Relaxing in the thermae edition>τὸ πρότερον νῆμα·>>23288574NOTE: replace ' dot ' with an actual dot to access the links below>Μέγα τὸ Ἑλληνιστί/Ῥωμαϊστί·https://mega dot nz/folder/FHdXFZ4A#mWgaKv4SeG-2Rx7iMZ6EKw>Mέγα τὸ ANEhttps://mega dot nz/folder/YfsmFRxA#pz58Q6aTDkwn9Ot6G68NRgFeel free to write your thoughts/stories/etc... in your target language.>Work in progress FAQhttps://rentry dot co/n8nrkoYou are very welcome to suggest additions/changes/etc... especially for other classical languages
>>23337422*sips water sourced from the local spring* yup, it's schizo time
I HAVE BEEN STUDYING THESE FUCKING COCK SUCKING LANGUAGES FOR ONE MILLION YEARS AND I STILL FEEL LIKE A RETARD EVERY TIME I READ A REAL AUTHOR
>>23337834Retarded
>>23338098κακοκαισχροπίθηκε, σίγησον
>>23338098But enough about you.
Quanto maior linguam Latinam disco, tanto minor linguae Anglicae faveo ut lingua franca.
>>23337834I'm about to learn Ancient Greek from Ancient Greek: A 21st Century Approach by Philip S. Peek from the Open Textbook Library or whatever. I wan to enjoy Sappho in the original. Wish me luck, lads.
>>23337958*sounds of uninterrupted slobbering in the distance*
>>23338304hell yeah. lucky for you sappho is one of the easier lyric poets
>>23338326That IS lucky for me, lol.
>>23338304>I wan to enjoy Sappho in the original.be prepared for a lot of fragments lol. Half her shit is just>.....woman........>.............................>....the green of the trees............>.........fairest....................
>>23338586You meant it as a joke, but that's nearly a decent poem.
>>23338288Quanto plus*, tanto minus*, ut linguae francae*
>>23337958Honestly I feel like that too. Different authors have different styles and it just fucks you up when you switch. The only thing you can do for it is read more, read Caesar, read Sallust, read Cicero. Just keep reading and getting more and more and new authors are just going to look less and less strange. My theory is just that we don't get enough Latin to be able to fluently read off the bat like we can in English, we are surronded by modern languages and get as much as possible from it, but Latin is only going to come from you sitting down and reading it.
>>23338955Gratias ago.
What do you guys think of Quomodo Dicitur podcast? Is it good? My Latin is just good enough to get something from listening, but not good enough to critique it.
>>23339068seems abandoned no? I never dabbled into these much other than Latinitium
>>23339284Yeah, it does seem that way, but there's a lot of episodes in the catalogue, so there's a lot of material to listen to and potential learn from if the quality is good.
>>23339068I suggest you pay for Legentibus if you have ten bucks a month to spare. It's the most decent audio content out there right now for all levels. Quomodo Dicitur? is alright for beginners, but it's kind of dead. If you can bear to listen to strong American accents, check out Philologia Perennis as well. It's another dead podcast. For somewhat actually regular content, you should definitely check out live streams on YouTube channels called RVMAK and Musa Pedestris.
>>23339420Thanks, anon. I really appreciate it. Is there anything similar for Ancient Greek, or do people just rely on Modern Greek?
top kekread the first 10 paragraphs/chapters of Plutarch, expected worse, felt a bit filtered in the first one but the rest seems not so bad, challenging but satisfyingly so
>>233394821. baldman's patreon has recordings of a lot of readers like thrasmyachus, ancient greek alive, and alexandros series on yt for free2. https://www.youtube.com/@triodostrivium/videos (warning: kraut accent)3. https://www.youtube.com/@KoineGreek/videos (looks like he hasnt done anything for two years however)
>>23339664Awesome. Thanks, man.
