rng's log (Latin, Greek, Coptic, German, Spanish, Russian)

rng · Postby **rng** » Thu Feb 17, 2022 2:16 pm

Progress for Feb. 17:

rng · Postby **rng** » Fri Dec 09, 2022 4:36 am

Although I haven't posted an update here for a while, I haven't given up my studies. I only started tracking things in a notebook, which is more convenient for me than here. For now, I am just posting study plans, reflections on my progress, etc. in this log.

I have a new routine for the new year, and I am already testing it out. I am trying to streamline it to get it under 2 hours before the New Year, but it might not be possible without removing some elements.

As you can see, the new routine reflects the following priority: 1. Latin; 2. German and Spanish; 3. Greek, Russian, and Coptic. The routine is designed to be realistic in the sense that the languages I do first are my highest priority. The ones I do last are my lowest priority. I am certain to get through the Latin, likely to get into the German or Spanish, and somewhat unlikely to reliably hit the rest, but that's okay. There are only so many hours in the day.

A. Latin Study Routine - 90 minutes

The philosophy with Part A is to use languages that I know well (German and Spanish) to understand the Latin vocabulary of the Vulgate.

1. Spanish Listening - 30 minutes (Material: "Biblia en un Año" podcast - great quality subtitles!)
2. Read Latin - 45 minutes (Material: Chapters read in Part 1 in the Vulgate, using the German Bible as a vocabulary aid, mark verses that have interesting Latin grammar for scriptorium exercise, see below).
3. Latin Scriptorium - 15 minutes (Material: Verses that I noted in Part 2, using my grammars to investigate interesting grammatical points)

B. German - Spanish Study Routine - 45-60 minutes

Part B has two variants: one for a "German-Greek day" and one for a "Spanish-Russian-Coptic day". Step 1 is the same in both variants, but Steps 2+ are language-specific.

1. listen to a German and to a Spanish audiobook - 30 minutes (Material: an audiobook of the German translation of the Lord of the Rings (Audible); an audiobook of the Spanish translation of the Lord of the Rings - ivoox).

German-Greek Day:
2.German Reading - 15 minutes (Material: Gesammelte Werke von Kafka)
3.German Scriptorium - 15 minutes (Material: Trauerspiele und Gedichte von Schiller)
4. Exercises in Greek Workbook - 15 minutes (Mounce)

Spanish-Russian-Coptic Day:
2.Spanish Reading - 15 minutes (Material: La Guerra de la Sucesión Española por Joaquim Albareda)
3.Spanish Scriptorium - 15 minutes (Material: Don Quixote de la Mancha por Cervantes)
4. Exercises in Penguin Russian Course - 15 minutes (Brown)
5. Exercises in Coptic Course - 15 minutes (Bentley)

Electronic Resources:

1. (Podcast) Biblia en un Año: This podcast has 365 days of ~25-minute-long videos with great Spanish subtitles.
* https://www.youtube.com/@LaBibliaEn365Dias/videos
2. (Audiolibro) El Señor de los Anillos: La Comunidad del Anillo. The Lord of the Rings comprises six books released in three volumes, so these only get you through the end of the Fellowship of the Ring.
* Book 1 - https://www.ivoox.com/en/senor-anillos- ... 735_1.html
* Book 2 - https://www.ivoox.com/en/senor-anillos- ... 504_1.html
3. (Hörbuch) Der Herr der Ringe: Die Gefährten
* https://www.audible.com/pd/Die-Gefaehrt ... Z25G249HZ0

rng · Postby **rng** » Mon Dec 12, 2022 4:15 am

I have revised my study regimen to the following:

and

or

and/or

The main change is that I now have two fewer scriptoria. I found that I was learning more from free reading in German and Spanish than from the German and Spanish scriptoria, so I nixed those. For what ever reason---probably related to my low intermediate stage and the rich morphology of the language---the Latin scriptorium is fun and instructive for me, so I am keeping the Latin scriptorium.

