My strategy for Greek is to give up and demean anyone that spends time on it.
Chinese is useless and a waste of time.
Arabic isn't old enough or powerful enough nor topical enough. The best writers from the Islamic "golden myth" were Iranians copying European texts from Gr*ek and Latin.
Sanskrit is okay but highly skippable.
I already can read Latin as a result of High School and cursory readings. I'm a bad writer though.
>My strategy for Greek is to give up and demean anyone that spends time on it.
At least you're honest about your failure, if only tacitly so. Sorry you won't experience the sublimity of Homer and Plato's Greek.
Let's be clear: my IQ is probably under 90. Even so, there is literally no reason textbooks should jump into talking about liquids and contracts in the opening chapters. Greek is fundamentally written in arcane language. If you read any other language textbook you get the basics. Even in the most dense German manuals I have yet to see anything comparable to what is put out in Greek.
But really, if Greek leaners were so smart then why do they write the most incomprehensible and off putting textbooks? Latin chads stay winning / Sulla did nothing wrong
Greek is challenging, yes. It's also worth the effort. I'm surprised you got anywhere in Latin if you can't take a little jargon; I'm frankly surprised you're here at all if "arcane language" should be so off-putting to you.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>I'm surprised you got anywhere in Latin if you can't take a little jargon
What is shocking? Gerunds and Gerundives are things in Germanic languages. That's probably the weirdest thing in Latin. I'm good at thinking in tenses so having more of them is just easy.
Don't pretend Greek is the same thing. There's really nothing like it. The aorist isn't a hard concept but how many language books have macrons combined with rising tenses over them? That's likely an academic failure anyways. Liquids and contracts? Pfff.
Not too interested in Latin as I view their poetry as culturally inferior to Greek poetry.
I've done tbhltory bits of work with Greek and Chinese, but I'm only going to dedicate time to it as the spirit moves me, I don't feel like I'm at the level of appreciation yet where I'll realistically get more out of the sound of a Greek text than I'll get out of exploring new materials from a different culture. Once I've exhausted the most important stuff in translation, that calculation might change.
Arabic I'm not sure about, as it's not as old and I honestly don't know much about it, I'll read their classics in translation at some point though.
Sanskrit seems challenging grammar-wise and from what I've gathered there isn't a massive body of work, but if I'm really taken by it when I read it in translation I will probably give it a shot, at least it's Indo-European so I'll have a decent foundation for the vocab.
It would tickle me to learn a bit of Sumerian but the primitive nature of their poetry (lack of quantitative meter, lines repeated with variation in place of rhyme) makes it seem like it's not worth the reputed difficulty.
Too artificial for me. Authenticity is the main reason I’m so interested in ancient classics in the first place. I do enjoy a bit of Horace though, and Tibullus.
The historical importance of a language is irrelevant to me
I am not dedicating thousands of hours towards a language simply because it was historically/culturally important nor am I willing to accept 'reading' as in 'translating'
>Hindu Buddhism
I'm sure whoever said this really knew what they were talking about
Anywho, I've got the easier 3 covered; just a matter of brushing up on those I'm not focusing upon when I have the time. Indeed it would be nice to at least start with Chinese before my neuroplasticity runs too dry. As for Arabic, idk, maybe in retirement. I'd be more interested in Farsi, which I might try to squeeze in during my PhD years
Thank us Latinchads for saving your country and history and philosophy
But alas, no more brother wars. We have an enemy in common: la creatura germanica...
I'm going to dip on Eastern languages and just look at Gaelic, German, or French instead >we translated these ancient hindu texts vaguely because we weren't sure >WOW THIS STUFF IS SO DEEP
The best eastern monks know realms more than Western scholars but it's mostly all on a practical level where meditation affects phenomenology.
There's like zero things in Latin that really interest me right now but being able to read medieval manuscripts might be handy. I'm looking forward much more to Greek actually
Just do Greek then. The Latin poets and histories are interesting, but it's not 1911 or even 2011 anymore. There are excellent resources for starting Greek from zero.
5 months ago
Anonymous
I'm getting a degree in the Classics because I just want a degree and the university system was built on the classics.
>but being able to read medieval manuscripts might be handy
That's what I'm doing for my capstone right now. It's about medieval women in the HRE but Hungarians, French, Germans, Lombards, basically everyone seems to be writing in Latin. I doubt most people spoke anything other than Latin in the period, to be honest. It's hard to believe. I prefer medieval Latin though because it feels more raw and honest.
[...] >There are excellent resources for starting Greek from zero.
Like what??
>basically everyone seems to be writing in Latin
Yeah because everyone who learned to read learned Latin from the Church as a scholar class (maybe not exactly but close) so it functioned as an international study language.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>he paid to learn gr**k
Oh my GAWD
(I'm pretending to make fun of you to mask my envy)
>Yeah because everyone who learned to read learned Latin from the Church as a scholar class (maybe not exactly but close) so it functioned as an international study language.
The first HRE empress addresses the public with an open letter in Latin. I really and truly think everyone on the streets just knew a smattering of it, at least.
>but being able to read medieval manuscripts might be handy
That's what I'm doing for my capstone right now. It's about medieval women in the HRE but Hungarians, French, Germans, Lombards, basically everyone seems to be writing in Latin. I doubt most people spoke anything other than Latin in the period, to be honest. It's hard to believe. I prefer medieval Latin though because it feels more raw and honest.
Just do Greek then. The Latin poets and histories are interesting, but it's not 1911 or even 2011 anymore. There are excellent resources for starting Greek from zero.
>There are excellent resources for starting Greek from zero.
Like what??
5 months ago
Anonymous
Stop by /clg/. You don't need anything other than Mastronarde + Logos LGPSI these days
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Stop by /clg/. You don't need anything other than Mastronarde + Logos LGPSI these days
PRAISE BE! I'm so glad you said this. I feel invigorated. Bless you
Classical and Literary Chinese. They were the lingua franca of the east, but unlike with Latin nobody knew how to speak it, only to write and read in it.
I do wonder though what the frick he means with Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources"
>I do wonder though what the frick he means with Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources"
Probably just words derived from chinese loanwords
>Classical Chinese >Latin
Working on both. As always I just mine vocabulary and read enough until I get it, completely ignoring proper grammar study. >Arabic
No thanks. >Greek >Sanksrit
Don't know when I'll get to them but eventually. Same method as above.
NTA but Greek and Latin are simply an order of magnitude more complex than either of those languages. Japanese grammar is highly alien but not terribly complex. Greek is both alien and complex.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Greek is both alien and complex.
I don't think it's alien, but very complex. The prepositional pacing and use of definite articles actually reminds me of Norse.
5 months ago
Anonymous
NTA but Greek and Latin are simply an order of magnitude more complex than either of those languages. Japanese grammar is highly alien but not terribly complex. Greek is both alien and complex.
Latin is bonkers complicated and I'm pretty sure ancient Greek will feel simple by comparison, though I haven't even looked at Greek.
