Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

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Josquin
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Josquin » Sun Jun 10, 2018 5:58 pm

Systematiker wrote:I was sad you were going (and didn’t comment), now I’m glad your back, all the feels, man...

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Sorry for this inconsistency! It's a bit of a chaotic time for me and a lot is changing right now. I thought I wouldn't be interested in languages for quite some time, but now that things are beginning to settle again, I feel new enthusiasm for languages.

Well, at least I'll continue with Sanskrit. Don't know about any other languages yet, but we'll see.

In any case, languages have quite a different role for me now, so there won't be as many updates as there used to be. As I said, I have a lot to do right now, so Sanskrit will probably be enough for the time being.

Once again, sorry for any inconvenience! It seems the rumours of my death were by far exaggerated, to quote Mark Twain. :lol:
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Random Review » Tue Jun 12, 2018 12:55 pm

Josquin wrote:Hey guys,

I had a look at the books today after a loooong time and I'm definitely going back into languages. As soon as the CIS online course starts, I'll take up Sanskrit again. I just can't miss out on this beautiful language! I had a sneak peek into the next chapter and it was really fun. I can hardly believe it myself, because during the break I had no interest at all, but now I'm back on track... :D

I might even get back into Biblical Hebrew, but more on that later. I read through the last text I had dealt with before quitting Hebrew and I still understood quite a lot. Somehow, my enthusiasm has grown back, don't know why.

Don't know what to do with Ancient Greek though. I'm not very thrilled about it right now, but I might give it another try. Because, hey, who can resist a language that has a strong aorist passive? :P

All this is to say, I'm sorry for causing you grief! I will be back in languages soon. I just have to balance them with the other aspects of my life now. ;)

See you!


Slow down a bit dude, I'm worried you will burn out again. Honestly, it's no wonder your enthusiasm temporarily deserted you, mate.
IMO you should only seriously take up the Sanskrit again for now and take a "study only when I feel like it and only for as long as I feel like it" approach to your other languages. At least until your mojo is securely back, mate.

I'm really happy to see you back. I love reading your log.
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Josquin
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Josquin » Tue Jun 12, 2018 6:00 pm

Random Review wrote:Slow down a bit dude, I'm worried you will burn out again. Honestly, it's no wonder your enthusiasm temporarily deserted you, mate.
IMO you should only seriously take up the Sanskrit again for now and take a "study only when I feel like it and only for as long as I feel like it" approach to your other languages. At least until your mojo is securely back, mate.

I'm really happy to see you back. I love reading your log.

Hey, thanks for your kind advice, but it seems you got the wrong end of the stick. I was neither burnt out nor did my enthusiasm really leave me. It was rather life happening to me and taking priority over language studies.

To be honest, I'm quite an impulsive person ("scanner") and what interests me a lot today can bore me to death tomorrow. So, after passing the final exam of the CIS online course, I took a deliberate break from language studies and fully devoted myself to other occupations and interests.

I won't take up any language "seriously" for the time being, because all I do is studying "when I feel like it". I would never force myself into a dull routine that would only lead to frustration in the long run.

In fact, I did a little bit of Sanskrit, Greek, and Hebrew today again - and it was great! I have a lot of time to fill right now and languages are just the right pastime.

I even thought about doing some Middle Egyptian, as I'm reading Toby Wilkinson's Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt right now. It might be a little bit too much, but, hey, I'm just following my impulses. At least, I might get some books and store them for another day.

In any case, thanks for your concern, but I'm really doing fine. I haven't felt better for a long time, to be honest.

I'm glad you like my log though! :)
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Ogrim » Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:36 pm

Why am I not surprised you could not stay away from the forum that long? ;) 8-)

It also happens to me from time to time that I kind of drop out of serious langauge learning for a while, I've just been through such a period and that is also why I haven't visited the forum very much over the last few weeks. I failed to announce my departure though...

Anyway, I am glad to read that you are content and relaxed, and if Sanskrit and Greek enthuses you so much the better. Looking forward to your continued contribution to LLorg.
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby iguanamon » Wed Jun 13, 2018 2:14 pm

It's always good to read your posts here, Josquin! For most of us, language-learning is a hobby, a pastime, not a necessity or an obligation. While the forum is a good place to get support and be with like-minded people, sometimes because of the social aspect of the forum we can feel a sense of "pressure" about something that we are doing for fun. When it gets to the point that we no longer enjoy it, it's time to take a break and a step back. Sure, we'll lose momentum and for a monolingual beginner, losing momentum can be a serious impediment to learning that first language. For experienced learners like ourselves, it's not as big a deal. As long as you enjoy what you're doing, be that languages, music or other activities, that's what matters most.
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Josquin » Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:38 pm

Thanks guys,

it's always good to hear people are actually interested in my deliberations and musings. Sometimes I think I'm just writing for myself, but it seems that's not true. Anyway, I probably shouldn't have made such a sweeping declaration of leaving the forum when actually I was gone for only a month or so. But, as I said, it was a bit chaotic these last few weeks and I couldn't foresee my interest in language studies would grow back this soon.

