Láadan, once more

From Láadan Club

It says: "I'm guessing there will be snow" (weather report)
"IT'S APRIL!"

Interesting article about Láadan

 

Lazy day today, tomorrow it will be full speed

It's the Eve of Mayday. I should go visit my sisters, and drink sima and eat munkkeja, but - uh. Can't be bothered. It's a lazy day, a "bad day" as I call them, I don't want to do anything.

I have managed to get the Karelian Swadesh list on Memrise. I would really have wanted to add ALL the languages on the SAME list, but that cannot be done on Memrise. :-( So I have to write their own lists.

So, the Chinese R is pronounced "like J in French, but start dragging the tongue backward until it's touching the roof of your mouth". There should be a definite buzz to the sound... sometimes it sounds like SH, sometimes like L

I made a list of animal names in Hebrew to write my Alephbet cards, but my Word ate it. :-( Not happy. So the Hebrew Alephbet card project is frozen at the moment. I need to find the words again. :-(

Láadan needs a better course. Well... every language needs a better course. But, whatever. Beggars can't be choosers, huh? I suppose there aren't that many words in the language, so the amount of sentences to be created is also limited. And also, the Feminist ideal of women being totally void of all negativity, hatred, belligerency, and violence, creates serious problems, which becomes pretty obvious with the "sample stories", that, still, are based on existing Patriarchal stories. X-D

Romanian pronunciation is fun!

You see, I have started copying my favorite book in the Bible, Ecclesiastes, in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and Romanian, à l'Alexander Arguelles.

BTW, I listened to his speech at the Polyglot Conference and realized that that's what I want to do. (At least right now.) Think of myself as having the job of a Polyglot, and the whole world of languages at my fingertips (because most books have been pirate-copied and available online, especially when I can manage in Russian and Portuguese...:-D)

I need to put in the next Chinese lesson on Memrise. :-(

Uuuuuhh... Errrh...

Decided to use the Ecclesiastes as writing practice sample. I don't want to use the Bible, for principles, and also because I don't like it, but... I wanted to have a long text that's the same in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, and that's it. Also, it's freely available online.
I still don't like it.

Started putting my Chinese characters/radicals on Memrise. Can't find a good pronunciation of 人 on an MP3 file I can use. :-( On Forvo they all say it like "jen", when it's "ren". I can't produce the Chinese R.

People were 30 years late to the Láadan party. :-( Too late, now.
But, funny, that...

Just not my style...

I just realized something. Yes, I know, really stupid of me, not to get it earlier, but better late than never, huh?

I will never be a polyglot in the normal meaning of the word, because I don't have the tenacity. One just needs to look at this blog to get that.  Last year I made two posts. TWO. I WAS SUPPOSED to take the 6-week challenge in Russian, but... that was about it. I think I managed one week this time around. :-D
(One thing that did me in was the Russian keyboard. I went to https://www.keybr.com/ and got it all set up nicely, but then the program had me typing the same 4-5 letters day after day, never gave me any new letters, and I gave up. Not fun.)
2016 I got into Korean. That lasted a couple of months, I think...
2015 I posted my 52 in 52 plan at the beginning of the year, but if you look at the entries, most of them are empty. 
2014 was also a slow year.
One thing to notice about statistics is that I post mostly during January (New Year's promises... every year I wish I will do better and actually stick to something.) and April (Because of my birthday. Every year I am reminded of my "50 languages by 50" goal.)

It would be wonderful if I just had the determination and perseverance. I mean, one can learn anything in 15 minutes a day, if one just does it for a longer time, like a year or so. The longer one persists, the more one learns. And I have been studying languages for some 40 years now. Had I only stuck to it, it would be more probable than possible that I indeed spoke 50 languages by now.
I do love languages and I learn them easily enough...
I'm OK with my bad pronunciation (good enough to be understood, but is never going to be good enough to pass as a native.)
I am kind of proud of the Finnish influence in my language. I use languages as I use Finnish, and Finnish is very elastic. I know it's a bad habit, but... as long as I am not working with the language, like being an interpreter, translator, or teacher, I don't see the problem with that.

But, anyway, I have decided to allow myself to be just as "airy" as I am and not be serious with my languages. So I will be studying 20 languages side by side 2-3 times a year for 1-3 weeks, and what sticks, sticks, and that's good enough.

So, today's "20 languages" were:
Láadan (conlang)
Russian
Maltese
Spanish
French
High Valyrian (conlang)
German
Welsh
Chinese
Korean
Danish
Japanese
Turkish
Tegirenai or Tigerian (conlang)
Vulcan (conlang)
Walloon
Mari
Karelian
Toki Pona (conlang)
Hungarian
Arabic
Hebrew

I got irritated by the way someone pronounces Láadan, it sounds so... unnatural, forced, fake. So I studied about how to pronounce it.