Also Greek is still a proto-indo-Euro language so it should be at least distantly familiar.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>I'm pretty sure ancient Greek will feel simple by comparison,
Hahahahahahahaha
5 months ago
Anonymous
I can usually handle verbs because there's a logical system. Even Latin's different verb categories mostly all follow the same rules and -io verbs mostly seem like an accent quirk.
if you are western you know many more Latin cognates than Greek ones, that already makes Latin go down somewhat easier
grammatically speaking Greek kicks off in difficulty with its verb system, very rich and synthetic, maintaining much of the old PIE features like aspect, three voices, optative mood, remnants of the dual and such, as well as the old athematic conjugation
5 months ago
Anonymous
The most difficult part is that Greek is full of irregularities. What was posted is often cited, half-humorously, as the only regular verb is the language.
This is not to discourage you. If you can handle the difficulty of real texts in Latin, you will eventually be able to do so in Greek. But it is not "easy in comparison": the Romans learned their complicated style from the Greeks.
5 months ago
Anonymous
if you are western you know many more Latin cognates than Greek ones, that already makes Latin go down somewhat easier
grammatically speaking Greek kicks off in difficulty with its verb system, very rich and synthetic, maintaining much of the old PIE features like aspect, three voices, optative mood, remnants of the dual and such, as well as the old athematic conjugation
5 months ago
Anonymous
What makes you think Latin to be hard? I have been going through LLPSI quite well so far, not that it accounts for much but at least I haven't had anything that I've been especially struggling with. As for Ancient Greek though, I do agree. From what I've seen it seems to be batshit crazy, although comparing my native language's tables to
https://i.imgur.com/nGLFaQR.jpg
>I'm pretty sure ancient Greek will feel simple by comparison,
Hahahahahahahaha
gives me some confidence. It'll obviously be a nightmare to learn but not a hopeless one.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Latin and Ancient Greek are hard because native speakers, audio, and easy reading material are not available, and existing texts make use of all the languages' grammatically complexity. Moreover, the whole point of learning either language is to read these texts, so there is no stopping at any other "good enough" level: you must understand Cicero when he goes ten pages with one verb or there's no point. Obviously other heavily inflected languages exist, but these features of Greek and Latin make them simply harder.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Greek is not that hard. The only difficult parts are memorizing all the irregular verbs and the different preposition meanings depending on case.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Parsing out Greek sentences as written is a lot harder than Japanese ones.
I've done similar things and it's really not all that hard (ok obviously I use translations and try to find notes on particular passages, but I don't really go through a grammar textbook or anything). There are caveats, like of course you have to use wiktionary or something to sort out different forms of words and their grammatical functions, if he's saying he doesn't do that then I would agree that it's either impossible or vastly more difficult than necessary.
I've certainly never gotten "fluent" doing this but I don't really care about that anyway, I just wanna read specific texts.
Once I'm done Latin I'm not going to bother with any other ancient language because I don't care. I care about the Romans and Medieval Western Europe so that makes Greek basically useless to me.
Just visit /clg/. There is a whole FAQ.
The most popular method is >Choose Greek: An Intensive Course by Hanson and Quinn or Attic Greek by Mastronarde as a grammar >Choose Italian Athenaze or Logos: LGPSI as a reader and read and reread the shit out of it til your speed and comprehension approaches that of your native language >Use your grammar and reader in conjunction >Move on to Xenophon
The part of Works and Days where he rails against women and basically calls them holes
Is reading Ancient Greek easier than writing it? I mean do you need to know the declensions and conjugation as well as you would if you were to write
What kind of a question is this? Obviously reading is easier than writing, but you should still apply yourself and learn the fundamentals well. Use common sense
I mean most of your learning because it's a dead language will be passive so of course you'll develop that muscle so to speak much more than the active, but this isn't any different really from any other language where you lean heavily towards passive input and ignore output and thus you are much better in one than the latter.
But at the same time of course, more proficiency in reading will also make writing easier.
I guess what I'm asking is how much of a burden the declension and conjugation is when it comes to learn Ancient Greek
So for example with French I've found verb conjugation to be very easy
I probably couldn't conjugate most verbs myself but I can easily recognise what form they're in without any real study of them
Now with Ancient Greek, am I going to have to write out the paradigms hundreds or thousands of times if I want to experience the same thing as with French?
Can I just develop very rough intuitions or do you need to put a lot of effort in to truly know them
honestly I never did, the closest thing was using an online site with paradigm quizzes, but the more you read the more you'll learn to recognize those forms through intuition
I chose the reading-heavy approach though, through Athenaze, someone might enjoy drilling forms more
Arabic can honestly be a very pretty language. It's very sing song and I've heard that it's basically built from the ground up to accommodate poetry
I think I may give it a shot one of these days
It is extremely pretty, and the best classical poetry mixes the ancient Greco-Roman taste for quantitative meter with the modern taste for rhyme and other forms of assonance.
>Sanskrit
Is that even a uniform language? Last I checked I couldn't even determine a definite script. Are there any good resources? I considered leeching free euroductation for it as I have with Latin and Greek, but no nearby university offers it
>Is that even a uniform language?
As much as Greek or Latin >Last I checked I couldn't even determine a definite script.
Correct. India has many scripts, and tradition holds that everyone should read and write Sanskrit in their own script. Latin sanskrit is totally possible. You should at least learn Devanagari though. >Are there any good resources?
Devavanipravesika
amarahasa.com
Thank you a lot Anon, I have been intrigued about it for a while and couldn't quite find an entry.
In case anyone else runs into the same problem, the link only produced a DNS error for me - https://en.amarahasa.com/ works though.
Yw. That site is mediocre btw but it's the only LLPSI-like resource for Sanskrit I know of. If anyone knows any other I'd be grateful.
Old school is Devavanipravesika + Lanman's reader. Both are challenging and the average course using them will have a high attrition rate, but very high achievement for those who survive. It is like scaling a brick wall.
These days, if you use Devavanipravesika and online resources together, you should be alright. Sanskrit is copious and alien but far more regular than Greek or Latin.
>Devavanipravesika
a man after my own heart. I didn't know there was anyone else with some Sanskrit here. Unless you got that rec from me yourself lol
Just to add a couple things:
>As much as Greek or Latin
Indeed, I would say considerably moreso than Greek. Although you can detect some variation across time and place in Sanskrit usage, it is theoretically a perfectly uniform language post-Pāṇini (saṃskṛta, after all, literally means something like "perfected" in this context), in contrast with the large dialectal variation in Greek (incl. variation even within Attic of the classical period). There is also so-called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and (closely related) the Sanskrit of the tantras, but these can easily be considered merely erroneous Sanskrit influenced by MIA and later dialects. Or, if we follow the learned commentators, one can call it ārṣa or aiśa—the strange language which Buddha/God is entitled to use, but from which we mortals of little intelligence must refrain.
>tradition holds that everyone should read and write Sanskrit in their own script
Interesting, I don't feel like I've seen this idea expressed before. Do you have a reference for it?
>Latin sanskrit is totally possible
Yes, but not desirable imo. I mean sometimes you have to read texts in IAST transcription if you're doing research (or, even worse, e-texts in various godawful ASCII transcriptions), but imo if you put in the effort to learn Devanāgarī (which is really a very small effort compared to that of getting good at the language itself), it soon becomes more natural to read in than IAST. Even most Westerners at or above my level of proficiency in the language seem to agree with me on this point.
That being said, Sanskrit is (paradoxically for a classical language, perhaps) very much a spoken before it is a written language. When you're first starting out, read everything aloud. Especially with the long compounds, the cadence will be very different from your native tongue, and getting that cadence will also help with your reading comprehension (at least at the level of sight-reading). Even I still read aloud whenever I'm alone, and it's a pleasure.