Θαλῆς ὁ Μῑλήσιος ἔρωτηθεὶς ὑπότινος τί ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακόν,εἶπεν, "ἡ γλῶττα."Thalēs Mīlēsius rogātus abaliquō quid esset [et] bonum et malum [eōdem tempore]dīxit, "lingua."Thales the Milesian, having been asked bysomeone what is [both] good and bad [at the same time]said, "the tongue."
>>23332429>culturelessObjectively false, there's literature and music and tropes and in-jokes and all the things humans use language for in Esperanto. Try translating "La eternaj komencantoj en la gufujo krokodilas" to English.
>>23334834Isn't the mutually intelligibility partly because of the conservative orthography, with the phonology having changed more than people realize?>>23334980I hear people saying that Icelanders can read the sagas with about as much difficulty as Englishmen read Shakespeare, is that not true?
>>23335593Hey, I actually have a friend who's doing similarly.
>>23339746陀利、彌利人也。或問之曰「何物兼善惡?」答曰「舌也。」
Bros I thought pederasty was a Greek thing
Is the "prima hora" 1AM, since it is considered to be before noon? Or is it something else like 6 AM or something
>>23340739that sentence is kinda confusing garbage, I think what they mean is that the "prima hora" of the Latins happens before midday, and it's 6AM indeed, but it could be misinterpreted as "the first hour is (the one) before midday"ditch memelinguo
These old fonts BTFO me. I read this shit slowly and only understand like 90%. (It doesn't help that orthography was completely freestyle in Renaissance France.) Do you guys have guides on this?
>>23341088My reading of the picrel, btw:"Comment au temps du bon roy Artur il estoit bng tresevpert Nigromancien que on appelloit Merlin.Tous bons chevalliers et gentil; hommes bons debuez lcavoir q au temps du bon roy Artur il estoit bng grant philosophe nome Merlin Leqsestoit evpert en l'art de nigromance plus q nul home du monde. Lequel jamais [...]"
>>23341088if it's not on wikisource or in modern book, no thanks. im blind enough. seriously though, you can find books or courses on paleography
>>23337834If they ever decide to make a third main LLPSI reader, what should it be about, and who should be included? A continuation of RA with Lucan mixed with context from the Periochae and Caesar (like how Horace mixes with Livy in the early chapters of RA), continuing with Augustus and then selections from Tacitus' Annales to cap it off would be cool. But a more spaced out reader with selections from multiple authors over a broader span of time could also work. You could combine both ideas (kind of like how RA has both Roman history and Cicero), but then it might either be too long or spread too thin over too many authors to work
>>23341139.
>>23340739>>23340680I remember your posts from a different thread. I am not trying to be mean. 4chan breeds hostility, but I am being genuine. I repeat: I am not trying to be mean.You are in the company of a small group of people with decent enough Latin. None used Duolingo. You've been told this before and directed to the methods that have worked for those in this thread, but seem unwilling to listen.I legitimately think you would get better reactions to this sort of content elsewhere, such as reddit or a Facebook group. I am not saying this to be snarky or using "reddit" as a quasi-slur. You seem to want a particular kind of discussion that just doesn't take place here. It does elsewhere. I am just making you aware.
>>23341158I'm actually a different anon because this is the first time I post duolingo screenshots here. I'm not just using duolingo, I'm also doing a Latin textbook in my native language (Portuguese), picrel. I know duolingo is shit, but I still think it helps (a little) for vocabulary. The textbook goes way faster and duolingo helps me feel that at least I know *something* when things gets difficult.I'm planning on moving from Brazil to Europe later this year and there I'll buy some more books (they're less expensive there). I think the ones I bought by Paulo Rónai are a bit basic and rough (have too few exercises). By the time I do this I'll have finished them if all goes well.Thanks for not being hostile by the way.
>>23341139More compelling content, all at the difficulty of the back half of Familia Romana. The first half of FR is near perfect; the second's principal flaw is simply being too short to lift most readers to the level of the Roma Aeterna. A whole book of intermediate text with a steady trickle of new vocabulary and authentic quotations is what's needed to get students to the RA level, not more text that does what the first half of FR already does.Of course this already exists and is called Epitome Historiae Sacrae, but everyone pretends it doesn't exist. I guess the people just want Medus and Lydia or whatever.