Russian didn't get much love, I read the "word of the day", and that's it.

Maltese got more love. Still the same problem as every day. *sigh* I managed to find a forum, but it's a disgusting ultra-nationalist, racist forum, and I don't want to learn what they say. I want to learn nice things. I have also decided that I really need to learn the verb basics. This is too difficult, trying to figure out the verb forms without the support of grammar. :-D

Spanish got some proper studies, though if the studies at Duolingo count as that, I don't know.

I started reviewing my 5000 French words. I still remember pretty much, and the last time I looked at it was 2016! I had an experiment going on there, learning the 5000 most common words 100 words a day, and I got to 2900 words.

High Valyrian... it's mostly a joke. It is offensive that there is a course on High Valyrian on Duolingo, BUT NOT ON ARABIC.

I got some German brushed up. I know surprisingly much of German. On the other hand, I should. German is one of the languages I can actually read. It's still like B-level, but still.

Started brushing up my Welsh as well. Though I like the Goedelic branch more.

Continued with my Chinese. Right now that's about the most serious I am with languages. I decided to just jump in and so far it's going great. I am holding the reigns tight and not letting me go gathering information, it's really hard as it is, but I really want to learn the language and not just wish I knew.

I was reminded of how much I like Korean dramas and decided to brush up on my Korean as well. Relearned the letters.

Min mand er dansk, og jeg vil kunne tale dansk med ham. So I started the Danish course at Duolingo as well. I have given up on trying to pronounce it well, and just try to repeat it as it sounds in my Finnish ears. My husband has told me my Finnish accent is great for Danish. :-D The fact that Danish has more vowel sounds than Finnish has ANY sounds - bah. What ever. :-D

Now, that video with the woman speaking Korean, Chinese, and Japanese was inspiring, so I have added Japanese to my list as well. I am going to use Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, so I would like to learn the basics of Chinese and Japanese transcribed... At least until I know the letters. There's quite a lot of them. :-D It's not like with Korean or Hebrew.

Turkish I noticed was on Duolingo as well, and I like the Turkish TV dramas as well, so - let's brush that up a bit, too.

Now, the inventor of Tigerian was expressing himself on Láadan, and as tigers are my spirit animals, I went to see what this Tigerian is. I don't think it's going to get much attention from me in the future though.

They had Vulcan on Memrise, and because I identify myself with the Vulcans, I thought I could just as well learn the language :-D

They also had Walloon, and I suspect our family might have some Walloon roots, though... maybe not. I think I look a bit South European... could be possible.

I was just looking into Mari. It is a Finno-Uralic language, and it would be interesting to learn some of that, just for the nationalist streak in me - and to save the endangered languages

Karelian is on the list because I am writing in Swadesh lists of the Finnic languages on Memrise.

Toki Pona is still waiting. I don't think it will take much time to learn enough of this language to be able to use it. It fascinates me a lot.

I was rereading this blog again, and I just love Kati Wolf. So Hungarian.

I have such difficulties with Maltese, so I decided to learn Arabic to be able to learn Maltese. (Now, Arabic is one of the "brush up" languages, so it's not like I'm beginning from zero here either.)

And my Jewish husband is into his Jewish studies right now, so Hebrew got up on the list.

Constructed languages I find interesting

"Solresol, the creation of a French musician named Jean-François Sudre, was among the first of these universal languages to gain popular attention. It had only seven syllables: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, and Si. Words could be sung, or performed on a violin. Or, since the language could also be translated into the seven colors of the rainbow, sentences could be woven into a textile as a stream of colors."

I was thinking about the non-verbal Autists. We need to create a non-verbal language they can communicate with, and this might be of some use.

"A professor of linguistics, Dr. Suzette Haden, created Láadan to test the idea that human languages are not adequate for female expression and Western natural languages may be better suited for expressing the views of men than women. One goal was to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture.
Laadan is designed to allow people to express things in words which in English can only be conveyed by body language or tone. So, for example, a sentence might contain a special word that indicates that the whole sentence is meant to be a warning. Láadan contains a number of words that are used to make unambiguous statements that include how one feels about what one is saying. there are separate names for an emotion that means ‘happiness for a good reason’ and one that means ‘happiness for no reason’, and a single word for expressing the feeling of ‘I’m angry for a reason but nothing can be done about it.’"

More than words; Láadan

Toki Pona
Extremely minimalist but cute little language - totally possible to learn in a couple of days, but has some difficulties in using :-D