>greek
plan to study it >latin >plan to study it >chinese
xD >arabic
already learning Hebrew so Arabic can go away >another bug language
I’m full, thanks
>already learning Hebrew so Arabic can go away
This. Assyrian and Syriac sound the best, Aramaic and Hebrew have the most religious significant, so it's hard to justify Arabic except for travel but even then the best places all speak English anyways.
The body of poetry is probably the best reason for learning any classical language unless you have a very niche interest that coincides with texts in that language (niche because things of general importance are likely to have been translated, and translations are sufficient for most things other than poetry). It's really that simple.
Did Latin and Greek a bit in high school. Stopped because it was too much effort for something that didn't matter and went to do normal courses. I hate China and India so not going to learn those. Currently learing Arabic since I might join the militairy and want to frick this half-Lebanese girl I know.
By the way, Devavāṇīpraveśikā is unfortunately not the best way to learn Devanāgarī, but for that, as the other Anon suggested, you can probably find an online resource, e.g. a youtube video for children showing you how to form the akṣaras (characters)
I do wish Sanskrit instruction was a little more accessible. I was able to mostly teach myself Latin and Greek in hgih school, but I remember trying to do the same with Sanskrit at the time and being befuddled by scans of old textbooks on archive.org where I couldn't even make out the first अ
Thank you for your insights as well, they are the exact kind of bird's-eye + experience that I couldn't extract from reading on the matter. The retrospectively obvious realization that Indian resources in regards to the script might come in handy is particularly useful.
As it stands now I will learn the script (the best part of any new language to me) and then throw myself at the resources mentioned once my regular semester ends.
Very telling that I found more guidance on the matter from Anonymous online posters than the university system here, the lack of even peripheral curiosity from people who study other Indo-European languages all their life is frankly puzzling.
While the window of correspondence is open I'd like to further ask how compatible different chronolects are: is it an Attic-Koine kind of situation or will I fall flat if I try to branch out from what the Devavāṇīpraveśikā will teach? Likewise, will Hindi resources on Devanagari trip me up when it comes to pronunciation in particular (though this will be alleviated by learning IAST in parallel I figure)? Lastly, do you have some recommendations for texts that are both worthwhile to read and not at vedic levels of complexity? My exposure thus far has been entirely theoretical and otherwise reduced to breakthrough liturgical highlights I don't think I would be able to extract much other than inspiration from, even without the language barrier.
As for the chronolects (nice word) issue, I think it's fair to say that, unlike Attic of the 5th century, the vast majority of what counts as Sanskrit is written in the sort of classical Sanskrit that the Goldmans will introduce you to. If you want to go back and read the Rgveda, though, then you will definitely have to familiarize yourself with at least the basics of how Vedic differs from Sanskrit. Here the standard (at least in English) remains Macdonell's Vedic Reader + Grammar for Students, for better or worse. Then you have varying degrees of "irregular" Sanskrit, like I said, especially in tantric scriptures, but you don't have to bother with that unless it's a special interest. The Sanskrit of the epics (Mahābhārata + Rāmāya.na) i'd also a bit different from fully classical Sanskrit, but I've never found it to be a big problem.
>will Hindi resources on Devanāgarī trip me up
Yes, although maybe the main difference is the quality of the diphthongs (ai and au—in Hindi they have lost their quality as diphthongs). Still, the Goldmans should present Sanskrit phonology fairly clearly, as I recall.
>Vedic levels of complexity
Not to nitpick, but the hymns of the Veda are not necessarily that complex. Of course there are some passages where, after 200+ years of modern scholarship, we still don't know what it means, but that is rarely a matter purely of grammar, or indeed (if I can be a little contentious) of conceptual subtlety.
As for text recommendations, it really depends on your interests. It sounds like you're interested in the philosophico-religious side of things, and perhaps you could study something like Śa.mkara's Gītābhā.sya fairly early on (not that it's terribly easy, but I'm not sure that any work of Vedānta is). The Gītā itself is easy though—second-year Sanskrit, or second-semester if you're as autistic as me. Other than that, I would recommend any intermediate student to read kāvya (poetry, or rather "belles-lettres"), since it will expose you to a wide variety of vocabulary and grammatical structures which is hard to find elsewhere. For my part, I think it was reading the first canto of Kālidāsa's Kumārasambhava that convinced me I should devote a large part of my life to this language. Kālidāsa's other great long poem, the Raghuva.mśa, was for centuries one of the first things that Brahmin boys were supposed to reed after their 12 years(!) spent studying grammar and (at least in theory) learning their Veda portion, btw
Anyways, I'm far from an expert, but if you're serious about this and could use more help, my Discord tag is sahridaya
I'm glad our resident Sanskrit guy is into poetry. What are your thoughts on the textual issues associated with the Mahabharata? Have you read all or a significant portion of it, and if so what did you think about the different temporal "layers" of the text?
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Have you read all or a significant portion of it,
To be frank, no, and I really know very little about the state of MBh scholarship. I have been wanting to read Sukthankar's prolegomena to the critical edition and then just see how far I get into the Ādiparvan, but it may be a little while before I get around to it...
5 months ago
Anonymous
(Also, yes, there are constant references in the courtly poetry I read to the events of the Mahābhārata, and yes, I feel like a poseur for not having ever read the source material)
Well the whole reason I ask is because of the extent to which it's known for being massively bloated with exhaustive commentary, so I don't really blame you, I just thought you might be more likely than most to have insight on it. I'm just going to read the Penguin abridged translation regardless, and then maybe from there if I ever get around to studying the language I can try to exercise discretion in picking out which chapters/sections are worth tackling in the original.
This is a treasure to me, thank you. Between your input and the resources the other Anon kindly provided I feel quite well set up to jump into it without worrying about depth or running into the wrong dead end.
Though there wont be any rapid-rapid progress as this is an interest far off my regular and temporally afflicted studies I've added you (guy with three scripts between tag, name and description..). Your tag fits the exchange well.
>Not to nitpick, but the hymns of the Veda are not necessarily that complex
I cannot judge that and do take your word for it, I just recalled discussion I've read about the fidelity of translations (or lack thereof) and assumed it was due to ambiguity in symbols that I'd struggle with due to the cultural gap. That might of course not be the case, I was really just looking in through a closed window until now. If I can get to these early on it's all the better.
I learned Latin and Greek in high school and I don't care about the Chinese ant civilization and the Arab goat one. When your so-called Golden Age only happens because you discover Western philosophy, you know you're not all that great. Sanskrit could be cool but I've read the Upanishads in translation and all it really does is say "all is one" in 5 million different ways.
(Also, yes, there are constant references in the courtly poetry I read to the events of the Mahābhārata, and yes, I feel like a poseur for not having ever read the source material)
Are there any anthologies of short kavya you recommend? Memorizing poetry plays a very large part in my process: it's how I learned a lot of Greek, Latin, and Chinese. I even learned basic Russian by memorizing some Pushkin. Yes, I sound really weird in it...
