκνέομαι)
lān̄gala (n) 'plow'
√kṛṣ, kṛṣati 'to plow'
kṣīra (n) 'milk' (cf. شیر)
√sṛj, sṛjati 'to let go of; create' (perhaps Eng. sulk)
iha 'here, now' (= atra) (cf. ایدر)
dhana (n) 'wealth, riches'
√guh, gūhati 'to hide, conceal'
√sthā, tiṣthati 'to stand' (cf. stand/stehen, стать, stō/stāre, ἵστημι)
sukha (n) 'joy, luck, happiness, delight (+loc 'in')'
√iṣ, icchati 'to desire, wish' (cf. ask, искать)

Words I had to look up--I need to do language logs more often because this is getting into a good four or five days' worth of words now, so most of these were down pat and I simply forgot they were done since the last time I logged...

√kṣip, kṣipati 'to throw, cast, hurl'
śara (m) 'arrow'

...oh, that's it? Memory working pretty well, then.

German

erläutern (haben) 'to explain'
das Verdienst/e 'credit, merit'
abgesehen von... 'apart from'
die Sitte 'custom, practice, tradition'
> gesittet 'well-mannered, civilized'
der Schriftsteller/-- 'author'
gemütlich 'comfortable'
erben 'to inherit' (from: von) (cf. orphan, from Greek)
glückselig 'blissful'

(More work needs to be done for German...efforts to be redoubled this week.)

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

January 19th, 2021

Sanskrit

We hit chapter 4 of Lanman's Primer, which was very heavy on grammar, so we're only going to add three new words today.

√spṛś, spṛśati 'to touch, to wash'
agni (m) 'fire' (cf. ignis, Lith. ugnis, Russ. огонь)
vāri (n) 'water' (probably related to varṣati, maybe through metathesis)

Also given was the declension of i-stems, such as the two above. Obnoxiously, i-stems do not show the same declension patterns in the oblique stems of masculines and neuters, as you'd expect. We'll deal with the masculines first; they're the less predictable of the two.

Code: Select all

    sg       du        pl
nom agnis    agnī      agnayas
acc agnim    " "       agnīn
ins agninā*  agnibhyām agnibhis
dat agnaye*  "   "     agnibhyas
abl agnes*   "   "     "   "
gen "  "     agnyos*   agnīnām
loc agnāu*   "   "     agniṣu
voc agne*    agnī      agnayas


Forms marked with an asterisk are difficult to predict and really must be learned by rote.

The neuters are easier, once you figure out that the stem ends in -i- before endings in consonants, and -in- before endings in vowels. Note the retroflex -ṇ- here, which is not phonemic (it's triggered by the -r- of the stem).

Code: Select all

    sg          du        pl
nom vāri        vāriṇī    vārīṇi
acc "  "        "   "     "   "
ins vāriṇā      vāribhyām vāribhis
dat vāriṇe      "   "     vāribhyas
abl vāriṇas     "   "     "   "
gen "   "       vāriṇos   vārīṇām
loc vāriṇi      "   "     vāriṣu
voc vāri/vāre*  vāriṇī    vārīṇi

For the lengthened -īn-/-īṇ- of the nom/acc/voc and genitive plural, cf. phalāni, phalānām.

(Just checking to make sure I've got all of this correctly from memory...)

German

verdienen (haben) 'to earn' (money)
ähneln (haben) (+ dat.) 'to resemble'
> ähnlich (wem?) 'similar (to whom?)
stürzen (sein) 'to fall down, drop, tumble, drop off, overthrow, plunge' (with haben for transitive meanings)
genügen 'to suffice, be enough'
das Schicksal 'fate'
schädlich 'harmful'
der Dampf, Dämpfe 'vapor'
das Blei 'lead' (the metal)
das Wachs 'wax'
deuten 'to interpret'; deuten auf jemanden 'point to someone'
> deutlich 'articulate, clear, distinct'
die Gegend/en 'region'
versetzen (haben) 'to move'
damals 'at that time, then, (in the past)'
das Maul, Mäuler 'yap, mouth, muzzle' (rather derogatory)

Latin

So I have a classics BA...but pathetically bad Latin vocabulary (grammar is good however). Recently I ordered a copy of Ørberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata with the intention of getting my vocab up to speed (the first volume has a mammoth 1,811 items of vocabulary, though some of these are grammatical terms.) Virtually everything reviewed today (lesson 1) is very old hat, but it's useful to keep a log of it as I review it. Really, really old hat (function words, basically) will not be noted here or going forward.

(Also, it's probably a good idea to relearn all the vowel lengths.)

