polyglot in training

In love with languages, linguistics, and travelling. Currently learning: Latin and Korean. Maintaining: Castillian Spanish. Native: Australian English.

[fortheloveoflanguistics]

Learning Languages vs. Studying Languages

So my little brother was being especially snarky little brother-y the other night while we were cleaning the kitchen, as I was telling him how I was really interested in learning Lithuanian. His immediate response to this comment was “Why don’t you master the other 80 languages you study before you start learning Lithuanian?” I responded to him in a way that surprised even me, for a second: “I don’t study every language that I do because I want to achieve fluency. Sometimes I just do it because I appreciate the beauty of the language.” 

And I realized, as I said it, that it’s true. I’ve been learning Spanish for four years, and I am absolutely in love with the language. I want to continue furthering my working knowledge of the language for the rest of my life, and I wish to pass the language onto my children in the future. But that’s not the case with every language that I study/have studied. For example, I love Chinese, but my love for it comes more from a grammatical standpoint than from a communicative one. 

To me, every language is uniquely beautiful. I love Finnish vowel harmony. I adore the mutations in the Celtic languages. I am inspired by the intricacy of Chinese’s measure word system. But just because I study a language, does not mean I have to learn it. I’m a language learner, it’s true, but I think at heart I am more of a linguist. I appreciate languages because they demonstrate to me what the human mind, vocal tract, and hands can achieve, and that is why I will continue to study multiple languages, perhaps dozens, at a time. But I will only attempt to learn the languages that I really connect with.

tl;dr - I’ve decided to differentiate between learning a language (that is to pursue it to a communicative end) and studying a language (simply learning about the language and acquiring a knowledge of its phonology, morphology, and syntax).

Also (I guess this goes without saying but I’ll go ahead and add it): These are just my thoughts and opinions, and you are more than welcome to disagree with me! If you have something to add, please feel free to reply to this or message me :)

[badgerdactyl]

This is why Linguistics is the study of language. It’s why linguists study  languages but do not necessarily speak many of them.

[linguisticsnerd]

When I carry around my Cantonese grammar for syntax homework purposes:

Friend: Ooh! Are you learning Cantonese? Was there even a Cantonese class at our school? Me: Um no on both accounts. I’m analyzing Cantonese grammar but I don’t speak it at all. Friend: ? Me: Welcome to linguistics.

[frislander-deactivated20220305]

This is a very important distinction to make: I enjoy reading about the grammar and phonology of, say Yimas, but I don’t want to be able to speak it.

[everydayoldenglish]

Resources for Old English

Books/Coursebooks

A Guide to Old English (Bruce Mitchell, Wiley-Blackwell) - Very grammar based, also contains texts, used on many courses teaching Old English.

Introduction to Old English (Peter S. Baker) - Also used on many courses, contains sections on grammar and texts.

Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Primer (Henry Sweet) - This is a grammar based book, written originally in the late 19th century, with texts as well as a glossary (Online version: 1, 2).

Complete Old English (Teach Yourself) - Basic introduction to OE with exercises that teach grammar and vocabulary. A CD is also available.

A User-Friendly Dictionary of Old English (Bill Griffiths) - A basic dictionary which also contains grammar and literature sections (with translations).

First Steps in Old English (Stephen Pollington) - A coursebook based on learning grammar and vocabulary through exercises, it also contains texts. A CD is available.

Æðelgyðe Ellendæda on Wundorlande (Peter S. Baker) - Alice in Wonderland in Old English!

Be þam lytlan æþelinge (Fritz Kemmler) - The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) in Old English!

Websites

Old English Wordhord - Twitter/Website

University of Calgary - Basic texts, lessons and a grammar section.

Old English Core Vocabulary - University of St. Andrews

Anglo-Saxon Aloud - Recordings in Old English by Michael D. C. Drout.

Omniglot Basic Old English Phrases

Old English Translator

Old English Aids (Royal Holloway)

The Complete Corpus of Old English Poetry

Old English Aerobics (Grammar)

King Alfred’s Grammar Book

Englisc Onstigende Wordbōc

Online Dictionaries  

A Concise Old English Dictionary (John R. Clark Hall)

Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary

Dictionary of Old English (University of Toronto)

Youtube

Leornende Eald Englisc - Channel

Other

Old English ‘Magic Sheet’ (S. Moore and A. Marckwardt)

[just-shower-thoughts]

Learning a new language is like downloading an expansion pack to your brain that allows you to interact with new characters from different lands.

