Nótaí galaxyrocker - Ancient Celtic Languages, (Old) French, Latin, Old English

[galaxyrocker]

2/11:

Watched football in French (100 min), Champion's League simulcast. Was nice, switching between announcers, even if it was the same general context. And was pretty easy to follow, especially focusing on it. Sometimes it slipped into the background, but overall I focused well on it.

3/11:

Two episodes of Inner French (60 min)

November 1-6 Recap and Thoughts


French Listening: 160 min
French Reading: 5 pages
Irish Reading: 0 pages
Irish Listening: ??? min


Histore des Cathares: 134 / 497


Just got home from Oireachtas na Samhna, the major Irish-language event of the year. It was literally just a weekend of watching competitions (sean-nós, dancing, storytelling, etc etc) and drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. It was great craic, speaking nothing but Irish for most of the time, though I am a little pessimistic about the future of the language afterwards -- lots of the teens, apart from those there with their local cumann gaelach, just spoke English among each other. Even from the Gaeltachtaí. It's not a good sign that they resort to English, especially at an event like this.


But otherwise, it was great fun, and I'm already looking forward to next year, and thinking about maybe taking part in some of the competitions. We'll see, I've got a lot of studying, learning and practicing to do before then. But the trip meant I didn't get much reading or listening done in French/Irish this week (though the whole weekend was literally spent speaking Irish, so it counts), and I'll be starting my job tomorrow. It'll be an interesting week, and I don't expect to get much done this week language-wise to be honest, though perhaps i can take better advantage of my commute and get something done.

[galaxyrocker]

11/11:

IF (42 min)

12/11:

Football (100 min)

Weekly Recap and Thoughts

French Listening: 142 min
French Reading: 20

Histore des Cathares: 154 / 497

I've decided to drop Irish reading and listening trackers because, well, it's what I do all day. I'm reading the manuscripts and making notes about them, so getting lots of practice. It's also made me tired of reading Irish at home, so I'm focusing on French and the books in English I'm currently reading. This helps a lot as I also have less time to be reading, so it's good overall. Just trying to focus on French in case I do go to France next year. Mostly football watching, but some or PM while I'm at work, after the daily Irish radio show pertaining to Conamara is over (It's on 9.15-10.15 usually). Been listening to that daily while at work too, makes life easier.

I still need to work on cruinneas in my Irish, but hopefully that'll come with time with me speaking more. I do need to get back to reading and studying idioms/constructions, as there's still a lot of stuff I try to translate from English, and I need to work on my phonetics. Reading some of these stories I'm working on will certainly help, as they're often transcribed extremely dialectally, as will just practicing the proper pronunciation (I struggle with some of the sounds, and my vowels are very Americanised).

Once I start getting paid, I might try to do an iTalki lesson every week or two in French, depending on the price. Mostly just to speak and review grammar stuff, but to get myself used to using it instead of reading/listening like I have been doing. But who knows when I'll get my first paycheck due to bureaucracy and the fact I need a tax number which I couldn't apply for before I got a contract, which was Friday...And the payroll stuff has to be filled out by end of day tomorrow for this month. Very annoying, but so it goes. Maybe my number will come through tomorrow, that'd be amazing. We'll just have to wait and see though.

[DaveAgain]

but does anyone know of any (semi-)academic works on magic in French? Looking at things like the history of magic/magical thinking across multiple cultures, how it was perceived, etc.

Arte.tv have a series of documentaries that might interest you, Des bêtes et des sorcières:

Certains animaux sauvages sont entourés de légendes et de superstitions. Renards, crapauds, serpents, chats noirs... Parfois appelés "animaux du diables", ces espèces décriées sont soupçonnées des pires méfaits. Cette série documentaire renouvelle notre regard sur ces animaux mal aimés et injustement accusés de fricoter avec les sorcières au détour d'un étang ou d'une forêt.

[galaxyrocker]

13.11:

IF (42 minutes)

15.11:

A video in French about 'What is Life' (21 min)
The second part of the series, 'The Thermodynamics of Life' (29 min)

21.11:

Football (100 min). USA-Wales World Cup.

22.11

Football (100 min) France-Australia WC

23.11:

Football (100 min) Canada-Belgium

25.11:

Guess what? Football! USA-England (100 min)

27.11:

Football (80 min). Germany-Spain

30.11

Football. Argentina-Poland (45 min)

November Recap and Thoughts


French Listening: 921 min
French Reading: 50 pages
Histore des Cathares: 180 / 497
Toraíocht na Dea-Bheata: 152 / 219

French reading kinda came to a standstill as I decided to focus on the Irish book I'd requested from the library a few months ago and finally came in (granted, it was a new book) as it had a due date whereas the French one does not. I'll go back to Histoire des Cathares when I'm done with it (possibly this weekend), at least on my commutes. Otherwise, not much besides just a lot of listening in French thanks to the world cup. This will continue for at least the first few days of December, thankfully. I should probably diversify, and get speaking practice, but we'll see.