From memory, lesson I

fluvius, -iī (m) 'river'
oppidum, -ī (n) 'town'
īnsula, -ae (f) 'island'
vocābulum, -ī (n) 'word, term'
parvus/a/um 'small'
magnus/a/um 'large/great'
-ne (on verb); num (beginning sentence) '吗'

Already known, but could not be summoned as 'lesson 1 vocab'
multus/a/um 'much, many'
paucus/a/um 'few'
littera, -ae (f) 'letter (of the alphabet)'
ōceanus, -ī (m) 'ocean'
nūmerus, -ī (m) 'number'
prīmus/a/um 'first'
secundus/a/um 'second'
tertius/a/um 'third'
exemplum, -ī (n) 'example'
prōvincia, -ae (f) 'province'
imperium, -iī (n) 'power, empire'

[AroAro]

mārga (m) 'way, road, path'

Hi, sorry to clutter your log but that one caught my attention. In Romanian "to go" is "a merge" and it comes from the Latin verb "mergere" meaning "to plunge into water, immerse". But how it was bestowed with a new meaning of "going somewhere" remains obscure to this day. So maybe the ancient Dacians had a noun similar to the Sanskrit "marga" and the connection was made with the Latin verb "mergere"? I know it's rather "cryptolinguistics" but this example was for me a stimulus for thinking.

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

mārga (m) 'way, road, path'

Hi, sorry to clutter your log but that one caught my attention. In Romanian "to go" is "a merge" and it comes from the Latin verb "mergere" meaning "to plunge into water, immerse". But how it was bestowed with a new meaning of "going somewhere" remains obscure to this day. So maybe the ancient Dacians had a noun similar to the Sanskrit "marga" and the connection was made with the Latin verb "mergere"? I know it's rather "cryptolinguistics" but this example was for me a stimulus for thinking.

According to Mayrhofer's dictionary (which is over 2000 pages long and isn't searchable as a PDF--argh--but of course it's impossible to get your hands on a dead-tree copy) it's related to mṛga 'deer, gazelle, animal', apparently with the semantic shift 'deer track > path > road'. The Sanskrit cognate to Latin mergere is, apparently, majjati 'to sink, dive, plunge'.

(No, please go ahead and clutter my log, I like having a peanut gallery...)

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

January 21st, 2021

A fairly light day today...all the print shops are closed for German readings. Argh. Did Anki and some light novel reading for German.

Sanskrit

ari (m) 'enemy'
asi (m) 'sword' (cf. Lat. ensis)
ṛṣi (m) 'seer, sage'
√kṛt, kṛntati 'to cut, cut off' (with a -t- extention on a root *(s)ker-, cf shear)
duḥkha (n) 'misfortune, misery'
pāṇi (m) 'hand' (possibly cf. Lat. palma, Greek παλάμη
pāpa (n) 'sin'
√muc, muñcati 'to free, deliver, release'

Latin

I threw about 35 new words, most of them mostly known, into Anki (a few exceptions like baculum 'walking stick'). There is something about LLPSI that makes vocab stick in a way that I haven't previously seen in Latin textbooks--perhaps because one is forced to pay attention to the readings and not just 'here's a list of vocabulary'. It helps that it gives a lot of words in relation to each other...e.g. it's easier to remember that sūmō is the opposite of pōnō than to review it separately.

This may be a side tangent, but it strikes me as important to L2 acquisition that vocabulary is one of the only things in life that is easier to remember the more information you have. Factoids in history or math or science don't really work like that--you don't remember the Krebs cycle better by adding more information about it. But review etymology, opposites and memorize a sample sentence for vocabulary and it becomes much easier...

[WilliamYiffBuckley]

January 22nd, 2021

Sanskrit

No new grammar today--I expect to move on to lesson 5 (u-stems) tomorrow.

giri (m) 'mountain' (cf. Rus. гора)
jana (m) 'man, (pl) people, ἄνθρωπος', from *ǵenh₁-.
√ruh, rohati 'to grow', doublet of rodhati, from *h₁lewdʰ-. (Russ. родиться 'grow up' is a false friend, but a useful one.)
√lip, limpati 'to smear' (cf. Greek τὸ λίπος 'grease, fat', Russ. липкий 'sticky')
√lup, lumpati 'to break, smash' (cf. Lat. rumpō).
viṣa (n) 'poison' (cf. Lat. vīrus, Grk. ἰός)
vṛkṣa (m) 'tree'
satya (n) 'truth'

Latin

Chapters 5 and 6 of Ørberg vol. 1 today. Most vocabulary already known or with no need to review, with a few exceptions:

nāsus, -ī (m) 'nose'
prope != procul ab (next to != far from)
umerus, -ī 'shoulder'
quam with an adjective as 'how'
quō != unde 'where to?' vs. 'where from'?
fessus/a/um 'tired'

As an aside it's interesting what Ørberg does and doesn't choose to cover early on...by chapter 6 you've gotten the passive and the locative (!) but no tenses other than the present. One wonders how you'd organize an Ørbergian Greek textbook...doesn't Athenaze basically try this?