[kindofapolyglot]

This is hands down the coolest way of putting it.

[h-eonno]

Find more on Korean Sentence Structure [HERE]

[lookatthesunrays]

The biggest rumour that goes around all Australian primary schools is: if it gets to 40 degrees, you get to go home.

[noradol]

It only had to get to 36 when I was in primary school, but it did happen. You either got picked up early or got rounded up to sit in a dark classroom and watch movies.

[lana-loves-lingua-latina]

“we’ve introduced you to the family, so now here’s the kids beating each other up”

[nathanielthecurious]

linguistics is political

linguistics is believing that everyone’s ways of talking are cognitively equal and are worthy of study linguistics is accepting language change, accepting slang, accepting stigmatized groups of people linguistics is caring scientifically about all the peoples of the world enough to want to document them but caring emotionally about them enough to know when they want to be left alone linguistics is trying to communicate, trying to learn how we communicate linguistics is understanding that across languages and cultures, our surface structure might be different but a lot of our deep structure is the same linguistics is documenting the amazing ways the deaf/hard of hearing community has come together linguistics is helping kids with learning disabilities figure out how to learn language skills in ways that work for them linguistics is figuring out how to learn second languages better to bridge cultural gaps linguistics is political.

[allthingslinguistic]

A basic schematic of why the Korean alphabet is so cool, from Wright House: 

Unlike almost every other alphabet in the world, the Korean alphabet did not evolve. It was invented in 1443 (promulgated in 1446) by a team of linguists and intellectuals commissioned by King Sejong the Great.

In the diagram [above], the Korean consonants are arranged into five main linguistic groups (one per row), depending on where in the mouth contact is made. Notice that there is a graphic element common to all the consonants in a particular row. The first consonant in each row is the most basic and is graphically the simplest; this representative consonant for each group is the building block for the other characters in that group. Certain of these modifications are systematic, and yield similarly modified characters in several groups, such as adding a horizontal line to a simple consonant (a “stop” consonant–such as t/d or p/b–rather than a nasal consonant) to form the aspirated consonants (those made with extra air) and doubling simple consonants to form “tense” consonants (no real equivalent in English).

Notice that the five representative consonants (the ones in the first column in the upper part of the diagram) are also depicted in the drawings that make up the lower part of the diagram showing the relevant part of the mouth involved. Ingeniously, each of these representative consonants is a kind of simplified schematic diagram showing the position of the mouth in forming those consonants.

More details, including subsequent historical changes to Hangul, in the Wikipedia article. 

[flightcub]

my three favorite things are the oxford comma, irony, and missed opportunities

[yhbgk-blog]

How to Study Like a Harvard Student

Taken from Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, daughter of the Tiger Mother