Otherwise, not much to report. I like my job, but I'm still thinking of going to France so going to keep up with that and focus on the French stuff, and maybe add Middle Welsh/Old Irish (or both again). Gotta not get distracted by Japanese and moving there, but then I hang out with some people from Japan and also want to give it a shot (I'm young and single, why not while I can?) because it's so different and I think it'd be good for me to experience in terms of personal growth. Or not, because of that. But it's always tempting, and has been tempting for a while. We'll just have to see what happens around New Years and after, cause I'm debating masters/phd then returning back home to America. My friends and family are there, and while I'm making friends here it's not the same as the ones I'm close to and share all the high school experiences with. Plus, it's hard to break into friend groups here apart from international people, who are often off again in a few years.

But, again, that's a decision to put off until March at least!

[galaxyrocker]

10.12

Football: Morocco - Portugal (90 min)

30.12

Episode of the podcast Arcana. Found this podcast via the podcast searcher that was shared on this forum, and let me say it's right up my alley. It's a podcast on four themes: history, archaeology, mythology and esotericsm. The earlier episodes are a bit longer than I'd like (actually, a lot) longer but the one I listened to, L'Occultism ou le sciences occultes, c'est quoi? was super interesting, discussing occultism and how it evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries as well as famous groups (Theosophists were mentioned, as were Rosicrucians and Freemasons), finished by some questions others seem to have submitted to the author. It was great, and I plan on listening to all of these. It wasn't super difficult to understand except when I zoned out; I'd say I was probably around 80-95% understanding, partially because of some background knowledge in these matters already. This epside was 150 min

Edit: Also turns out he has a website: https://arcanatv.fr/ ! Excited to delve into this more in the new year.

December Recap and Thoughts


French Listening: 240 min
French Reading: 7 pages
Irish Listening: 0 min
Irish Reading: 67 pages
Histore des Cathares: 187 / 497
Toraíocht na Dea-Bheata: 219 / 219

This month bottomed out hard. Mostly because of work and travelling back to the States for the holidays. It's also hard to get motivated to do extra stuff in Irish, as I work with it and use it daily, but I intend to start back after the new year working on adding cruinneas to my Irish. Also hope to get back into the habit of listening to the radio while at work, at least for one show, to get some more listening experience of native speakers as opposed to just those I work with. I also need to get back into watching TV. One, to be able to talk with my friends about shows, but also it's good practice, and beats sitting around on Reddit/Hacker News/LLORG...

I'll make a yearly recap with the numbers I do have for the months I tracked; it'd be nice to see how I'm doing in regards to the Super Challenge, or just in general in terms of getting exposure to the languages. I'll also include 2023 goals in that log as well -- needless to say, it'll likely involve lots of Celtic languages both ancient and modern as it seems likely I'll stay in Ireland or go to France. Unlikely I'll do international teaching, though we'll see as things are still in the air.

Otherwise I hope everyone has a happy new years (for those who celebrate it now) and had a happy Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate!) and I'll see y'all likely on the 2nd.

[galaxyrocker]

I meant to do a year-end review (or is it year-in-review?) since I started tallying up the minutes/pages I'd read, but I realised I don't really care all that much. I like doing it as it helps me see what I've done on a week-to-week (or month-to-month) basis, but it's not really pertinent overall to what I'm trying to achieve. So instead, I'll just leave 2022 with my last post, as nothing major happened except my two week stint in France for immersion and getting a job working with Irish.

On to plans for 2023 now!

First, I'm going to, probably idiotically, be adding three or four new languages. This is because, after my time back home for the holidays, I've realised that, as much as I do enjoy Ireland, it's not likely where I want to settle down (though my opinions'll probably change as soon as I'm back in Ireland with my friends and doing stuff again, etc). But, if I do move back to the States, I know I'll regret not getting that masters in Celtic Studies and trying for a PhD (ideally in the States, which means Harvard, just so I can visit friends and family often). So I'll be adding Middle Welsh, Old Irish, Modern Breton and Latin studies to my routine. On top of this, I'm going to try to add some richness to my Irish through a scheduled plan, and I've gotta get my French active skills up to snuff (and keep working on listening).