WEDNESDAY, 13 JUNE 2018

Be that as it may, I had some awesome weeks without languages and now I'm back on track. Today, I did some Sanskrit again and had a look at Greek. Hebrew is a different ballgame, because the verbal system is a tough nut to crack and it would require serious work to make progress here. I'm not willing to invest hard work at the moment, so I'll just dabble a little bit for the time being.

संस्कृतम्

Anyway, Sanskrit is once again fun. Chapter 13 of The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit deals with ī- and ū-stem nouns and with visarga sandhi. The paradigms for ī- and ū-stem nouns aren't that difficult, at least as far as regular ī- and ū-stems are concerned. There are also root stems that differ a little bit in their declension patterns, but they're not that frequent, or so I gather.

Visarga sandhi is the term for sandhi of the word final aspirated sound (written with the sign ः) that occurs in some inflected forms and is derived from word-final /s/ or /r/. It's a bit more complicated than other consonants, but the rules are quite straightforward nevertheless. As long as I don't have to apply visarga sandhi but only recognize it, it shouldn't be a problem.

Ἑλληνική

In Ancient Greek I'm mainly concerned with more third declension paradigms and the comparison of adjectives and adverbs. Pretty simple, I already know most of it from working through Reading Greek. The next unit (47) will introduce the perfect tense, which will be new to me though.

עברית

Biblical Hebrew mainly consists of verbs in the hif'il right now, which consequently means I can hardly recognize verb forms any more. As I said, the Hebrew verbal system is a tough nut to crack and I'm not in the mood to invest all the time and energy that would be needed for doing so. So, I'm taking it easy to avoid frustration for the time being.

r3 n(.j) km.t

Also, I ordered several books for Middle Egyptian. Unfortunately, I can't write the Egyptian name for "Egyptian" in hieroglyphs (yet), so I'll use the scientific transliteration for the time being. These are the books I ordered:

  • Bussmann, Richard: Complete Middle Egyptian
  • Allen, James: Middle Egyptian. An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs
  • Collier, Marc; Manley, Bill: Hieroglyphen entziffern - lesen - verstehen
  • Echnaton: Sonnenhymnen (Ägyptisch/Deutsch)

Gaeilge

Last but not least, I'm thinking about getting back to Irish rather sooner than later, but that will have to be planned carefully. Otherwise, linguistic ragnarök will be upon me, or at least total chaos... :lol:

Okay, in any case, it's good to be back and I'll be careful with big announcements in the future!
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby IronMike » Fri Jun 15, 2018 1:04 am

Josquin wrote:r3 n(.j) km.t

Also, I ordered several books for Middle Egyptian. Unfortunately, I can't write the Egyptian name for "Egyptian" in hieroglyphs (yet), so I'll use the scientific transliteration for the time being. These are the books I ordered:

  • Bussmann, Richard: Complete Middle Egyptian
  • Allen, James: Middle Egyptian. An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs
  • Collier, Marc; Manley, Bill: Hieroglyphen entziffern - lesen - verstehen
  • Echnaton: Sonnenhymnen (Ägyptisch/Deutsch)

The Allen book is awesome. I love it, although I would have rather had an instructor or guide while using it. I can highly recommend the Hoch book we're using for the Middle Egyptian "GlyphStudy" group. If you need info on how I got it for a very reduced price, PM me.
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Josquin » Tue Jun 19, 2018 2:27 pm

TUESDAY, 19 JUNE 2018

I've had a good week for languages, but a lot is still changing in my life and my interests and I can't really seem to make a regular thing out of my studies. Be that as it may, I'm enjoying them enormously and I love to be back in languages. After a longer break, studying is more fun than ever. I'm combining my language studies with studies in literature, history, and philosophy though, so I'm busy on all fronts.

Gaeilge

I've decided not to take up Irish again. It's a great language, but my focus of interest has changed too much. I've dealt with Ireland and the Irish language long enough, now it's time for something completely different.

Ἑλληνική

Still working on lesson 46 in Kairós. The topic is comparison of adjectives and adverbs, which is reasonably straightforward. However, the vocab is giving me a hard time. For the first time, I'm beginning to feel it's a problem I have no translations for the lesson texts. While I like working with Kairós, this problem might aggravate in the course of the textbook, so I'm starting to look for alternatives. I especially like Yale University's Learn to Read Greek, but it's quite expensive, so I'll probably wait till next month before I buy it.