The procedure for #4 (i.e., German and Spanish listening) is to listen to a paragraph in German, then listening to that same paragraph in Spanish, then proceed. All the while, I follow along with the Spanish text. While I find just reading two parallel translations of the same text to be boring, for whatever reason I am not bored with exercise #4 in reading and listening.

rng · Postby **rng** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:18 am

Daily Vulgate: Day 1
Genesis 1-2, Psalm 19

Welcome to Day 1! Today we introduce the idea of deriving drills for language learning from the parallelism of St. Jerome’s translations of Hebrew poetry.

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.

Parallelism is a central feature of Hebrew poetry in the Book of Psalms. Take verse 3 of today’s reading (i.e., Psalm 19) as a simple example. Here, two consecutive clauses complement each other in using the same sentence structure.

3 Dies diei eructat verbum,
et nox nocti indicat scientiam.

The language learner will readily recognize such parallel passages as drills, in which the syntactic structure and morphological forms can be practiced and internalized. Verse 3, for instance, is a study of the fifth (“Dies diei…”) and third declensions (“…nox nocti…”).

A particularly beautiful passage of Psalm 19 involves parallel passages which both complement (8 vs. 9) and complete (8-9 vs. 10-11) each other.

8 Lex Domini inmaculata, reficiens animam,
testimonium Domini fidele, sapientiam praestans parvulis.
9 Iustitiae Domini rectae, laetificantes corda,
praeceptum Domini lucidum, inluminans oculos
10 Timor Domini sanctus, permanens in saeculum saeculi,
iudicia Domini vera, iustificata in semet ipsa,
11 desiderabilia super aurum et lapidem pretiosum multum,
et dulciora super mel et favum stillantem.

Numerous similar examples readily present themselves to the reader. The abundance is so great that the learner will certainly profit over the course of his reading of the Book of Psalms by considering such passages as handy little drills.

In the psalms, parallel structure is created within a small unit: at most a couple verses. In this way, parallelism fulfills a function similar to rhyme or meter in Latin poetry. In today’s first reading (i.e., Genesis 1), the sacred writer likewise describes the first six days of creation using parallel structure, in which passages with related meaning repeat which complement, complete, or negate one another. In Genesis 1, however, the parallel clauses are spread out over the greater course of the narrative, and thus are not of the same kind as the parallelism of the psalms. Nevertheless, I think the parallelism of Genesis 1 prove instructive for language learners, and I adduce some examples to demonstrate this.

Some parallel passages of Genesis 1 are verbatim repetitions. For instance, all six instances of “Et factum est vespere et mane, dies unus” match perfectly. As learners, verbatim repetitions serve to drive home a particular phrasing, but are otherwise no more or less useful than any other read passages.

Other sets of passages employ lexical and syntactic variations to express the same idea, which presents the opportunity to consider a range of lexical and syntactic variations available for expressing a particular idea. For instance, Genesis 1 exhibits parallelism for at least five passages.

To take one of these as an example, the parallel variations on “dixitque Deus” present not only the opportunity to consider a range of lexical and syntactic variations available for expressing to speak (i.e., dixit vs. defective ait) and also (i.e., -que, quoque, etiam, and et.), but also subtle variations with adversative particle vero and conjunction autem.

Other lists will also include variations which extend, complete, or negate the original idea. For instance, the sentence “Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum” of verses 12, 18, 21, and 25 reaches its completion in “Viditque Deus cuncta, quae fecit, et ecce erant valde bona” in 1:31.

I particularly enjoy the completion that 4b presents to the many repetitions of 4a. Such variations enable the learner to create exercises and drills for himself, although the fact that the variations are spread out over the chapter and are not found in subsequent clauses requires that he first collect them into lists.

Lists of parallel variations naturally suggest questions about possible further variations that will prove profitable for the learner. For example, enumerating further conjunctions, the learner may explore subtle differences in meaning achieved when substituting into the “Dixitque Deus” list, the authenticity of which may be supported by other passages. An example would be “Dixit enim Deus”, which could be supported by “Dixit enim David” (1 Par 23:25) or other passages.

rng · Postby **rng** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:23 am

Daily Vulgate: Day 2
Genesis 3-4, Psalm 104

Welcome back for Day 2! Now expelled from the Garden of Eden, today we consider some nuances to the demonstrative pronoun ille through the story of Cain and Abel.