>>23341182I hear you; sorry for mistaking you for a different Duolingo poster. I would point out the plentiful PDFs of superior textbooks in the OP, but I'd be a hypocrite to do so as a loyalist to paper myself. I will still reiterate: I have known several successful Latin learners, and none used Duolingo.Good luck and parabens on the move by the way. Not all Europe is created equal but it sure must be exciting not to fear electrocution by your shower or random violence on the same scale anymore.
>>23341088>>23341095I don't really have a guide but maybe these few remarks can help you, since you already got most of it right.>Artus, not Artur (Old French nominative/oblique, although it seems the case system is already defunct here: Artus is the object of a preposition)>q̃ is short for que: "que au temps", "lequel estoit">ung, not bng—Middle French form of un, the indefinite article>expert, not evpert>ſcavoir is sçavoir, not lcavoir (hypercorrection by analogy with scire; modern French savoir lost the C as we eventually realised it's derived from sapere)>ō is an means the following consonant is doubled. hōme and nōme -> homme and nomme"Comment au temps du bon roy Artus il estoit ung tresexpert Nigromancien que on appelloit Merlin.Tous bons chevalliers et gentil; hommes bons debuez scavoir que au temps du bon roy Artus il estoit ung grant philosophe nomme Merlin. Lequel estoit expert en lart de nigromance plus que nul homme du monde. Lequel iamais [...]"
>>23341182>and duolingo helps me feel that at least I know *something* when things gets difficult.Let me just address this point, because it grates on me. This is the point of Duolingo, and it does not work for Latin.Duolingo applies a gamification model wherein students are made to experience success as often as possible, and to receive instant granular corrections on mistakes. This is fine. For a different subject, like Chemistry or Geography, I'd even call it really a clever way to loop in people without special aptitude.The problem is that a Duolingo course's scope is just not nearly big enough to teach a language, but it encourages users to become addicted and treat it as if it is. In addition, it uses the exact same features for every language. Its interface's main strength is drilling vocabulary and I agree that that's the most important and longest enduring problem to address with any language; however, every course has too little vocabulary, and it's naive to think that this method can work as well for grammatically divergent language pairs like English-Latin as it does for English-Spanish. Then consider that the courses vary in quality, and some are made by outright amateursDuolingo claims to be research-supported and generally effective. Said research compares its courses to a single year of a language class at a typical United States university. I really would not be surprised if just about any method turned out to beat a year of courses in *anything*, let alone language, at a typical United States university.
>>23341258>ō is an means*ō means
What's the best introductory Old French text?Are there textbooks that French students use in university?
>>23341265>What's the best introductory Old French text?Depends on dialect and period. 11th century/early and mid 12th century texts still strictly observed the case system and sometimes have obscure spellings. If that's where you want to start:>Life of St. Alexis (easy, not particularly interesting)>Song of Roland (pretty hard, interesting, use a bilingual edition)>Wace (medium)Texts from the late 12th century and the 13th century are easy from my perspective because you're getting closer to Middle French, but keep in mind I'm a native French speaker. All of those are interesting in their own ways:>Chrétien de Troyes' chivalric romances>Roman de Renard>Life of William Marshal>Villehardouin's Conquest of Constantinople>Joinville's Life of Saint Louis>Roman de la Rose>Lais of Marie de FranceVery late Old French:>Froissart's ChroniclesOverall just pick a subject-matter that interests you. All of the above are good choices.>textbookI didn't study Old French in university. Still, the textbook I recommend is the one by E. Einhorn.
>>23341258Thanks! That's really helpful.
