"As
a baseline, you need to know Greek. But unfortunately, Greek from Attic
to Modern is almost as wide a variance as from Latin to Standard
Italian, especially since they roughly cover the same time frame.
Though
you'd think that since you're studying the Byzantine era you'd want to
learn Byzantine Greek, a lot of Byzantine documents are written with an
eye on emulating either Attic or Koine Greek for prestige purposes.
Procopius is a Byzantine historian writing in Attic that comes to mind.
Also the resources for studying specifically Byzantine Greek
are far less than for the other three. For that reason alone, I would
recommend learning Koine Greek, as it's a bridge between Attic and
Byzantine, and given that it's the language of the church, would be
helpful in reading religious texts and their particular vocabulary.
After Koine Greek, I'd recommend learning French and German.
This is in fact standard in the academic community, as most scholarship
if it's not generated in English, will be in French or German,
reflecting the three languages of the most prestigious and best funded
universities in the world.
These three, Koine Greek, German, and
French are the most essential for starting building blocks. The other
languages are for depending upon which era you want to focus on.
If you're dealing with the Early Byzantine/Late Roman era (285-630), then Latin
is also required, as there was still a lot of administration done in
that language, and you'd have to have a solid command of it. Outside of
Latin, maybe Coptic and Persian to deal with Byzantine Egypt and Sassanid Persia.
If you're dealing with the Middle Byzantine era (630 - 1025), then I'd recommend adding Arabic,
as so much of that era is defined by Byzantine/Caliphate interactions.
And for interactions with the west, you don't need to know Latin quite
as much as you can deal with secondary sources written in English,
German or French on those subjects, as by then the language of Byzantine
administration is all in Greek, unlike in the early era. I'd also make a
pitch for adding Russian to
the mix, as the middle Byzantine era is when a lot of the Slavic
polities really began to come into sharp focus in their conflict with
Byzantium, however current Russian/Slavic research isn't "quite" as
robust these days as English/German/French into this era.
Lastly for the late Byzantine era (1025 - 1453), Ottoman/Modern Turkish
will be of a massive help to study the final fall of the empire.
There's actually a lot of good research and archaeology being generated
out of Turkey on the Byzantine Empire of all eras that simply isn't
being read because of the inability for most non-specialist scholars to
read turkish. If you truly want to stand out in Byzantine study, I'd
recommend tackling this language."
Played with Duolingo. Some people have treasure chests next to their names... I want one. Not going to happen with Hebrew, though, this is a bit too difficult for me at the moment. I'm not comfortable with the writing. I do wish this time I'll stay a bit longer, so that I get comfortable with the writing.
And READING the writing. This is one reason why I like Maltese best of the Semitic languages. Latin letters.
Jeg kan virkelig lide Dansk. Mængden af vokaler er spændende. Det er svært og det gør mig lykkelig.
Now, Arabic... it is difficult, but not because there would be anything difficult about the Arabic language. The pronunciation is OK, the grammar is relatively easy, the vocabulary is just as much a thing to memorize as in any language. The problem is the apparent lack of logic in how the language is being taught and presented.
As if the people who know it and teach it, don't understand there is NO LANGUAGE ON EARTH THAT IS NOT LOGICAL. As if "you just have to learn it", and I HATE that attitude. "It just is that way, don't ask."
Reminds me of my religion teacher. I asked what they meant with "The man has now become like one of us", and she told me that I shouldn't ask, the Bible is not logical and comprehensible, and there are these things in there, to test our faith. If we can believe everything without questioning, then we believe. And I went all Galileo. "I do not feel obliged to
believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and
intellect has intended us to forgo their use." I didn't SAY anything, but that was the moment I stopped trying to understand Christianity.
Now... to have that attitude when it comes to religion and holy scriptures, I'm OK with that. But to have that attitude when it comes to languages... No.