That's a good question. There have been some themed collections of short poetry in translation, e.g. the Clay Sanskrit Library edition of "messenger poems," but I actually don't know of a "kāvya reader"—such a thing seems like an excellent idea, come to think of it. I wouldn't be surprised if an Indian scholar made one for university exams in the early 20th century or something, though; I'll have to check. For now, I can at least recommend some nice short kāvya to read early on. To begin with your penchant for memorization makes me think you might really enjoy Sanskrit, and you would not be going far wrong by trying to memorize Kālidāsa's Meghadūta. You can find some nice sung recitations of at least the opening verses on YT (in theory, kāvya should always be sung).
Some other kāvya anthologies off the top of my head (other than the Meghadūta and poems modeled on it, most short kāvyas are really collections of muktakas or standalone verses, I think):
Caurapañcāśikā attributed to Bilha.na (but not by him, think modern scholars). This one might be a bit tricky to memorize depending on your method, as every verse begins with adyāpi tām
Śatakatraya of Bhart.rhari (3 collections of 100 verses each, on the themes of erotic love, good conduct, and sanctified dispassion)
Amaruśataka is another famous one, but honestly some of those verses are quite difficult, and the commentary of Arjunavarmadeva, while brilliant, is also not straightforward for a beginner
I should note that the texts of all three of these are quite fluid, and you'll see a lot of disparities between various editions
But there is also nothing wrong with just reading a canto of one of the mahākāvya. They tend to be between 75 and 100 verses. For the purpose of "baby's first kāvya," I think Raghuva.mśa 5 is the canonical choice. But personally I tend to prefer the Kumārasambhava with its thoroughly mythological themes and characters. Both are great, of course
>mfw Arabic is the most beautiful language >Learning it is like discovering a new colour you have never been able to see before >It is too complicated to learn
🙁
A friend told me that you can read a lot of shastra literature with imperfect knowledge of the Sanskrit verbal system. Like, obviously doing your best to learn it, but not feeling like you have to memorize everything down to a T just to be able to parse a 9th century bhasya. Can any Sanskritanons confirm/deny? I am learning Devanagari and I already know Latin/Greek so I'm planning to brute force as much of the verbal system as I can for a while, but I'd like to start "cheating" and reading some actual Sanskrit ASAP.
It is true, but only of certain authors (a minority, as far as I can tell). You might find a nice aorist even in a highly technical commentary, especially if something is being quoted, for instance. If you already know Latin and Greek, you should have a sense for how to memorize paradigms and the like, so I would say just go ahead and do it. But what are you interested in reading?
Honestly, my minimum goal is just to be able to look shit up and parse the occasional Sanskrit sentence with work, for example if I'm reading in a literal English translation and I want to go even deeper by reading it in parallel with the original. For example, Olivelle's Upanishads translation has the original Sanskrit in parallel. I don't mind having to bust my hump a little to read the sentences I'm very interested in.
Usually with languages I get to this level and then kinda hover there for a year or two, using it to passively build familiarity and vocab, and then I do a second pass at the language and tackle it more deliberately.
Forgot to mention that if anyone has any recommendations for Sanskrit/Devanagari memorization stuff online that'd be great. Particularly well laid-out verb morphologies for example.
Also, mostly interested in religious and philosophical texts, both Hindu and Mahayana.
I have zero interest in Arabic or Sanskrit, and very little in Chinese. For me it's:
>Latin - Classical and Medieval
I took a few years of Classical Latin. I'll continue with books. >Greek - Ancient, Koine, and Modern
I know a few dozen words, but that's it. I intend to worth through some books on the subject. >Hebrew - Biblical and Modern
I have a small amount of proficiency in Biblical Hebrew. I have several books on the subject. >Japanese - Ancient and Modern
I already have some proficiency. I use Japanese news and textbooks on the subject. I use anime, games, and manga, but not very much because I don't do any of those very often. >other languages I'm interested in: Irish Gaelic, French, Welsh, Swedish and other Scandinavian languages, Russian and other Slavic languages, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, and Korean, but I don't know whether I'll actually bother learning any of them.
Like the other anons have said, Arabic is the most beautiful. If any of them were to be replaced it would be Sanskrit or literally any other one, and it definitely will not be for German.
My headcanon is that everyone who's ever said that about Arabic on this board is the same person, because I have a hard time imagining more than one person feeling that way. While the beauty of languages is hopelessly subjective, Arabic seems to combine pretty much all the features that are likely to make someone say it's ugly.
Explain to me the Japanese writing system? Why do they use Chinese characters? What about the other system they have (forgot the name). Japanese seem to be sensible enough, why don't they drop Chinese symbols and create a romanised alphabet based on phonetic spelling. I have been watching subbed anime for years, Japanese language and pronunciation sounds nothing like Chinese, it would relatively easy to make a phonetic alphabet for it
>Why do they use Chinese characters?
Japan as a civilization, being isolated and isolationist, didn't develop common written language until very late in its development.
Very simply they borrowed Chinese to the extent that it was convenient to do so. >create a romanised alphabet based on phonetic spelling >it would relatively easy to make a phonetic alphabet for it
Yes, they literally do that. It's called kana, in the forms of hiragana and katakana. It's perfectly phonetic and relatively easy to learn as a Westerner because it romanizes almost one-to-one. But it is tedious to write everything phonetically, especially when dealing with homophones that introduce ambiguity, so the kanji (i.e. the borrowed Chinese) continues to be very important.
Any reason why they don't have separate letters for n w r y m h n t s k a i u e o (15 letters)? And just make two letter sounds by ...combining two letters instead of making an emtirely new symbol for it? The whole point of phonetic spelling is to break it down into most basic sounds. Is it not?
Western script basically came out of Phoenetian, which (at least originally) didn't even write down vowels. So this idea of combining consonant and vowel is a product of that evolution. By the time we get to English, everything is massively over-complicated and the phonetic rules and exceptions take a long time for even smart foreigners to understand. Japanese kana is effectively the opposite, where anybody can learn all of the phonetics in a short period because it's extremely regular.
5 months ago
Anonymous
English is more of an exception to the rule. Many other European languages sound same as written, English could do it too but there is just too much historical baggage for it too happen. All I am saying is western way of doing it is superior. Again I would not make this point if Japanese had their own script but they use chinese characters, so why not use already tried and tested method of having separate vowels and consonants and then combing them to make syllables? It is obviously upto Japanese to decide and their current decision is not what I would normally expect from them.
>I have beheld Aufidius Bassus, that noble man, shattered in health and wrestling with his years. But they already bear upon him so heavily that he cannot be raised up; old age has settled down upon him with great, – yes, with its entire, weight. You know that his body was always delicate and sapless. For a long time he has kept it in hand, or, to speak more correctly, has kept it together; of a sudden it has collapsed. >Just as in a ship that springs a leak, you can always stop the first or the second fissure, but when many holes begin to open and let in water, the gaping hull cannot be saved; similarly, in an old man's body, there is a certain limit up to which you can sustain and prop its weakness. But when it comes to resemble a decrepit building, – when every joint begins to spread and while one is being repaired another falls apart, – then it is time for a man to look about him and consider how he may get out.
This is about me...
>Greek
Been studying for a year and a half, I can read Plato with like 2-3 dictionary lookups / OCT >Latin
Will start this summer >Chinese
Lol >Arabic >Sanskrit
Sound cool but I'd rather learn French, Spanish and German. Maybe Russian or Italian after that if I really want to scratch the language learning itch.
Having a Jessica Alba sexbot that will translate these languages for me.