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden by Michelangelo.

In the preface to their Higher Latin Composition, Allcroft and Collins express the motivation of their students as follows.

When the accidence and the ordinary rules of Latin have been mastered, and the learner for the first time attempts to translate into Latin a piece of continuous English prose, he is confronted by a new set of difficulties, which lie rather in the relation of the English constructions before him to the Latin constructions lie has learned than in the management of those constructions themselves: he wants to know, not so much how, as when, to use them, and his perplexity often comes from an incomplete understanding of the exact bearing of the English.

As regards reading, the intermediate learner has a motivation like that of Allcroft’s and Collins’ student of composition in that he wants not so much to know how the constructions work, but rather when the Latin author uses those constructions. That is, why did the author choose the words he did, out of all the possible ways to report the mere facts. Surely this choice bespeaks the emphasis of the author, the tone of his voice, or a context which the text presupposes. The reader wants to understand these subtleties on the basis of the text itself, without turning to a familiar translation, memory of the passage, or unsubstantiated imagination. This context helps to animate the passages and enriches the learners’s experience of reading en route to a more advanced stage.

Today we consider one mechanism that the Latin author will use to establish context, namely, variations in demonstrative pronouns. Usage of demonstrative pronouns establishes distances between characters, either concretely in space or metaphorically as a figure of speech.

Consider Genesis 4:4-5 from today’s reading.

Abel quoque obtulit de primogenitis gregis sui et de adipibus eorum. Et respexit Dominus ad Abel et ad munus eius, ad Cain vero et ad munus illius non respexit. Iratusque est Cain vehementer, et concidit vultus eius.

While “eius” (Abel) and “illius” (Cain) both have third personal reference, the use of “illius” not only distances Cain and Abel as characters within the story, with ille being more distant than is, but also alienates the vengeful farmer from the very reader, as Allcroft and Collins might argue with reference to their paragraph 288.

Ille, with or without an adjective, is constantly used substantivally or adjectivally with the implication of notoriety.

To illustrate the effect that I think St. Jerome achieves here by way of example, consider the examples of Allcroft and Collins:

St. Jerome presupposes a similar, if still more pejorative, notoriety of Cain in his use of “eius” and then “illius” in Genesis 4:4-5.

To convince myself of this, I consulted a few translations to see how they conveyed this distancing. The Revised Standard Version establishes this contrast and perhaps even notoriety through topicalization (i.e., moving “for Cain and his offering” to the beginning of the clause).
and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

The New American Bible, Revised Edition likewise leans on word order to establish this contrast.

while Abel, for his part, brought the fatty portion of the firstlings of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and dejected.

St. Jerome’s choice of “eius…illius” over more neutral alternatives such as alterius…alterius is of minor importance for expressing the mere story. The saint could have relied equally well on alternative translations. For embedding that mere story into a context which St. Jerome’s tone supports, however, we learners must strive to understand why, out of all the possible ways to report the mere facts, the author chose the particular words he did. Developing such an understanding not just for demonstrative pronouns, but systematically for all aspects of grammar and composition, will foster a deep enjoyment of the text.

rng · Postby **rng** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:30 am

Daily Vulgate: Day 3
Genesis 5-6 and Psalm 136

Welcome to Day 3! Today we derive drills for time expression from the generations from Adam to Noah.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels by the aptly named Hieronymus Bosch, based on Genesis 6:1–4.

Genesis 5 is the genealogy of Noah. The sacred author describes each generation from Adam to Noah in parallel, with each lifespan broken down into three parts: Part 1 with the years until the birth of the next son in the line of Adam, then Part 2 with the years after the birth, and finally Part 3 with the total lifespan. The basic syntactic construction of each part can be schematized as follows:

St. Jerome translates this genealogy using frequent variants for each part.