And then there's the alphabet order... Logically it should go
'alif, ba', jim, dal, dhal,
ha', waw, zayn, ha', kha',
ta', za', ya', kaf, lam, mim, nun,
sad, dad, 'ayn, ghayn, fa', qaf,
ra, shin, sin, ta', tha'
and not
'alif, ba', jim, dal,
ha', waw, zayn, ha',
ta', ya', kaf, lam, mim, nun,
sin, 'ayn, fa', sad,
qaf, ra, shin, ta', tha',
kha', dhal, dad, za', ghayn
The last letters are just thrown in the end, even when it's obvious they are related to the letters I put them next to, in, what to me is, a logical order. (Based on the ancestral alphabets.)
"It's because saad isn't derived from samekh, we don't have a samekh, so we put the siin in that spot and then saad... just somewhere."
Yes, I know, I'm being stupid, there's most certainly a reason to why they did it this way, and it's most likely better than mine, (even if for the reason that these are their alphabet, not mine), but I don't care. Arabic has become one of these "look at that bitch eating crackers as if she owned the world" kind of things to me.
(Well... it's not as bad as Aramaic... Those guys really let it get to their heads. I mean... if you have to tell people how your thing is the best evah and go so into pathos mode that you are crying you and your language are so poetic and amazing and best evah, and blend in God, too... I'll pass. Thank you.
I mean, see this: it's the "Aramean Syriac flag". I haven't seen many things as nazi as this. Now, it could be because I live where I live... in "Little Assyria". About 80% of people living here are Assyrian/Syriac with the "we built the Stonehenge and all the pyramids in the world and everything else, and we invented the wheel and all the languages and everything, and we were the first in everything, we!"and the Right Wing USonian Born-again Evangelical Christian "God is on our side and everyone else will burn in hell, and if I can help it, they'll do it today" attitude.)
Uh. On to Greek. I don't much like this language either, but it's easy. I already learned the alphabet in school for maths, and there's a lot of loan words in most languages from Greek. I also really want to read Mara Meimaridi's Witches of Smyrna and about Katina's Deck, and there's much more resources about that in Greek and Turkish than any other language.
Studied a bit Korean. That's really wonderful now when the net is full of resources :-D Thank you K-pop and K-drama! And thank you, fan girls. :-) I don't usually appreciate you much, but this you did well :-)
A little bit of Irish. Iiri as it's called in Finnish and Gaeilge (Irish pronunciation: [ˈɡeːlʲɟə]) in Irish.
A bit of Duolingo... I hate it that the "tree" gets unlit as time goes by without me being there, but... uh. I suppose it's as it is. We do forget.
But, here's something. It is religious. I assume Christian, but I see no reason why Dieu couldn't be any God. The lyrics are pretty easy, and just ignore the God part if you don't believe. And I like the song a lot.
Je ne suis qu'un homme, je suis comme toi, crois-moi!
Je pleure et je ris, je vi et je souffre parfois.
De ces mots si durs posés sur les murs de nos cœurs et nos vies
Derrière nos armures se cachent nos blessures qui étouffent nos cris
Je vois que tu crois que tout est fini pour toi
Je ne te laisserai pas t'en aller comme çà
On est tous pareils, on cherche l'étincelle qui embrase la vie
L'espoir qui éveille, qui donne des ailes, qui redonne l'envie
L'envie de vivre et de poursuivre
bien plus que survivre, retrouver l'envie de vivre
Un rêve brisé mais il te reste du temps
tout reste possible à celui qui croit vraiment
laisse-toi porter, laisse-toi aimer par celui qui détient
les clefs de la vie, l'amour infini, un nouveau lendemain
L'envie de vivre et de poursuivre
bien plus que survivre, retrouver l'envie de vivre
L'envie de vivre et de poursuivre
bien plus que survivre, retrouver l'envie de vivre
Ne laisse pas ton cœur sombre
Crois, oui tu verras si tu crois!