My strategy for Greek is to give up and demean anyone that spends time on it.
Chinese is useless and a waste of time.
Arabic isn't old enough or powerful enough nor topical enough. The best writers from the Islamic "golden myth" were Iranians copying European texts from Gr*ek and Latin.
Sanskrit is okay but highly skippable.
I already can read Latin as a result of High School and cursory readings. I'm a bad writer though.
>My strategy for Greek is to give up and demean anyone that spends time on it.
At least you're honest about your failure, if only tacitly so. Sorry you won't experience the sublimity of Homer and Plato's Greek.
Strong words for someone who can barely read one of them by your own admission.
Let's be clear: my IQ is probably under 90. Even so, there is literally no reason textbooks should jump into talking about liquids and contracts in the opening chapters. Greek is fundamentally written in arcane language. If you read any other language textbook you get the basics. Even in the most dense German manuals I have yet to see anything comparable to what is put out in Greek.
But really, if Greek leaners were so smart then why do they write the most incomprehensible and off putting textbooks? Latin chads stay winning / Sulla did nothing wrong
Greek is challenging, yes. It's also worth the effort. I'm surprised you got anywhere in Latin if you can't take a little jargon; I'm frankly surprised you're here at all if "arcane language" should be so off-putting to you.
>I'm surprised you got anywhere in Latin if you can't take a little jargon
What is shocking? Gerunds and Gerundives are things in Germanic languages. That's probably the weirdest thing in Latin. I'm good at thinking in tenses so having more of them is just easy.
Don't pretend Greek is the same thing. There's really nothing like it. The aorist isn't a hard concept but how many language books have macrons combined with rising tenses over them? That's likely an academic failure anyways. Liquids and contracts? Pfff.
Not too interested in Latin as I view their poetry as culturally inferior to Greek poetry.
I've done tbhltory bits of work with Greek and Chinese, but I'm only going to dedicate time to it as the spirit moves me, I don't feel like I'm at the level of appreciation yet where I'll realistically get more out of the sound of a Greek text than I'll get out of exploring new materials from a different culture. Once I've exhausted the most important stuff in translation, that calculation might change.
Arabic I'm not sure about, as it's not as old and I honestly don't know much about it, I'll read their classics in translation at some point though.
Sanskrit seems challenging grammar-wise and from what I've gathered there isn't a massive body of work, but if I'm really taken by it when I read it in translation I will probably give it a shot, at least it's Indo-European so I'll have a decent foundation for the vocab.
It would tickle me to learn a bit of Sumerian but the primitive nature of their poetry (lack of quantitative meter, lines repeated with variation in place of rhyme) makes it seem like it's not worth the reputed difficulty.
You're missing out on Latin poetry. Virgil, Ovid and Horace and on par with the Greeks if not better. Yes, even Homer
Too artificial for me. Authenticity is the main reason I’m so interested in ancient classics in the first place. I do enjoy a bit of Horace though, and Tibullus.
The historical importance of a language is irrelevant to me
I am not dedicating thousands of hours towards a language simply because it was historically/culturally important nor am I willing to accept 'reading' as in 'translating'
>chinese
DO NOT
why not?
>Hindu Buddhism
I'm sure whoever said this really knew what they were talking about
Anywho, I've got the easier 3 covered; just a matter of brushing up on those I'm not focusing upon when I have the time. Indeed it would be nice to at least start with Chinese before my neuroplasticity runs too dry. As for Arabic, idk, maybe in retirement. I'd be more interested in Farsi, which I might try to squeeze in during my PhD years
>frogs get second place
good enough
Greekchads keep filtering Romonkeys to this day
u motherfrick
Greek turns men into cucks and gay bois. Proof? Marcus Aurelius was a cuck and wrote in koine.
Thank us Latinchads for saving your country and history and philosophy
But alas, no more brother wars. We have an enemy in common: la creatura germanica...
You're two thousand years behind. The new enemy is.... ille creatura judaica...
Learning all 5 languages is hard.
IMO, Westerners should learn Greek and Latin.
I'm going to dip on Eastern languages and just look at Gaelic, German, or French instead
>we translated these ancient hindu texts vaguely because we weren't sure
>WOW THIS STUFF IS SO DEEP
The best eastern monks know realms more than Western scholars but it's mostly all on a practical level where meditation affects phenomenology.
also I'm learning Latin right now and Greek is soon
>also I'm learning Latin right
Based
>now and Greek is soon
Cringe
There's like zero things in Latin that really interest me right now but being able to read medieval manuscripts might be handy. I'm looking forward much more to Greek actually
Just do Greek then. The Latin poets and histories are interesting, but it's not 1911 or even 2011 anymore. There are excellent resources for starting Greek from zero.
I'm getting a degree in the Classics because I just want a degree and the university system was built on the classics.
>basically everyone seems to be writing in Latin
Yeah because everyone who learned to read learned Latin from the Church as a scholar class (maybe not exactly but close) so it functioned as an international study language.
>he paid to learn gr**k
Oh my GAWD
(I'm pretending to make fun of you to mask my envy)
>Yeah because everyone who learned to read learned Latin from the Church as a scholar class (maybe not exactly but close) so it functioned as an international study language.
The first HRE empress addresses the public with an open letter in Latin. I really and truly think everyone on the streets just knew a smattering of it, at least.
>but being able to read medieval manuscripts might be handy
That's what I'm doing for my capstone right now. It's about medieval women in the HRE but Hungarians, French, Germans, Lombards, basically everyone seems to be writing in Latin. I doubt most people spoke anything other than Latin in the period, to be honest. It's hard to believe. I prefer medieval Latin though because it feels more raw and honest.
>There are excellent resources for starting Greek from zero.
Like what??
Stop by /clg/. You don't need anything other than Mastronarde + Logos LGPSI these days
>Stop by /clg/. You don't need anything other than Mastronarde + Logos LGPSI these days
PRAISE BE! I'm so glad you said this. I feel invigorated. Bless you
Which Chinese language is he referring to?
Classical and Literary Chinese. They were the lingua franca of the east, but unlike with Latin nobody knew how to speak it, only to write and read in it.
I do wonder though what the frick he means with Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources"
>I do wonder though what the frick he means with Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources"
Probably just words derived from chinese loanwords
>Classical Chinese
>Latin
Working on both. As always I just mine vocabulary and read enough until I get it, completely ignoring proper grammar study.
>Arabic
No thanks.
>Greek
>Sanksrit
Don't know when I'll get to them but eventually. Same method as above.
Lol I don't believe that this has ever worked for you
Worked for English, worked for Japanese. Why not on these? Having clear progress on both.
NTA but Greek and Latin are simply an order of magnitude more complex than either of those languages. Japanese grammar is highly alien but not terribly complex. Greek is both alien and complex.
>Greek is both alien and complex.
I don't think it's alien, but very complex. The prepositional pacing and use of definite articles actually reminds me of Norse.
Latin is bonkers complicated and I'm pretty sure ancient Greek will feel simple by comparison, though I haven't even looked at Greek.
Also Greek is still a proto-indo-Euro language so it should be at least distantly familiar.
>I'm pretty sure ancient Greek will feel simple by comparison,
Hahahahahahahaha
I can usually handle verbs because there's a logical system. Even Latin's different verb categories mostly all follow the same rules and -io verbs mostly seem like an accent quirk.