>>23341300Yeah alrightI'll save this but I probably should just read more modern French and then start reading Middle French before I tackle Old FrenchDo you think it helps reading bilingual editions? I'd be worried I'd just start reading Old French parsed through the modern French translationAnyway I'm mostly interested in Chrétien de Troyes, Song of Roland and the histories
>>23341199>Of course this already exists and is called Epitome Historiae Sacrae, but everyone pretends it doesn't exist. I guess the people just want Medus and Lydia or whatever.there are also the 19th century readers by people like Appleton to fill this gap with more vocab and grammatical reinforcement. People are just lazy.
>Pubius Ovidius Naso
>>23341322>People are just lazyNot wrong, but it also benefits to have material that's relevant/familiar to learners before they dive into the unfamiliar stuff. Familia Romana holds learners because it follows a basically recognizable modern pulp novel/TV narrative pattern, in addition to its being an excellent textbook. There's nothing wrong with wanting more material like that, even if people like you and I would still prefer Epitome or such texts. This is also a reason why new generations tend to need new standard texts even for subjects that don't change.
>>23341314>Do you think it helps reading bilingual editions?Sure. If your modern French is good enough then you'll start picking up on where they differ in idiom and where they match, which was helpful for me. I just wouldn't recommend it before you've committed the grammar to mind; thankfully, Einhorn's textbook is actually really short.
>>23341139Instead of a third LLPSI reader, I'd prefer a single good western-facing Classical Chinese or Arabic reader.
>>23341338Also here's some helpful resourceshttps://micmap.org/dicfro/home/dictionnaire-godefroy>Godefroy's Old French dictionary, complete but sadly ripe with ghost words>several glossaries for major textshttps://anglo-norman.net/>specialised Anglo-Norman dictionary
>>23341259Thanks for the thoughtful post. You're right that Duolingo is addictive and might cause me to spend more time doing its lessons than I really should, because that time would be better spent learning Latin elsewhere. I'll consider doing LLPSI for vocabulary alongside it. The Duolingo Latin "course" is so short that I think I'll be over it by the time of the move, but LLPSI, not so much (at least not the two volumes).As for the textbooks: maybe the ones you people use really are superior, but mine have the advantage of being written in my native language (and a Romance one at that). My feeling is that this advantage is too great to even consider trying American/English textbooks. I had already started learning Latin from B. L. D'Ooge's "Latin for beginners" a year ago. I only did a fourth or third of the book before losing motivation. My English grammar isn't even that bad, but things just feel more natural in Portuguese. So I'll stick to Rónai I guess.
>>23341355LLPSI is so far superior to Duolingo that it isn't worth mentioning in the same breath. It's a topic of contention in this thread, but to my knowledge, people have learned Latin from LLPSI. I know no one who has from Duolingo. That is an immense difference.Good on you for choosing a grammar in your native language. I'll take a look at Rónai when I get a chance
>>23341182bicho, apenas assista a playlist "latim para todos" no canal do Cedric Ayres...
>>23341497It's on library genesisThe 22 MB file is the one you want
>>23341499kek, I found it on Yandex
bump
>>23339849Wow. I can't wait to learn Esperanto so I can understand the in jokes of the Esperanto on line community!
>>23342228The Esperanto community predates the Internet by about a hundred years, and it still has a very large in-person and physical component.
>>23342340You are right! I just checked and Esperanto was created... In 1887! That means it is more than ONE HECKING HUNDRED years old! That's a hecking lot! That's it, I'm learning Esperanto now. Forget Homer, forget Vergil. Could you point me to the appropriate subreddit, kind stranger?
>>23342388You haven't lived until you've read Homer in the original Esperanto. Bazinga
>>23342413There's some excellent poetry composed in Esperanto, though I'm well aware Homer is not among it.
Just found out about deponent verbs
>>23341349>Arabic readerMaybe give this one a try https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/Klassisch-arabische_Chrestomathie_aus_Prosaschriftstellern/titel_908.ahtml
>>23342718>yfw a semi-deponent verb blocks your path
>my country had Latin and ancient Greek in schools>had many classical high-schools>had many classics professors>they were translating ancient authors>they had thriving community>then WWII happened and my country was occupied by the Russians who killed everyone, closed all the classics schools and university departmentsI recently bought an ancient Greek dictionary, published in 1991 (right after the fall of communism) and in the preface they said they're publishing it in the original version of 1938 because they don't have the capacity to even edit it.