Renaître en toi, l'envie d'aimer
D'être là, d'être porté par la foi
L'envie de vivre et de poursuivre
bien plus que survivre, retrouver l'envie de vivre
Dieu donne l'envie, Dieu donne la vie
Bien plus il est la vie, mon chant, mon choix, mon tout, mon cri, ma raison de vivre
Bien plus il est la vie, mon chant, mon choix, mon tout, mon cri, ma raison de vivre
Dieu donne l'envie, Dieu donne la vie
Bien plus il est la vie, mon chant, mon choix, mon tout, mon cri
Dieu donne l'envie, Dieu donne la vie
Bien plus il est la vie, mon chant, mon choix, mon tout, mon cri,
Ma raison de vivre
Going through hiragana. And, you know how Duolingo works. One can guess a lot and then there's the "cheat" option - one can put the cursor on the words and get the meaning... so I do that a lot, in the beginning. Now, I don't know hiragana. Or so I thought. And then I caught myself reading it to figure out the right answer :-D Just to forget it in the next question and trying to guess again :-D Until I remembered that I actually KNOW this sign. :-D
But, no, Duolingo is NOT a good place to learn letters.
I like this one. I don't quite agree with the mnemonics, but most of it works beautifully. Really good, japanesepod101.com!
And after that Duolingo's Hiragana goes like a dance :-D A very nice companion, I have to say.
Anyway, now I know Hiragana, tomorrow I'm going to learn Katagana.
BTW, I am working with Kanji as well.
And I did one step of Spanish as well. Antes de que alguien comente en mis múltiples idiomas, quiero decir que no estoy compitiendo.Estudio idiomas para mi propio entretenimiento y placer.No me importa la fama ni los títulos.No estoy vendiendo nada.No estoy tratando de lograr nada.No tengo plazos ni metas.Así que no importa si otros lo hacen de manera más eficiente o mejor.Bien por ellos.Me alegro por ellos.Estoy impresionado.Y luego voy a mis estudios estacionales y aprendo algo, o tal vez no.No importa.
So.... started a Memrise course for the sounds. Again, Duolingo launched a course without audio. :-( Bad Duolingo! Bad! I do hope they get Finnish with good audio, it's not that different!
Chinese... I have learned the about 50 characters I have encountered so far.
But I just know the characters. I don't know their names and the names mean nothing to me. I mean... xiao? I suppose it means something. I have heard it. I don't know what it means. Or zai. Or ba. I think that might be eight. It might be something else, also. And it's possible it's not just ba, but bai or something else. And don't ask me about the tone. I wouldn't know. Could be third. Or not. (It is ba and the tone is first, which is what I meant, which means that I don't even know what "third tone" is... *sigh* Not good. :-D)
But I like Chinese. I want to learn it. I want to be able to read it and speak it and understand it.
Now, Arabic I don't like. I think it sounds ugly and the writing is stupid - and ugly - most people making notes in Arabic write like 3rd graders just learning to write cursive. Crude and ugly and uneven. My father had the world's most beautiful handwriting, and he is my ideal. I want to be able to write Arabic as my father would have written it, had he known how to write Arabic.
Now, I want to learn Arabic though. Because of two reasons. 1) I started learning it when I was about 15, and I would like to finish what I started, especially when it comes to languages and 2) I have serious problems with the Arabic part of Maltese, and it's easier to learn Arabic than Maltese. I seriously hope it will help me learn Maltese. If not, I'm going to be pretty angry and feel cheated.
Now, most of the reasons people give to why others should learn Arabic are uninteresting to me. I am not Muslim nor will I ever be. I am not planning on living or traveling in Arabic speaking countries. Now, I live in an area with predominantly Syriacs or Assyrians, who speak mostly Arabic or Aramaic (Syryoyo), and understanding them would be really nice... because I'm pretty sure they are saying nasty things about non-Syriacs, including me. It would be nice to be proven wrong about that.
That there is a lot of idioms in Arabic - there's a lot of idioms in every language. Duh.
That the grammar is easy and everything builds on core words, sure. Nice. But that's not a reason to learn a language.
Now, Korean I find very interesting. The writing is simple, easy, logical and looks nice. It sounds... odd. Unfamiliar. The sounds, the way of speaking, the language itself, is unfamiliar, and intriguing. I find it difficult to learn because I can't find a handle... I suppose it's just to parrot sentences until they start making sense, and that doesn't feel good to me.