The most difficult part is that Greek is full of irregularities. What was posted is often cited, half-humorously, as the only regular verb is the language.
This is not to discourage you. If you can handle the difficulty of real texts in Latin, you will eventually be able to do so in Greek. But it is not "easy in comparison": the Romans learned their complicated style from the Greeks.
if you are western you know many more Latin cognates than Greek ones, that already makes Latin go down somewhat easier
grammatically speaking Greek kicks off in difficulty with its verb system, very rich and synthetic, maintaining much of the old PIE features like aspect, three voices, optative mood, remnants of the dual and such, as well as the old athematic conjugation
What makes you think Latin to be hard? I have been going through LLPSI quite well so far, not that it accounts for much but at least I haven't had anything that I've been especially struggling with. As for Ancient Greek though, I do agree. From what I've seen it seems to be batshit crazy, although comparing my native language's tables to
gives me some confidence. It'll obviously be a nightmare to learn but not a hopeless one.
Latin and Ancient Greek are hard because native speakers, audio, and easy reading material are not available, and existing texts make use of all the languages' grammatically complexity. Moreover, the whole point of learning either language is to read these texts, so there is no stopping at any other "good enough" level: you must understand Cicero when he goes ten pages with one verb or there's no point. Obviously other heavily inflected languages exist, but these features of Greek and Latin make them simply harder.
Greek is not that hard. The only difficult parts are memorizing all the irregular verbs and the different preposition meanings depending on case.
Parsing out Greek sentences as written is a lot harder than Japanese ones.
I've done similar things and it's really not all that hard (ok obviously I use translations and try to find notes on particular passages, but I don't really go through a grammar textbook or anything). There are caveats, like of course you have to use wiktionary or something to sort out different forms of words and their grammatical functions, if he's saying he doesn't do that then I would agree that it's either impossible or vastly more difficult than necessary.
I've certainly never gotten "fluent" doing this but I don't really care about that anyway, I just wanna read specific texts.
Once I'm done Latin I'm not going to bother with any other ancient language because I don't care. I care about the Romans and Medieval Western Europe so that makes Greek basically useless to me.
Is there any IQfy approved material for learning greek?
Just visit /clg/. There is a whole FAQ.
The most popular method is
>Choose Greek: An Intensive Course by Hanson and Quinn or Attic Greek by Mastronarde as a grammar
>Choose Italian Athenaze or Logos: LGPSI as a reader and read and reread the shit out of it til your speed and comprehension approaches that of your native language
>Use your grammar and reader in conjunction
>Move on to Xenophon
The part of Works and Days where he rails against women and basically calls them holes
What kind of a question is this? Obviously reading is easier than writing, but you should still apply yourself and learn the fundamentals well. Use common sense
Is reading Ancient Greek easier than writing it? I mean do you need to know the declensions and conjugation as well as you would if you were to write
I read ancient Greek at about half my reading speed for English and I cannot compose in it, although I've never tried.
I mean most of your learning because it's a dead language will be passive so of course you'll develop that muscle so to speak much more than the active, but this isn't any different really from any other language where you lean heavily towards passive input and ignore output and thus you are much better in one than the latter.
But at the same time of course, more proficiency in reading will also make writing easier.
I guess what I'm asking is how much of a burden the declension and conjugation is when it comes to learn Ancient Greek
So for example with French I've found verb conjugation to be very easy
I probably couldn't conjugate most verbs myself but I can easily recognise what form they're in without any real study of them
Now with Ancient Greek, am I going to have to write out the paradigms hundreds or thousands of times if I want to experience the same thing as with French?
Can I just develop very rough intuitions or do you need to put a lot of effort in to truly know them
honestly I never did, the closest thing was using an online site with paradigm quizzes, but the more you read the more you'll learn to recognize those forms through intuition
I chose the reading-heavy approach though, through Athenaze, someone might enjoy drilling forms more
Arabic can honestly be a very pretty language. It's very sing song and I've heard that it's basically built from the ground up to accommodate poetry
I think I may give it a shot one of these days
It is extremely pretty, and the best classical poetry mixes the ancient Greco-Roman taste for quantitative meter with the modern taste for rhyme and other forms of assonance.
>Sanskrit
Is that even a uniform language? Last I checked I couldn't even determine a definite script. Are there any good resources? I considered leeching free euroductation for it as I have with Latin and Greek, but no nearby university offers it
>Is that even a uniform language?
As much as Greek or Latin
>Last I checked I couldn't even determine a definite script.
Correct. India has many scripts, and tradition holds that everyone should read and write Sanskrit in their own script. Latin sanskrit is totally possible. You should at least learn Devanagari though.
>Are there any good resources?
Devavanipravesika
amarahasa.com
Thank you a lot Anon, I have been intrigued about it for a while and couldn't quite find an entry.
In case anyone else runs into the same problem, the link only produced a DNS error for me - https://en.amarahasa.com/ works though.
Yw. That site is mediocre btw but it's the only LLPSI-like resource for Sanskrit I know of. If anyone knows any other I'd be grateful.
Old school is Devavanipravesika + Lanman's reader. Both are challenging and the average course using them will have a high attrition rate, but very high achievement for those who survive. It is like scaling a brick wall.
These days, if you use Devavanipravesika and online resources together, you should be alright. Sanskrit is copious and alien but far more regular than Greek or Latin.
>Devavanipravesika
a man after my own heart. I didn't know there was anyone else with some Sanskrit here. Unless you got that rec from me yourself lol
Just to add a couple things:
>As much as Greek or Latin
Indeed, I would say considerably moreso than Greek. Although you can detect some variation across time and place in Sanskrit usage, it is theoretically a perfectly uniform language post-Pāṇini (saṃskṛta, after all, literally means something like "perfected" in this context), in contrast with the large dialectal variation in Greek (incl. variation even within Attic of the classical period). There is also so-called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and (closely related) the Sanskrit of the tantras, but these can easily be considered merely erroneous Sanskrit influenced by MIA and later dialects. Or, if we follow the learned commentators, one can call it ārṣa or aiśa—the strange language which Buddha/God is entitled to use, but from which we mortals of little intelligence must refrain.
>tradition holds that everyone should read and write Sanskrit in their own script
Interesting, I don't feel like I've seen this idea expressed before. Do you have a reference for it?
>Latin sanskrit is totally possible
Yes, but not desirable imo. I mean sometimes you have to read texts in IAST transcription if you're doing research (or, even worse, e-texts in various godawful ASCII transcriptions), but imo if you put in the effort to learn Devanāgarī (which is really a very small effort compared to that of getting good at the language itself), it soon becomes more natural to read in than IAST. Even most Westerners at or above my level of proficiency in the language seem to agree with me on this point.
That being said, Sanskrit is (paradoxically for a classical language, perhaps) very much a spoken before it is a written language. When you're first starting out, read everything aloud. Especially with the long compounds, the cadence will be very different from your native tongue, and getting that cadence will also help with your reading comprehension (at least at the level of sight-reading). Even I still read aloud whenever I'm alone, and it's a pleasure.
>greek
plan to study it
>latin
>plan to study it
>chinese
xD
>arabic
already learning Hebrew so Arabic can go away
>another bug language
I’m full, thanks
>already learning Hebrew so Arabic can go away
This. Assyrian and Syriac sound the best, Aramaic and Hebrew have the most religious significant, so it's hard to justify Arabic except for travel but even then the best places all speak English anyways.