>>23343910If the original was good, why change it? Ancient Greek hasn't changed.
>>23343984There were changes (two letters removed) by the communists in my native language.
>>23344074Isn't that more of a change to the orthography than the language?
>another a+ "cum laude" on a latin test
>>23339852>Isn't the mutually intelligibility partly because of the conservative orthographyThe texts they read in schools are heavily modernized. That being said, the reason I'm so adamant about this is because I'm sick and tired of the erroneous notion that Icelandic is some kind of "carbon copy" of Old Norse, because, apart from being misinformation, which is a pet peeve of mine, it also relies on not understanding what either language is, and there's faulty nomenclature at work.>is that not true?How am I supposed to know? Difficulty is always subjective, and there are many factors to consider. I would however imagine that it'd be as it was for me before I was interested in linguistics, ie clearly archaic, and perhaps deceptive (you think an old word means something it doesn't) but not bewilderingly so. On that note, my sister struggles something fierce with languages, while taking university writing classes, and has asked me to "translate" archaic texts for her before, that I would think you shouldn't struggle with at all. I did naught more than update the idiom in like 5 places and "unabbreviate" abbreviations. Perspectives matter too.>>23341088>These old fonts BTFO me.That's pure sovl, though. I love reading facsimiles. A chad rejects digitized editions if there are scans available, or better, you can get a physical copy at some antiquarian book store.
>>23344404>finnamaybe ebonics is true /clg/, after all
>>23339849>>23342340Not a Classical language
>>23344896I was reading Shakespeare today and saw, "Holla." I cracked up.
Pretty excitinghttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/29/herculaneum-scroll-plato-final-hours-burial-site
>Persuadent Rauracis et Tulingis et Latobrigis finitimis, uti eodem usi consilio oppidis suis vicisque exustis una cum iis proficiscantur>they persuaded their blablabla neighbors 'to use the same' 'they used the plan' and having burned their cities and villages they went with themAm I interpreting this correctly? The uti (which I assume is for the persuadet) so close to the presumably deponent usi is really weird.
>>23346299>Persuadent Rauracis et Tulingis et Latobrigis finitimisthe persuade their blablabla neighbors>uti= ut, goes with profiscantur, hence 'to go'>eodem usi consiliousi = participle of utor with active meaning, hence, (they = the neighbors) following the same plan>oppidis suis vicisque exustisablative absolute, that is, "after burning down their own towns and villages>una cumtogether/with them
>>23346319>uti = utI had no idea and thought it was infinitive of utor. Thanks
>>23345551what are the chances other than tidbits like these we may even recover some lost piece of the Homeric cycle?
>>23345526I'm perfectly well aware, but I still won't stand for falsehoods about it being bandied about without correction.
>>23347812shoo shoo troon>won't stand for falsehoods about Esperantroon>but will defend the falsehood of being a womango ahead, reply with those man-hands
>>23345551>>23347719I'm pumped bro's
have any /clg/ authors talked about suicide?
>>23347995yeah Livy talks about Roman military figures committing seppuku to preserve their honor. A true captain goes down with his ship.
>>23348005"would I still go to Elysium if I killed myself?" xD
Verba volant, scripta manent.
So I picked up a Loeb book of Seneca’s letters, and what is really throwing me off is my ignorance of idioms. I keep trying to literally translate phrases, only to look at the facing page and have the meaning suddenly fall into place. Is there a good resource for learning common idioms and phrases, or is the answer just to read moar?