Preliminary Steps 1. Choose classes that interest you. That way studying doesn’t feel like slave labor. If you don’t want to learn, then I can’t help you. 2. Make some friends. See steps 12, 13, 23, 24. General Principles 3. Study less, but study better. 4. Avoid Autopilot Brain at all costs. 5. Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time. 6. Write it down. 7. Suck it up, buckle down, get it done. Plan of Attack Phase I: Class 8. Show up. Everything will make a lot more sense that way, and you will save yourself a lot of time in the long run. 9. Take notes by hand. I don’t know the science behind it, but doing anything by hand is a way of carving it into your memory. Also, if you get bored you will doodle, which is still a thousand times better than ending up on stumbleupon or something. Phase II: Study Time 10. Get out of the library. The sheer fact of being in a library doesn’t fill you with knowledge. Eight hours of Facebooking in the library is still eight hours of Facebooking. Also, people who bring food and blankets to the library and just stay there during finals week start to smell weird. Go home and bathe. You can quiz yourself while you wash your hair. 11. Do a little every day, but don’t let it be your whole day. “This afternoon, I will read a chapter of something and do half a problem set. Then, I will watch an episode of South Park and go to the gym” ALWAYS BEATS “Starting right now, I am going to read as much as I possibly can…oh wow, now it’s midnight, I’m on page five, and my room reeks of ramen and dysfunction.” 12. Give yourself incentive. There’s nothing worse than a gaping abyss of study time. If you know you’re going out in six hours, you’re more likely to get something done. 13. Allow friends to confiscate your phone when they catch you playing Angry Birds. Oh and if you think you need a break, you probably don’t. Phase III: Assignments 14. Stop highlighting. Underlining is supposed to keep you focused, but it’s actually a one-way ticket to Autopilot Brain. You zone out, look down, and suddenly you have five pages of neon green that you don’t remember reading. Write notes in the margins instead. 15. Do all your own work. You get nothing out of copying a problem set. It’s also shady. 16. Read as much as you can. No way around it. Stop trying to cheat with Sparknotes. 17. Be a smart reader, not a robot. Ask yourself: What is the author trying to prove? What is the logical progression of the argument? You can usually answer these questions by reading the introduction and conclusion of every chapter. Then, pick any two examples/anecdotes and commit them to memory (write them down). They will help you reconstruct the author’s argument later on. 18. Don’t read everything, but understand everything that you read. Better to have a deep understanding of a limited amount of material, than to have a vague understanding of an entire course. Once again: Vague is bad. Vague is a waste of your time. 19. Bullet points. For essays, summarizing, everything. Phase IV: Reading Period (Review Week) 20. Once again: do not move into the library. Eat, sleep, and bathe. 21. If you don’t understand it, it will definitely be on the exam. Solution: textbooks; the internet. 22. Do all the practice problems. This one is totally tiger mom. 23. People are often contemptuous of rote learning. Newsflash: even at great intellectual bastions like Harvard, you will be required to memorize formulas, names and dates. To memorize effectively: stop reading your list over and over again. It doesn’t work. Say it out loud, write it down. Remember how you made friends? Have them quiz you, then return the favor. 24. Again with the friends: ask them to listen while you explain a difficult concept to them. This forces you to articulate your understanding. Remember, vague is bad. 25. Go for the big picture. Try to figure out where a specific concept fits into the course as a whole. This will help you tap into Big Themes – every class has Big Themes – which will streamline what you need to know. You can learn a million facts, but until you understand how they fit together, you’re missing the point. Phase V: Exam Day 26. Crush exam. Get A.

[storiesandskies-deactivated]

i’m all for language evolving and everything, but i would literally die in defense of the Oxford comma.

[badmoonraisin]

I am reading an essay called Male-Male Desire in Pharaonic Egypt (by Alex Clayden) which is actually pretty good

but

I just need to draw attention to this little gem of a pick-up line

[avatar-dacia]

Attention, followers: you now know how to write “nice ass” in hieroglyphics.

[autisticthassarian]

all i ever wanted out of life tbh

[mapsontheweb]

Spread of the word for ‘orange’.

[mylanguagestudies]

forget the egg and the chicken, which came first the word orange as colour or orange as fruit

[noradol]

The fruit! The colour orange used to be considered a shade of red until people started comparing it to the fruit.

[sekaistudies]

Please, don’t let anyone ever tell you learning languages is a waste of time

[sacerdotula-deactivated20210218]

Quid est vīta sine linguā Latīnā?

[interretialia]

Tristis vīta quidem.

[xxziggystardust]

this is my favorite book design 

[quintusiucundus]

hey look it’s the past 7 years of my life

[captainlatin]

I fucking hate languages.

The Greeks had this word, right, we have no idea where it came from, it just kinda popped up out of nowhere, and it could mean either apples, cheeks, or boobs. Problem is it looked and sounded *exactly* like another, unrelated word which could mean sheep, goat, or any animal in general really, which must have got confusing if you were a farmer talking about your livestock, but anyway…

Then the Romans, having stolen practically everything else from the Greeks, thought they’d nick this word too, because Latin isn’t confusing enough without throwing in a bunch of loan words. And they adopted it to mean a pumpkin.

Then the English came along and were all like “when in Rome”, and stole it, where it became our word ‘melon’. Which has now come back to mean boobs.

How do you like them apples.

[maskedlinguist]

That’s exactly why I love languages.