But, but... too much procrastinating here, already. My 15 minutes pause has long passed :-D Back to studying.
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.
So... I don't like this language. I don't like how it sounds, I don't like how it looks, I don't like the culture. I have been subjected to plenty of discrimination, hate and nastiness by the people who speak this language. The only reason I want to learn it is that it's easier to find resources than it is for Maltese, and Maltese is Sicilo-Arabic language, and if I know Arabic, I get it easier to understand Maltese.
Another reason is, of course, that it is one of the biggest languages in the world.
Except that it isn't.
Nobody speaks standard Arabic all literature is written in. Everybody speaks their own dialect. These dialecs have evolved so that a Moroccan Arabic speaker doesn't necessarily understand what a Mesopotamian Arabic speaker says. People have learned standard Arabic and can't manage everyday conversations and situation in Arabic speaking countries. So it sounds to me that these "dialects" aren't even as close as Norwegian and Swedish that are counted as different languages...
So, let's forget the idea of that there is one Arabic language that is one of the biggest languages in the world. There isn't. There is the colloquial Arabic dialects and Maltese. 58 million Egyptian Arabic speakers 32 million Levantine Arabic speakers 42 million Peninsular Arabic speakers some 21 million of Moroccan Arabic speakers 17 million of Sudanese Arabic speakers 15 million Mesopotamian Arabic speakers There's 520,000 Maltese speakers
Now, one could say that Chinese is also a "macrolanguage", a collection of dialects. Sure. But there's almost a billion people speaking Mandarin Chinese alone. There isn't even 100 million speakers of ANY Arabic dialect. Which makes Egyptian Arabic; the biggest Arabic dialect SMALLER THAN ITALIAN.
There is more people who speak Italian as their native language than ANY ARABIC DIALECT. So, no, Arabic isn't one of the biggest languages of the world.
Now, there are some 220 million people who can read and write the MSA, but most of them cannot speak it. Also, all literature and media is published in MSA or Classic Arabic... which basically makes all these Arabic dialects illiterate.
Naturally the Arabic calligraphy is beautiful, just like any calligraphy,
but most people don't write calligraphy, do they? If you have a nice hand, you can get even the Arabic writing look nice,
but if you have a normal hand, Arabic writing is ugly.
The Arabic letters are... ugly and irrational. And then there's the single, beginning, middle and end forms, and quite a lot of letters look like European cursive i with dots around it in different places.
The names of the letters... *sigh*
Why haven't they developed a print version of the Arabic letters? Why are they using the cursive? Is it again the "Holy Language" thing, everything must remain the way they have "always" been? *sigh* That is killing a language. Languages should be alive, meaning they evolve, develop, CHANGE. Without change there is no life.
Also, Arabic is most likely younger than Hebrew and Aramaic. Hmm...
But, on with it.
If you want to learn to SPEAK Arabic, learn Egyptian Arabic. If you want to learn Arabic for other reasons, it's MSA.
Cypriot Arabic, also known as Cypriot Maronite Arabic, is a moribund variety of Arabic spoken by the Maronite community of Cyprus. Formerly speakers were mostly situated in Kormakitis, but following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, the majority relocated to the south and spread, leading to the decline of the language. Traditionally bilingual in Cypriot Greek, as of some time prior to 2000, all remaining speakers of Cypriot Arabic were over 30 years of age.
A 2011 census reported that, of the 3,656 Maronite Cypriots in Republic of Cyprus-controlled areas (the south), none declared Cypriot Arabic as their first language.
Cypriot Arabic was first introduced to Cyprus by Maronites fleeing Syria and Lebanon between the ninth and tenth century.
Since 2002, it is one of UNESCO-designated severely endangered languages and, since 2008, it is recognised as a minority language of Cyprus, coinciding with an attempt to revitalise the language that may prove to be futile.
Cypriot Arabic shares a large number of common features with Mesopotamian Arabic; particularly the northern variety, and has been reckoned as belonging to this dialect area. It also shares many traits with Levantine Arabic. It is believed these common features go back to a period in which there was a dialect continuum between the Mesopotamian dialects and the Syrian dialect area.