The body of poetry is probably the best reason for learning any classical language unless you have a very niche interest that coincides with texts in that language (niche because things of general importance are likely to have been translated, and translations are sufficient for most things other than poetry). It's really that simple.
Did Latin and Greek a bit in high school. Stopped because it was too much effort for something that didn't matter and went to do normal courses. I hate China and India so not going to learn those. Currently learing Arabic since I might join the militairy and want to frick this half-Lebanese girl I know.
By the way, Devavāṇīpraveśikā is unfortunately not the best way to learn Devanāgarī, but for that, as the other Anon suggested, you can probably find an online resource, e.g. a youtube video for children showing you how to form the akṣaras (characters)
I do wish Sanskrit instruction was a little more accessible. I was able to mostly teach myself Latin and Greek in hgih school, but I remember trying to do the same with Sanskrit at the time and being befuddled by scans of old textbooks on archive.org where I couldn't even make out the first अ
Thank you for your insights as well, they are the exact kind of bird's-eye + experience that I couldn't extract from reading on the matter. The retrospectively obvious realization that Indian resources in regards to the script might come in handy is particularly useful.
As it stands now I will learn the script (the best part of any new language to me) and then throw myself at the resources mentioned once my regular semester ends.
Very telling that I found more guidance on the matter from Anonymous online posters than the university system here, the lack of even peripheral curiosity from people who study other Indo-European languages all their life is frankly puzzling.
While the window of correspondence is open I'd like to further ask how compatible different chronolects are: is it an Attic-Koine kind of situation or will I fall flat if I try to branch out from what the Devavāṇīpraveśikā will teach? Likewise, will Hindi resources on Devanagari trip me up when it comes to pronunciation in particular (though this will be alleviated by learning IAST in parallel I figure)? Lastly, do you have some recommendations for texts that are both worthwhile to read and not at vedic levels of complexity? My exposure thus far has been entirely theoretical and otherwise reduced to breakthrough liturgical highlights I don't think I would be able to extract much other than inspiration from, even without the language barrier.
Glad I could help
As for the chronolects (nice word) issue, I think it's fair to say that, unlike Attic of the 5th century, the vast majority of what counts as Sanskrit is written in the sort of classical Sanskrit that the Goldmans will introduce you to. If you want to go back and read the Rgveda, though, then you will definitely have to familiarize yourself with at least the basics of how Vedic differs from Sanskrit. Here the standard (at least in English) remains Macdonell's Vedic Reader + Grammar for Students, for better or worse. Then you have varying degrees of "irregular" Sanskrit, like I said, especially in tantric scriptures, but you don't have to bother with that unless it's a special interest. The Sanskrit of the epics (Mahābhārata + Rāmāya.na) i'd also a bit different from fully classical Sanskrit, but I've never found it to be a big problem.
>will Hindi resources on Devanāgarī trip me up
Yes, although maybe the main difference is the quality of the diphthongs (ai and au—in Hindi they have lost their quality as diphthongs). Still, the Goldmans should present Sanskrit phonology fairly clearly, as I recall.
>Vedic levels of complexity
Not to nitpick, but the hymns of the Veda are not necessarily that complex. Of course there are some passages where, after 200+ years of modern scholarship, we still don't know what it means, but that is rarely a matter purely of grammar, or indeed (if I can be a little contentious) of conceptual subtlety.
As for text recommendations, it really depends on your interests. It sounds like you're interested in the philosophico-religious side of things, and perhaps you could study something like Śa.mkara's Gītābhā.sya fairly early on (not that it's terribly easy, but I'm not sure that any work of Vedānta is). The Gītā itself is easy though—second-year Sanskrit, or second-semester if you're as autistic as me. Other than that, I would recommend any intermediate student to read kāvya (poetry, or rather "belles-lettres"), since it will expose you to a wide variety of vocabulary and grammatical structures which is hard to find elsewhere. For my part, I think it was reading the first canto of Kālidāsa's Kumārasambhava that convinced me I should devote a large part of my life to this language. Kālidāsa's other great long poem, the Raghuva.mśa, was for centuries one of the first things that Brahmin boys were supposed to reed after their 12 years(!) spent studying grammar and (at least in theory) learning their Veda portion, btw
Anyways, I'm far from an expert, but if you're serious about this and could use more help, my Discord tag is sahridaya
I'm glad our resident Sanskrit guy is into poetry. What are your thoughts on the textual issues associated with the Mahabharata? Have you read all or a significant portion of it, and if so what did you think about the different temporal "layers" of the text?
>Have you read all or a significant portion of it,
To be frank, no, and I really know very little about the state of MBh scholarship. I have been wanting to read Sukthankar's prolegomena to the critical edition and then just see how far I get into the Ādiparvan, but it may be a little while before I get around to it...
Well the whole reason I ask is because of the extent to which it's known for being massively bloated with exhaustive commentary, so I don't really blame you, I just thought you might be more likely than most to have insight on it. I'm just going to read the Penguin abridged translation regardless, and then maybe from there if I ever get around to studying the language I can try to exercise discretion in picking out which chapters/sections are worth tackling in the original.
This is a treasure to me, thank you. Between your input and the resources the other Anon kindly provided I feel quite well set up to jump into it without worrying about depth or running into the wrong dead end.
Though there wont be any rapid-rapid progress as this is an interest far off my regular and temporally afflicted studies I've added you (guy with three scripts between tag, name and description..). Your tag fits the exchange well.
>Not to nitpick, but the hymns of the Veda are not necessarily that complex
I cannot judge that and do take your word for it, I just recalled discussion I've read about the fidelity of translations (or lack thereof) and assumed it was due to ambiguity in symbols that I'd struggle with due to the cultural gap. That might of course not be the case, I was really just looking in through a closed window until now. If I can get to these early on it's all the better.
I learned Latin and Greek in high school and I don't care about the Chinese ant civilization and the Arab goat one. When your so-called Golden Age only happens because you discover Western philosophy, you know you're not all that great. Sanskrit could be cool but I've read the Upanishads in translation and all it really does is say "all is one" in 5 million different ways.
You can't even speak English.
>speak
(Also, yes, there are constant references in the courtly poetry I read to the events of the Mahābhārata, and yes, I feel like a poseur for not having ever read the source material)
Are there any anthologies of short kavya you recommend? Memorizing poetry plays a very large part in my process: it's how I learned a lot of Greek, Latin, and Chinese. I even learned basic Russian by memorizing some Pushkin. Yes, I sound really weird in it...
That's a good question. There have been some themed collections of short poetry in translation, e.g. the Clay Sanskrit Library edition of "messenger poems," but I actually don't know of a "kāvya reader"—such a thing seems like an excellent idea, come to think of it. I wouldn't be surprised if an Indian scholar made one for university exams in the early 20th century or something, though; I'll have to check. For now, I can at least recommend some nice short kāvya to read early on. To begin with your penchant for memorization makes me think you might really enjoy Sanskrit, and you would not be going far wrong by trying to memorize Kālidāsa's Meghadūta. You can find some nice sung recitations of at least the opening verses on YT (in theory, kāvya should always be sung).