Parts 1 and 2 are statements of how long a person lived, either before the birth of a son or thereafter. The rule for time at play in Parts 1 and 2 is presented simply in Henle’s elementary Latin grammar. (“Et facti sunt dies Adam, postquam genuit Seth, octingenti anni, genuitque filios et filias” (Gn 5:4) is the lone instance of Part 2 which does not follow the straightforward accusative construction or the rarer but syntactically similar ablative construction.)

919. To express time HOW LONG use the accusative.
Duas horas pugnaverunt.
They fought for two hours.
They fought during two hours.
They fought two hours.

Yet variant constructions for Parts 1 and 2 frequently flout this rule, using instead the ablative to express “how long”. In fact, uses of the ablative outnumber uses of the accusative by a ratio of two occurrences to one in Parts 1 and 2. This represents a usage of the ablative case—rare in classical Latin—for expressing duration, which Hale and Buck describe as follows.

Rarer Ablative of Duration of Time
440. The Ablative is occasionally used to express Duration of Time.
tota nocte continenter ierunt, went without break all night ; B. G. I, 26, 5.
qui viginti annis afuit, who was absent twenty years ; Bacch. 2.

Part 3 is a statement that a certain number of years made up all the days of someone’s life, who then died. The basic construction is a passive verb phrase with a subject of the form aliquot anni and a predicate nominative of the form omnes dies alicuius. (While in most instances of Part 3, the construction is ambiguous between aliquot anni and omnes dies alicuius being the subject, subject-verb agreement in the one deviating instance “Et factum est omne tempus, quod vixit Adam, anni nongenti triginta, et mortuus est” (Gn 5:5) makes clear that aliquot anni is the subject and omnes dies alicuius is the predicate nominative.)

Yet variants 5:8 and 5:11 of Part 3 deviate from this basic construction, making the predicate nominative the subject and declining the subject in the genitive case.

Gn 5:8 Et facti sunt omnes dies Seth nongentorum duodecim annorum, et mortuus est.
Gn 5:11 Factique sunt omnes dies Enos nongentorum quinque annorum, et mortuus est.

This appears to be a descriptive genitive used predicatively to expressing a measure (i.e., the number of years belonging to the days of someone’s life; cf. paragraph 355 of Hale and Buck).

With these grammatical variations—the predicative genitive of measure in place of the copula and the dative frequently replacing the accusative—St. Jerome breathes life into a genealogy that could otherwise easily consist of a weary sequence of identical constructions.

rng · Postby **rng** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:34 am

Daily Vulgate: Day 4
Genesis 7-9 and Psalm 1

Welcome to Day 4! Today we explore lexical variations in animal words through the story of Noah and the Great Flood.

The Flood by Michelangelo, based on Genesis 6.

Lexical and syntactic variations are useful for learning the limits of linguistic expression. For the learner of English as a foreign language, it is useful to know that “We will talk more tomorrow” and “We will talk further tomorrow” represent acceptable variations on the same meaning but that “We will talk better tomorrow” is not an acceptable variant. The sets of sentences formed through such lexical and syntactic variation define the limits of what words and sentences will support an intended meaning.

When learning interactively through conversation, it is easy to enumerate a range of possible variations. A tutor will readily generate possible variations when his student asks, and natural conversation produces variations as the result of redundancy and repetition of similar phrases.

When learning through reading, the learner can take advantage of an author’s aversion to exact repetition to prepare a similarly rich testbed for testing the limits of linguistic expression. As the author turns to synonyms, variant syntactic structures, or perhaps metonyms, hypernyms, or hyponyms to avoid repeating a certain word, the language learner experiences the range of possible variations all supporting a certain meaning.

In Genesis 6 and 7 we see lexical variation in the use of volucer, volatile, and avis as variations on bird or flying things and in pecus (note that pecus, -oris n. cattle and pecus, -udis f. a single head of cattle or beast are two distinct lexical items), iumentum, bestia, reptile, and even animans as variations on land animals of various sorts. These variations are not synonyms, but rather a set of hyper- and hyponyms, each of which poetically tugs the reader’s mind up and down through a taxonomy of all living things that God created in Genesis 1 and is now instructing Noah to save.