עברית

I'm still dabbling a little bit in Hebrew. I had a look at the next lesson, which is a continuation of hif'il paradigms and an overview of numbers bigger than ten. I'm not taking Hebrew too seriously right now, so all is fine.

संस्कृतम्

I'm taking a short break from Sanskrit until the CIS online course starts again this weekend. I've already worked through most of the material for the next chapter, so I'll be able to take it easy for the time being. I'm looking forward to the course enormously and hope to get some more insights into ī- and ū-stems as well as visarga sandhi.

Wanderlust

So, I got myself some materials for Middle Egyptian, but I'm not sure I'll dive into them right now. After a short period of enthusiasm for hieroglyphs and the like, I'd much rather deal with Classical Chinese now. The problem is, however, that I don't have any knowledge of Modern Chinese that would be worth mentioning. As far as I can tell, most textbooks for Classical Chinese seem to expect that the learner already knows Modern Chinese to a certain degree or at least the most common hanzi. So, maybe, I'll take a look at modern Mandarin first.

Why this sudden enthusiasm for Chinese, you ask? Well, since I dealt with Sanskrit literature for the first time, such as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Upanishads, I've been very much interested in Eastern philosophy and religion. After Hinduism, I'm now dealing with Daoism and Confucianism and I'm also reading some ancient Chinese and Japanese poetry (in translation, of course).

All this is to say I'm very much fascinated and taken by ancient China right now, while ancient Egypt seems to be a bit less interesting for the moment. I'm still reading Toby Wilkinson's The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, but I'd like to concentrate on Classical Chinese literature in the near future, especially The Journey to the West, The Dream of the Red Chamber, and Water Margin. Besides that, I'd also like to read the Genji Monogatari, so Classical Japanese would be interesting as well. I'll read all those novels in translation, of course, but I'd love to be able to read excerpts in the original.

And then there's still the vast field of Greek and Sanskrit literature I'd like to read, so I'll probably be busy for the next 20 years. Oh, did I tell you I was looking for materials for Gothic the other day... ? :roll:
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Josquin » Thu Jun 21, 2018 4:54 pm

THURSDAY, 21 JUNE 2018

A quick update for today. I'm still thinking about my future languages, but more on this later.

Ἑλληνική

I moved on to lesson 47 in Kairós. After a little bit of puzzling, I got the text of lesson 46 translated. It took some time, but in the end it was quite straightforward. Lesson 47 deals with the perfect tense, which is easy enough, at least for regular verbs. The irregularities in the formation of the perfect will be dealt with in later lessons. The formation of the perfect participle is a bit peculiar though. Well, I hope I'll get used to it rather sooner than later.

עברית

I continued working on lesson 44 in Lehrbuch Bibel-Hebräisch. After some repetition, the hif'il verbs make more sense, but it's sometimes difficult to tell them apart from nif'al verbs. Anyway, I'm surprisingly good at recognizing the different stems, even pi'el and pu'al, so the exercises I did today weren't too difficult. The next thing will be the reading section, which will be a little bit more challenging, I guess.

संस्कृतम्

I couldn't resist taking a look at chapter 14 in The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit. It's about compound nouns, which play an important role in Sanskrit. I have internalized the rules for ī- and ū-stems as well as visarga sandhi quite well by now, so I'll be able to work ahead of the online course, if I want to.

Wanderlust

I still haven't settled on a fourth language I'd like to study. Middle Egyptian is back in the game, but I'd still like to take a look at Classical Chinese as well. As I said, the problem with Chinese is that you need a knowledge of modern Mandarin before you can make any use out of most textbooks, so this is a real obstacle. I'm not even thinking about Classical Japanese right now.

So, the question is whether to deal with hieroglyphs and funeral inscriptions and the like or to seriously dive into several eras of Chinese language development. I must admit I'm really tempted to give Mandarin and Classical Chinese a try, but I'm not as averse to Middle Egyptian any more as I was a few days ago.

So, I'll think further what to do and take a look at possible materials. If I decide in favour of Chinese, I'll have the choice between Routledge's Colloquial Mandarin and Langenscheidt's Chinesisch mit System. For Classical Chinese, I'm thinking about getting Paul Rouzer's New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese. An alternative could be Michael Fuller's Introduction to Literary Chinese or Harold Shadick's First Course in Literary Chinese, all of which require a knowledge of modern Mandarin though.
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Re: Josquin's Classical Log - Graeca non leguntur

Postby Expugnator » Sun Jun 24, 2018 3:19 pm

I'm having the same issue with Hebrew as you do with Greek, so I've been taking pictures from the texts and ocr-translating them on Google Translate. Translation is not exact of course, but at least there are fewer words left to look out individually.
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