Some other kāvya anthologies off the top of my head (other than the Meghadūta and poems modeled on it, most short kāvyas are really collections of muktakas or standalone verses, I think):
Caurapañcāśikā attributed to Bilha.na (but not by him, think modern scholars). This one might be a bit tricky to memorize depending on your method, as every verse begins with adyāpi tām
Śatakatraya of Bhart.rhari (3 collections of 100 verses each, on the themes of erotic love, good conduct, and sanctified dispassion)
Amaruśataka is another famous one, but honestly some of those verses are quite difficult, and the commentary of Arjunavarmadeva, while brilliant, is also not straightforward for a beginner
I should note that the texts of all three of these are quite fluid, and you'll see a lot of disparities between various editions
But there is also nothing wrong with just reading a canto of one of the mahākāvya. They tend to be between 75 and 100 verses. For the purpose of "baby's first kāvya," I think Raghuva.mśa 5 is the canonical choice. But personally I tend to prefer the Kumārasambhava with its thoroughly mythological themes and characters. Both are great, of course
>mfw Arabic is the most beautiful language
>Learning it is like discovering a new colour you have never been able to see before
>It is too complicated to learn
🙁
>>It is too complicated to learn
No such thing.
Arabic is so beautiful bros
The most beautiful imo
A friend told me that you can read a lot of shastra literature with imperfect knowledge of the Sanskrit verbal system. Like, obviously doing your best to learn it, but not feeling like you have to memorize everything down to a T just to be able to parse a 9th century bhasya. Can any Sanskritanons confirm/deny? I am learning Devanagari and I already know Latin/Greek so I'm planning to brute force as much of the verbal system as I can for a while, but I'd like to start "cheating" and reading some actual Sanskrit ASAP.
It is true, but only of certain authors (a minority, as far as I can tell). You might find a nice aorist even in a highly technical commentary, especially if something is being quoted, for instance. If you already know Latin and Greek, you should have a sense for how to memorize paradigms and the like, so I would say just go ahead and do it. But what are you interested in reading?
Honestly, my minimum goal is just to be able to look shit up and parse the occasional Sanskrit sentence with work, for example if I'm reading in a literal English translation and I want to go even deeper by reading it in parallel with the original. For example, Olivelle's Upanishads translation has the original Sanskrit in parallel. I don't mind having to bust my hump a little to read the sentences I'm very interested in.
Usually with languages I get to this level and then kinda hover there for a year or two, using it to passively build familiarity and vocab, and then I do a second pass at the language and tackle it more deliberately.
Forgot to mention that if anyone has any recommendations for Sanskrit/Devanagari memorization stuff online that'd be great. Particularly well laid-out verb morphologies for example.
Also, mostly interested in religious and philosophical texts, both Hindu and Mahayana.
i can read the alphabet 🙂
did i win guys?
ΥΣS. 🙂
I have zero interest in Arabic or Sanskrit, and very little in Chinese. For me it's:
>Latin - Classical and Medieval
I took a few years of Classical Latin. I'll continue with books.
>Greek - Ancient, Koine, and Modern
I know a few dozen words, but that's it. I intend to worth through some books on the subject.
>Hebrew - Biblical and Modern
I have a small amount of proficiency in Biblical Hebrew. I have several books on the subject.
>Japanese - Ancient and Modern
I already have some proficiency. I use Japanese news and textbooks on the subject. I use anime, games, and manga, but not very much because I don't do any of those very often.
>other languages I'm interested in: Irish Gaelic, French, Welsh, Swedish and other Scandinavian languages, Russian and other Slavic languages, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, and Korean, but I don't know whether I'll actually bother learning any of them.
replace arabic with german
Like the other anons have said, Arabic is the most beautiful. If any of them were to be replaced it would be Sanskrit or literally any other one, and it definitely will not be for German.
My headcanon is that everyone who's ever said that about Arabic on this board is the same person, because I have a hard time imagining more than one person feeling that way. While the beauty of languages is hopelessly subjective, Arabic seems to combine pretty much all the features that are likely to make someone say it's ugly.
Explain to me the Japanese writing system? Why do they use Chinese characters? What about the other system they have (forgot the name). Japanese seem to be sensible enough, why don't they drop Chinese symbols and create a romanised alphabet based on phonetic spelling. I have been watching subbed anime for years, Japanese language and pronunciation sounds nothing like Chinese, it would relatively easy to make a phonetic alphabet for it
>Why do they use Chinese characters?
Japan as a civilization, being isolated and isolationist, didn't develop common written language until very late in its development.
Very simply they borrowed Chinese to the extent that it was convenient to do so.
>create a romanised alphabet based on phonetic spelling
>it would relatively easy to make a phonetic alphabet for it
Yes, they literally do that. It's called kana, in the forms of hiragana and katakana. It's perfectly phonetic and relatively easy to learn as a Westerner because it romanizes almost one-to-one. But it is tedious to write everything phonetically, especially when dealing with homophones that introduce ambiguity, so the kanji (i.e. the borrowed Chinese) continues to be very important.
Any reason why they don't have separate letters for n w r y m h n t s k a i u e o (15 letters)? And just make two letter sounds by ...combining two letters instead of making an emtirely new symbol for it? The whole point of phonetic spelling is to break it down into most basic sounds. Is it not?
Forgot pic
Syllabaries are very common.
Western script basically came out of Phoenetian, which (at least originally) didn't even write down vowels. So this idea of combining consonant and vowel is a product of that evolution. By the time we get to English, everything is massively over-complicated and the phonetic rules and exceptions take a long time for even smart foreigners to understand. Japanese kana is effectively the opposite, where anybody can learn all of the phonetics in a short period because it's extremely regular.
English is more of an exception to the rule. Many other European languages sound same as written, English could do it too but there is just too much historical baggage for it too happen. All I am saying is western way of doing it is superior. Again I would not make this point if Japanese had their own script but they use chinese characters, so why not use already tried and tested method of having separate vowels and consonants and then combing them to make syllables? It is obviously upto Japanese to decide and their current decision is not what I would normally expect from them.
These are all fricked up bugman languages that will drop your IQ.
>ctrl+f Farsi
>only 1 result
Props to that guy but for the most part, shame on you plebeians. Ahura Mazda frowns upon you.
>I have beheld Aufidius Bassus, that noble man, shattered in health and wrestling with his years. But they already bear upon him so heavily that he cannot be raised up; old age has settled down upon him with great, – yes, with its entire, weight. You know that his body was always delicate and sapless. For a long time he has kept it in hand, or, to speak more correctly, has kept it together; of a sudden it has collapsed.
>Just as in a ship that springs a leak, you can always stop the first or the second fissure, but when many holes begin to open and let in water, the gaping hull cannot be saved; similarly, in an old man's body, there is a certain limit up to which you can sustain and prop its weakness. But when it comes to resemble a decrepit building, – when every joint begins to spread and while one is being repaired another falls apart, – then it is time for a man to look about him and consider how he may get out.
This is about me...
Wrong fricking thread, sorry.
>Greek
Been studying for a year and a half, I can read Plato with like 2-3 dictionary lookups / OCT
>Latin
Will start this summer
>Chinese
Lol
>Arabic
>Sanskrit
Sound cool but I'd rather learn French, Spanish and German. Maybe Russian or Italian after that if I really want to scratch the language learning itch.
for sanskrt