Naturally, the limits of what one considers variation depends on how far one is willing to accept deviations from a basic meaning, but this consideration is precisely that which provides food for thought to the language learner when reading a verse such as Genesis 7:14:

Ipsi et omne animal secundum genus suum, universaque iumenta in genere suo, et omne reptile, quod movetur super terram in genere suo, cunctumque volatile secundum genus suum, universae aves omnesque volucres

In a passage like this, replete with variant lexical items, the reader learns to pore over the different shades of meaning in the generic animal, the beast of burden iumentum, and the creeping reptile or in the generic volatile, the specific avis, and winged things called volucer.

Today, the lexical variations in the readings for Day 4 incited in me a curiosity for etymology, and specifically for the relation between volucer and volatile, which I indulged with a peek at Weiss’ Outline Of The Historical And Comparative Grammar Of Latin.2

I found that both volucer and volatilis are derived from volo ‘to fly’, but it appeared to me that two different processes must have generated the two forms. This led me to consider the nominal derivational morphology of the suffix -(t)ilis, which forms deverbal adjectives.

This brief investigation revealed that volatilis is synchronically derived from volo by adding -tilis, or perhaps formed from the past perfect participle by adding -ilis. Surprisingly, it turns out that volucer was not formed through a separate process, but rather through the application of the same derivational suffix -(t)ilis, only the word was formed when volo was still *gwolu and was subsequently affected by sound changes which affected not only the root ([gw] → [w]), but also the affix ([tl] → [kr]). The derivation of volucer from *gwolu and -tlis is actually an example that Weiss adduces for the formation of deverbal adjectives with -tilis (vide Chapter 29 of Weiss, paragraph III.D.5.b.ii).

volucer , volucris , volucre ‘able to fly’ (Liv. Andr. +) < *gwolu-tlis ← volo ‘fly’

As lexical variants fall squarely within the same semantic field as each other, the learner may expect to find similar etymological bonds between other such variants (e.g., between pecus, -oris n. cattle and pecus, -udis f. a single head of cattle). Continuing in this line of ideas will provide daily fodder to the learner’s mind which only the practical fetters of time-management need rein in.

rng · Postby **rng** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:38 am

Daily Vulgate: Day 5
Genesis 10-11 and Psalm 2

Welcome to Day 5! Today is a case study in “blind spots” for intermediate learners.

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Today we examine the syntax of Psalm 2:8.

8 Postula a me, et dabo tibi gentes hereditatem tuam
et possessionem tuam terminos terrae.

In reading this verse, I did not immediately find the meaning to be clear. The verb “dabo” apparently takes four direct objects, two in each conjunct. Puzzling over the sentence for a minute or so, the general meaning came into focus. It was something like Ask it of me, and I will give you clans (and) your inheritance and the ends of the earth (and) your possession, but the grammatical analysis of these (and)’s remained cloudy. What was the grammatical relation between ‘gentes’ and ‘hereditatem tuam’ and between ‘possessionem tuam’ and ‘terminos terrae’?

Consulting English, German, and Spanish translations failed to speed me along to a conclusion. The New American Bible, Revised Edition renders Psalm 2:8 as “Ask it of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and, as your possession, the ends of the earth.”. Other English translations likewise use prepositions, as do German (cf. the Luther-Bibel: “heische von mir, so will ich dir Heiden zum Erbe geben und der Welt Enden zum Eigentum.”) and Spanish (cf. La Biblia de Jerusalén: “Pídeme, y te daré en herencia las naciones, en propiedad los confines de la tierra.”) translations—in slightly different ways, but in no way that was a big help in speeding me along. In the English translations, the preposition “as” expresses the idea for or doing the job of. Although St. Jerome presumably could could have expressed this same thought with the preposition pro in the sense of for or as a reward for (“pro meritis gratiam referre”, Caes.), no preposition stands in for English “as” in the Latin translation.