To this end, I'm adding some textbooks and relying on Discord groups. For Old Irish, I'll be using Stifter's Sengoidelc, using de Vries's Student Handbook and Tigges's An Old Irish Primer along with it. If necessarily, I'll resort to using Quinn's book again, but I'd rather stick with Stifter and the resources I already have as I have physical copies. For Middle Welsh, I've ordered a textbook that came out in 2020, *Cymraec Canawl: An Introduction to Middle Welsh*. I've ordered a copy and it'll likely get delivered this week (and I'm returning to Ireland this week myself). I'll be working through this with at least one person on Discord, hopefully more.

For Modern Breton, I was recommended the old Assimil and have a copy of the book and audio files. This was recommended to me by someone from Brittany, though not a native speaker he is heavily focused on imitating natives and not using "Neo-Breton" (this is a huge issue with a lot of the Celtic languages -- minority languages worldwide actually! -- that gets very borderline to politics so I'll leave it off), and this one focuses on a specific dialect so I'll use it. It's in French, so it'll get me some experience reading. For Modern Irish, I have someone I'm working with on Discord to help snazz up my Conamara Irish. We're doing 5 pages of the Caighdeán a week (gotta know it so I can break it); 5 pages of the Connacht-based An Béal Beo, for lots of old phrases and richness; and 10 pages a week in a book by Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, An Lámh Ládir. Joe Steve, may he rest in peace, was one of the strongest writers and speakers of Modern Irish from Conamara, so if he does something in his work, it's likely good in that dialect (or at least his subdialect), so it'll be great to analyse that. I'll likely try to make Anki decks out of all of this as well as listen to the radio more while I'm at work.

For French, I need to get working on active skills. I can read without many problems (the biggest problem I have is sitting down and doing it), apart for some vocabulary lookup. I'm considering iTalki and r/writestreak(fr?) though I want to make sure I get corrections. Issue with iTalki is I need to save money, so hopefully can find someone cheap (ideally from Brittany) to help me. Otherwise, I'll keep listening to podcasts and reading as I am, trying to split up my morning commute between all the books I'm reading. My afternoon commute I walk, so it's perfect time for podcasts. Finally, with Latin, I'll just be working through LLPSI, looking up anything I don't understand. I won't make cards, and if I get interested in the grammar I'll look it up. Just trying to get some basic knowledge as I'd be taking a Latin/Old French course in Brest (another language I might add, if I can balance all these).

I also want to get back on track with my math studies. Since 2020 I've been teaching myself proof-based mathematics under the guidance of a math PhD and I've really enjoyed it. Mostly algebra, though I've done analysis just to understand the basics, even if I didn't enjoy it. I've taken an interest in discrete math and theory of computation recently (even got a theory of computation textbook for Christmas lol), so will be working through two books on discrete math, one on computational theory and one on graph theory. I'll only likely be doing the proofs out of the latter two at first, reading the former two for intuition into the problems that I think are neat.

Lastly, I want to add a new hobby and get back to the gym. The gym shouldn't be difficult, as I can go on the weekend and then two days right after work (there's one less than 5 minutes walk from me) and can be in and out in under and hour since I won't be doing any cardio at the moment, just weights. For a new hobby, I'll be looking at getting back into martial arts perhaps, but they're all quite expensive or out of the way from where I live in Dublin. Maybe I'll take up gaming, as it'll still be cheaper than going out several times a week. Who knows, but I want something new as my main hobby really was Irish and, well, since I'm working with it I have no need for it as a hobby anymore and want some variety in my life. I also will likely try to find time to do some data science projects, just for a backup job. If I stay in Ireland I'll likely want to shift jobs as this one does not pay enough to really live and save in Dublin. Thankfully, this hopefully shouldn't be too time-consuming, as I'll likely be following some project ideas instead of coming up with my own. Just gotta make a minimal personal site to host it all (Github pages for the win here).

I realise this is all likely going to be very time-consuming, especially if I try to have a social life and such, and I'll very likely fail. But, given what I'm aiming for with France, I think it's the best thing to do to be prepped for it, since I'll be working on idioms found in the older Celtic languages. I'm going to aim for 15 minutes a day on everything that involves a book (so math and the languages), with more for Irish and French listening and more, likely, for Irish reading to get everything done (though honestly, I should be able to in 15 minutes a day). For the other hobby, whether games/martial arts, we'll just have to see what comes up with regards to location and fees, cause I'll likely have to take in bus fare to account, which'll add up more quickly now that my student travel card is no longer valid. I'll probably start walking to work once the days get longer even. I do have an order in which I'd drop things if it becomes too much, with Latin being dropped first, then Breton, then possibly toning back Irish from what I have even if I don't think it's all that much at the moment. I do think I have that time, especially as I spend a lot of time needlessly refreshing this website and Reddit; we'll see if I can capitalise on it.

