The iguana's tale continues- ES;PT;LAD;LACF;HT;CT

[iguanamon]

I haven't had a whole lot to add to my old log in a while. That doesn't mean I've stopped doing what I've always done. Languages are still a part of my life, every day. They are still fun. In the almost a decade and a half between here and HTLAL, I find I still might have a thing or two to say every now and then.

Learning a language takes time- a lot more time than we want or that we may think it should take. Whether you treat it like watching a pot and waiting for it to boil, or you wait for it to boil without watching the time (my way), it takes what it takes. I enjoy the process of learning, but I like to get it over with as soon as I can and get on to learning outside of course-world... because that's where the action takes place.

I just finished a book in Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol El selozo marido available for free and legal download from la Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimoni del Bibliográfico in Spain. Using various search terms like "Sefardi" and "Ladino", I downloaded close to 90 books in pdf format in Rashi text. That's enough to keep me going for a while even if all I were doing in second languages was Ladino.

Reading in Rashi is a process I thoroughly enjoy. I read hundred year old plus books from right to left in imperfect scans, no pop-up dictionary available. When I first saw text in Rashi it was completely incomprehensible. Luckily, I'd already reached a good level in the language through Latin script. I just had to figure out how to read Rashi. I had to learn the alphabet. Then I used a parallel text- Rashi on the left. Lain script on the right and slowly, after making my way through a book. I could read. It gave me an almost child-like joy, and still does. Then, after a few more books, I could read better and better. Now, I read in it almost as well as I do in Spanish and Portuguese.

Multiple languages means I have to maintain them- "use it or lose it". I worked too hard learning how to read in Hebrew Rashi script to lose that availability... besides that, I quite like it, and the language too.

Using languages gives me so much joy. This book, "El selozo marido" was written in 1923- published 101 years ago in Constantinople, Turkey. It was sold back then for the grand price of "100 groshes", probably not much in today's money. It's a novel about a young Jewish jeweler in "Yerushalaim" who gets married to a beautiful woman. The jeweler is a jealous man who will not let his wife leave the house for fear that other men will look at her and desire her themselves. Obviously this is not good, as we soon learn.

The novel is divided into three parts- 300 pages long. It is a crazy roller coaster of a ride to the end. The book was set in pre-WW1, just before the end of the Ottoman Empire. I was transported from the craziness of 2024 to a time when Jews and Arabs lived in relative peace in Palestine; when Ladino was an active, spoken, language. One of the main characters is from Esmirna/Smyrna/Izmir, Turkey. Another is from Alexandria, Egypt.

For the time I was reading the book, it was as if I was there in that time. None of the characters knew what was to come in the next 50 years or so. WW1 would be the end of the Ottoman Empire, and the end of the Ottomans themselves in Turkey. The position of the Sephardim would fall from favored Dhimmis in the Empire to having to assimilate into local populations. WW1 would lead to WW2 where the Nazi Holocaust would virtually annihilate the Sephardic populations of Greece and the Balkans- 90% of the Jewish population of Salonika (Thessaloniki) in Greece would meet their end in the death camps. Man's brutal inhumanity to our fellow man never ceases to be unthinkable... but... it happened and it happens.

To think that a hundred or so years ago, I could've sailed into Salonika (the city had a population of 50% Ladino-speakers) and I would've been able to get by speaking Ladino.

As I have said before, I have no heritage connection to the language- I'm not even Jewish. I didn't think about learning it until after I'd learned Spanish and Portuguese. I'm glad I took the time out to learn it. I enjoy all my languages, but Ladino has a special place for me in my heart. It has taught me about so much more than what I learned from it as a language- Judaism; philosophy; resilience; even recipes. It opens a window into a bygone world and a time when Jews and Muslims lived in peace for four and a half centuries... so don't tell me it's not possible. It has taught me not to worry about not having perfect learning materials.

I did all of this without Assimil; Pimsleur; Harry Potter translations (there are none)... no series movies or dubs; no modern novels; no visits to Ladino-speaking countries (there aren't any, though there are some where native-speakers live- including my own). I did it because it was something I wanted and I am glad to have made it happen. You don't need a huge variety of resources to learn a language. You just need enough resources. For Ladino, there is enough. We live in a "golden age" for language-learning right now.

So whether you're learning German, French, Japanese, or Finnish, the journey is worth it. There is a prize that you get at journey's end. The prize is getting to use the language, to read and listen, to speak when you can (and I have, twice- hey there are only 70,000 speakers left), to write, which I do from time to time. Once you reach the prize, you're still not done. I will never be "finished", and that's OK. There is always more to learn, and more you can do with what you learn! That's what's really fun.

In future log entries, I want to show people some of the behind the scenes process of how I learn so, maybe they might take away a trick or two for themselves that can help. We'll see. The iguana's tale continues to grow.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Ha, ha. Nifty last sentence .
The ways you go about learning a language will surely help many of us along the way, so go for it!

[M23]

I did all of this without Assimil; Pimsleur; Harry Potter translations (there are none)... no series movies or dubs; no modern novels; no visits to Ladino-speaking countries (there aren't any, though there are some where native-speakers live- including my own). I did it because it was something I wanted and I am glad to have made it happen. You don't need a huge variety of resources to learn a language. You just need enough resources. For Ladino, there is enough. We live in a "golden age" for language-learning right now.

I love the resourcefulness. When I talk to people who are learning Spanish I usually hear something like "I guess I am going to have to start watching telenovelas now." Do telenovelas interest you? Because if they do not then don't watch that crap. There are TONS of resources in Spanish that you do not have to limit yourself to telenovelas. Ladino has less resources available, and has no native-speakers to practice with, so there is more emphasis placed on a learner's own resourcefulness and less on tried and true methods (i.e., Harry Potter translations and Pimsleur).