My first thought was that perhaps “dabo” could take two objects. Verbs like voco -are can do it, as we saw back on Day 1 (e.g., “Vocavitque Deus firmamentum Caelum” from Gn 1:8), so why not do dare dedi datum too? Well, it turns out that the classes of verbs that can take two objects are those of making, choosing, having, regarding, calling, or showing. News flash: giving isn’t among them (vide paragraph 392 of Hale and Buck, A Latin Grammar, 1903). So much for a clean analysis with support from a trusty grammar!

I puzzled some more until I came to what I believe is the correct analysis of the syntax—scant support from my grammars notwithstanding. In the end, it seems most plausible to me that “hereditatem tuam” and “possessionem tuam” stand in apposition to “gentes” and “terminos terrae”, respectively. In English, that would come out as “Ask of me, and I will give you nations, your inheritance, and the ends of the earth, your possession.”

I freely admit this shaky analysis is far from ground-breaking. Nevertheless, St. Jerome surprised my in preferring bare apposition to prepositional phrases in Psalm 2:8. Give me the English translation, and I would not have guessed that apposition was even an option for translating this into Latin. Call it a “blind spot”. Blind spots like this one are a problem for the intermediate learner. He may understand the grammar and be able to judge whether a sentence is grammatical or not, but when asked to judge whether a sentence admits of a particular meaning, he will often find himself to be wrong.

This problem is largely one of exposure. The intermediate learner has simply not seen enough examples of good composition to judge whether unfamiliar constructions admit certain meanings and not others. In my approach, I seek to gain a feel for more constructions through extensive reading, noting lexical and syntactic variations in parallel constructions, and slowly defining for myself the space of possible constructions that support an intended meaning.

rng · Postby **rng** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:48 am

Daily Vulgate: Day 6
Genesis 12-13, Job 1-2, and Proverbs 1:1-7

Welcome back to Day 6! Today, we consider the use of the scriptorium study technique to create drills for the parallel passages we uncover in our daily readings.

Abraham and Lot separate by Wenceslaus Hollar.

So far in this series, I have described two criteria for identifying useful material for language learning drills.

The first criterion is to select parallel passages for review, for example, verse 3 of Psalm 19 from Day 1.

3 Dies diei eructat verbum
et nox nocti indicat scientiam.

The second criterion is to select sentences containing lexical variation on a core semantic meaning, for instance, Genesis 7:14 from Day 4.

Ipsi et omne animal secundum genus suum, universaque iumenta in genere suo, et omne reptile, quod movetur super terram in genere suo, cunctumque volatile secundum genus suum, universae aves omnesque volucres

Today I take up the question of how to use this material once the learner has selected the passages, whether according to these criteria or on an ad hoc basis.

I make no claim to originality in proposing the scriptorium study method of Professor Argüelles for using this material. The method consists in the following steps:

The learner repeats for a specified period of time, then reads aloud all that he has written at the end of the scriptorium drill. At the beginning of the a session, he will read all the sentences from the previous session aloud again before beginning the drill.

I argue that my Criterion 1 provides excellent material for the intermediate learner, given that the criterion selects for short passages with parallel meanings and syntax.

First, parallelism within the psalms or proverbs span only short chunks of text. This poetic device plays out over small pieces of text, often no more than two to four poetic lines. This short length makes it unlikely that the reader will forget the sentence after Step 1 of the drill and have to break the sentence into pieces when transferring it to the page. Transferring the whole sentence at once keeps the drill moving along smoothly.

Second, the meaning of parallel constructions are related according to the type of parallelism at play, that is, according as the parallel pieces complement, complete, or negate one another.

Complementary parallelism promotes similar meaning (e.g., synonymy). In complementary parallelism, the parallel constructions simply build on one another, as in verse 3 of Psalm 19 below.