Otherwise, there's always the fact that these plans can change. As mentioned, my visit home and some disillusionment I've had with Ireland have made me reconsider wanting to settle down there (it's tough being an expat, especially when you're close to friends you've known half your life and family) and seem to be guiding me home (whether to become a teacher or not, who knows) though I know I'll regret not going to France and/or trying to truly pursue a PhD in a topic I'm interested in (though who knows if I can't get one in the States...6 years is a long time). But, we'll just have to see what the year and the future holds. Hopefully I won't whine too much about my indecisiveness here, and we can just track my language and math habits. I hope everyone had a good solar New Years, and that y'all made smarter resolutions than I did!

[guyome]

An ambitious program, galaxyrocker! I hope it pans out, in this shape or any other you'll deem suitable!

Feel free to hit me up if I can help with written French corrections (or Latin).

[księżycowy]

IFor Old Irish, I'll be using Stifter's Sengoidelc, using de Vries's Student Handbook and Tigges's An Old Irish Primer along with it.

As you may already know, Stifter's introduction is great. Dense, but great. I just wish there where more readings per lesson. (As in more lessons with readings, to be clear.) That's why I ended up getting both Tigges' and Lehmann's books. Some graded reading material with analysis. I'm sure you'll progress fine.

And I see Vries is now in a second edition. I had forgotten about that book, but may take the liberty of purchasing it soon. (I just bought some Mishnaic and Rabbinic Hebrew books, so it might have to wait a month or two.)

For Middle Welsh, I've ordered a textbook that came out in 2020, *Cymraec Canawl: An Introduction to Middle Welsh*. I've ordered a copy and it'll likely get delivered this week (and I'm returning to Ireland this week myself). I'll be working through this with at least one person on Discord, hopefully more.

The textbook, in my humble opinion, is fantastic. I'd love to join you in working through it, though I fear I left my copy in the States. I also don't think, based upon how the last few days have progressed with language study, I could add the extra language at this point.

Connacht-based An Béal Beo

Initially I mistook that for An Béal Bocht, and though, "wait, I was recommended that for Munster." (Not because it is by a Munster speaker, but because it replicates the older literature that is based in Munster Irish.) But now I've remembered titles correctly.

Best of luck with all of your goals, which ever shape they may take!

[galaxyrocker]

An ambitious program, galaxyrocker! I hope it pans out, in this shape or any other you'll deem suitable!

Many thanks! I'm worried it is going to be a bit too ambitious, but we'll see. If I can get some time management, and stay off refreshing internet sites of low value (Reddit, not this one), I'm cautiously optimistic, especially given commute in the morning where I can get some work in.

Feel free to hit me up if I can help with written French corrections (or Latin).

Many thanks! I'll likely do it with French as that's my main priority, going to start a daily and/or weekly prompt guide when I get back to Dublin.

As you may already know, Stifter's introduction is great. Dense, but great. I just wish there where more readings per lesson. (As in more lessons with readings, to be clear.) That's why I ended up getting both Tigges' and Lehmann's books. Some graded reading material with analysis. I'm sure you'll progress fine.

Yeah, I was working out of Stifter and Quinn in the Spring but ended up having to return it to UCD library as someone else needed it so couldn't continue on. This time I'm bringing back my copy. I don't have Lehmann, but if I need more reading material, I can likely get it from the library.

The textbook, in my humble opinion, is fantastic. I'd love to join you in working through it, though I fear I left my copy in the States. I also don't think, based upon how the last few days have progressed with language study, I could add the extra language at this point.

Good to know! I haven't even looked through it yet, though my copy should be in Dublin today or tomorrow. Hopefully my housemate is home to get it. Glad to hear it's great though, now I'm even more excited for it

[księżycowy]

I don't have Lehmann, but if I need more reading material, I can likely get it from the library.

You're not missing much by not having Lehmann, honestly. It was just one of the first books I bought for Old Irish and I ended up keeping (partly because I forgot about it). I figure since I still got it, might as well put it to use when I do crack into some Old Irish. It does have reading material in it, but nothing spectacular. Tiggles should be enough for a start. I've also heard that there were a few errors in Lehmann (depending on which printing you obtain), but I can't say for certain one way or the other. But even if you do decide to check out Lehmann, the other resources should help keep things level.

Good to know! I haven't even looked through it yet, though my copy should be in Dublin today or tomorrow. Hopefully my housemate is home to get it. Glad to hear it's great though, now I'm even more excited for it

Granted recommendation this was from a flip through, and not from intensive scrutiny. But highly I recommend it at present.

I'll be very interested to see how you get on with it!