3 Dies diei eructat verbum,
et nox nocti indicat scientiam.

Completing parallelism promotes escalating meaning (e.g., through the introduction of adverbs, superlatives, &c.). In completing parallelism, the parallel constructions culminate in the last, as verses 8-9 culminate in 10-11 of Psalm 19 below.

8 Lex Domini inmaculata, reficiens animam,
testimonium Domini fidele, sapientiam praestans parvulis.
9 Iustitiae Domini rectae, laetificantes corda,
praeceptum Domini lucidum, inluminans oculos
10 Timor Domini sanctus, permanens in saeculum saeculi,
iudicia Domini vera, iustificata in semet ipsa,
11 desiderabilia super aurum et lapidem pretiosum multum,
et dulciora super mel et favum stillantem.

Negative parallelism promotes opposite meaning (e.g., antonymy). In negative parallelism, the second parallel construction opposes the first in some way, as in Genesis 12:3 below.

3 Benedicam benedicentibus tibi
et maledicentibus tibi maledicam,

The semantic coherence of parallelism, whether complementary, completing, or negative, allows the learner to explore a well delimited selection of lexical meanings.

Third, the material is easy to remember because the syntax is similar between parallel constructions. This syntactic parallelism is useful to the intermediate learner for providing drills in morphology. Parallel verbs will belong to different conjugations, differ in number according to their subjects, and perhaps even differ in tense, mood, and voice, particularly if the parallelism is one of completion or negation and not simply of complementarity. Parallel substantives will differ according to their declension, theme vowels, etc. All these variations within parallel constructions provide a useful refresher for the intermediate learner.

Criterion 2 can also provide useful material for the intermediate learner, but of the three guarantees which Criterion 1 provides (i.e., brevity, parallel meanings, and parallel syntax), only a softer guarantee of related meanings applies to material selected according to this laxer criterion. Suffice it to say that I expect the mileage you get out of Criterion 2 to vary.

If you are interested in this method, see Professor Argüelles’ video description of the method here or demonstration here. Below, I provide a selection of parallel passages from our readings today that will provide the learner with ample material for a day of scriptorium drills.

Genesis 12:3

Benedicam benedicentibus tibi
et maledicentibus tibi maledicam,

Genesis 13:9

si ad sinistram ieris, ego dexteram tenebo;
si tu dexteram elegeris, ego ad sinistram pergam

Job 1:11 and 2:5

1:11 Sed extende paululum manum tuam et tange cuncta, quae possidet, nisi in faciem benedixerit tibi
2:5 Alioquin mitte manum tuam et tange os eius et carnem; et tunc videbis, si in faciem benedicet tibi

Job 1:12 and 2:6

1:12 Dixit ergo Dominus ad Satan: “Ecce, universa, quae habet, in manu tua sunt; tantum in eum ne extendas manum tuam”. Egressusque est Satan a facie Domini.
2:6 Dixit ergo Dominus ad Satan: “Ecce, in manu tua est; verumtamen animam illius serva”. Egressus igitur Satan a facie Domini

Job 1:14-15, 1:17, and 1:18-19

Here we assemble three parallel passages.

1:14 nuntius venit ad Iob, qui diceret: “ Boves arabant, et asinae pascebantur iuxta eos; 15 et irruerunt Sabaei tuleruntque eos et pueros percusserunt gladio, et evasi ego solus, ut nuntiarem tibi ”.
1:17 Sed et illo adhuc loquente, venit alius et dixit: “ Chaldaei fecerunt tres turmas et invaserunt camelos et tulerunt eos necnon et pueros percusserunt gladio, et ego fugi solus, ut nuntiarem tibi ”.
1:18 Adhuc loquebatur ille, et ecce alius intravit et dixit: “ Filiis tuis et filiabus vescentibus et bibentibus vinum in domo fratris sui primogeniti, 19 repente ventus vehemens irruit a regione deserti et concussit quattuor angulos domus; quae corruens oppressit liberos tuos, et mortui sunt, et effugi ego solus, ut nuntiarem tibi ”.

The complete passages may be broken down into three minimal parallel parts. I omit the calamities because there is no parallelism between those parts of the passages.

The first minimal parallel part: the messenger’s arrival.

(from 1:14) nuntius venit ad Iob, qui diceret
(from 1:17) venit alius et dixit
(from 1:18) et ecce alius intravit et dixit
The second: the parallel ablative absolute clauses.
(from 1:17) Sed et illo adhuc loquente
(from 1:18) Adhuc loquebatur ille
The third: the parallel passages of the escape.
(from 1:15) et evasi ego solus, ut nuntiarem tibi
(from 1:17) et ego fugi solus, ut nuntiarem tibi
(from 1:19) et effugi ego solus, ut nuntiarem tibi

Proverbs 1:2-3

ad sciendam sapientiam et disciplinam,
ad intellegenda verba prudentiae;
ad suscipiendam eruditionem doctrinae,
iustitiam et iudicium et aequitatem,

Proverbs 1:4

ut detur parvulis astutia,
adulescenti scientia et recogitatio.

Proverbs 1:5

Audiat sapiens et addet doctrinam,
et intellegens dispositiones possidebit:

rng · Postby **rng** » Wed Jan 31, 2024 1:42 pm

Daily Vulgate: Day 7
Genesis 14-15, Job 3-4, and Proverbs 1:8-19

Welcome to Day 7! Yesterday, we considered the scriptorium study technique. Today, we discuss how to fit this drill into a daily study routine.

The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek by Sir Peter Paul Rubens.

In Day 6, I suggested the use of a scriptorium drill for reviewing passages that—in the judgment of the learner—bear repeating. As I argued there, passages exhibiting parallelism or lexical variation provide excellent material for review in the scriptorium. Today, I describe how the scriptorium drill fits into my daily study routine.

First, I read through the day’s readings aloud one time through. My goal is to do this step quickly, perhaps in 30 minutes. I note down any unknown words or puzzling constructions, but do not look anything up in a dictionary or grammar at this point. I simply write the words along with the chapter and verse where I found them (e.g., “Prv 1:10 lactaverint”). This annotation is just the surface form. I do not lemmatize or analyze the material at this point. In addition, I also note any verses with parallelism or interesting lexical variation.

Second, I look up unknown words in a dictionary and consult a grammar for clarity on troublesome constructions. I time-box this step to about 15 minutes and triage words so that I first look up the words that present the greatest barrier to comprehension before turning to any which would merely be nice to have some reassurance on.

Third, I do the scriptorium drill. I begin with the verses containing parallelism or interesting lexical variations before moving on to passages that simply contain a new word. I time-box this step to about 15 minutes.

Fourth, I read the whole day’s readings aloud again. This time I make sure I understand the passage well. I can let a word or two slip, but I pick up a dictionary or grammar before I let myself lose the thread.

Below, I give some examples of parallelism and interesting lexical variations that I found in today’s readings. These provide an easy start to a scriptorium drill.

Genesis 15:9

This verse provides three parallel noun phrases that express the ages of animals in different ways (i.e., with the adjectives triennis or trimus or with the genitive annorum trium).

Respondens Dominus: “Sume, inquit, mihi vitulam triennem et capram trimam et arietem annorum trium, turturem quoque et columbam”.

Job 4:3b-4

These verses provide three parallel clauses, each expressing the idea that a person—or his speech—provided others with strength, once with roboro, once with confirmo, and once with conforto. The concrete language of weary hands, swaying people, and trembling knees is beautiful.

et manus lassas roborasti;
vacillantes confirmaverunt sermones tui,
et genua trementia confortasti.

Proverbs 1:8

This is an interesting example of complementary parallelism in that the two parallel clauses use either the positive or the negative imperative to convey the same command.

Audi, fili mi, disciplinam patris tui
et ne reicias legem matris tuae,

Proverbs 1:9

quia diadema gratiae sunt capiti tuo,
et torques collo tuo.

Proverbs 1:12

This provides two parallel similes, one introduced by sicut and the other by quasi.

deglutiamus eos sicut infernus viventes
et integros quasi descendentes in lacum:

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