>>23348140Both. To get idioms you have to know what they mean in cultural context. Some you can pick up on through reading, some by a more liberal interpretation, others you will never grasp unless you know they historical, cultural, societal, mythological etc. background
>>23348140The most important thing here is that the English translating is signalling to you that there is an idiom present in the textI would search them up and deliberately try to study them or you could underline them in the book for study afterwards, I wouldn't deliberately seek out lists of idioms unless you're talking about the most fundamental of idioms
>>23348148Maybe calling them idioms is overdoing it. I mean shit like this:>Concipere animo non potes, quantum momenti adferre mihi singulos dies videam.In just this sentence, I was unaware that ‘concipere animo’ is more like ‘understand’ than ‘take to your soul’. That ‘videam’ is more like ‘I notice’ than ‘I seem to myself’. That ‘singulos dies’ is more like ‘every day’ than ‘a single day’. My own clumsy literal translations leave me confused until I glance at the English.
>>23348162You will learnThere's no way you could have predicted it
>>23348148Shit advice. There's literally no way to adopt Latinisms without reading through them.
>>23348191IndeedPlease tell me what the following means, it is from Catullus 61. Do not consult anything in a language other than Latin, according to you it should be abundantly clear just from the following lines themselves.>Ne diu taceat procax>Fescennina iocatio>Nec nuces pueris neget>Desertum domini audiens>Concubinus amoremIn particular explain the significance of 'Fescennina iocatio' and 'nuces pueris'.
>>23348223Using your method or mine? It looks like you're trying to prove my point here.
>>23348225>Please tell me what the following means, it is from Catullus 61. Do not consult anything in a language other than Latin, according to you it should be abundantly clear just from the following lines themselves.still waiting
>>23348173Grim. The feeling of looking up all unknown words, tracing out parts of speech, and still being confused is demoralizing. Do I just keep reading facing translations? Are there no good resources for ‘hey, before you read X, here’s a list of uncommon words and idioms you should know’?
>>23348234>according to you it should be abundantly clear just from the following lines themselves.I think you misinterpreted the entire argument. Obviously,you would need a translation. Through the translation you would learn but not from attempting it yourself. What are the cultural clues you would use without relying on translations or etymologies?
>>23348240>uncommon words and idioms you should knowIf you should know them they wouldn't be uncommonPharr's Virgil has an excellent pullout list of common words used in the first six books of the Aeneid. You should focus on something like that, get your common words and idioms down pat. There will always be uncommon and rare ones
>>23348252>You should focus on something like that, get your common words and idioms down pat.Shit advice. Nobody is writing letters in these languages using dated idioms and they're all fairly single shot. It's not like there are universal ones that all of the Greek authors used.
>>23348244So to be clear, you can't. You will never admit this.It is quite helpful to read commentaries, monographs and books covering the historical, cultural, societal, mythological etc. background of ancient Rome and Greece, particularly if you care to understand what you are reading.
>>23348244>What are the cultural clues you would use without relying on translations or etymologies?Waiting on this bud
>>23348269Use your own example to discern idioms by>read commentaries, monographs and books covering the historical, cultural, societal, mythological etc. background of ancient Rome and Greece, particularly if you care to understand what you are reading."We'll go on retard. Decipher your Catullus passage with your own method.
Waiting of your application of guesswork to discern >In particular explain the significance of 'Fescennina iocatio' and 'nuces pueris'.
>>23348223>nuces puerisnuts of boys duh
>>23348269Hey retard use your method *poke poke* you didn't die of embarrassment did you?
>>23348277kek because you can't?You've got to be a troll because you are the one advocating guesswork, not me. I specifically said >others you will never grasp unless you know they historical, cultural, societal, mythological etc. backgroundtypo includedStill, for the benefit of anyone else following this, pic related are what I mean by commentaries and learning the cultural background. Roman thought, while similar to ours in some ways, is quite alien in others and their idioms reflect that. Staring at the letters will not make them make sense.Left is Merrill, right is Fordyce
>>23348339>you are the one advocating guesswork...No? I said that the translations are the way modern audiences are going to understand idiomatic or irregular semantics. You're the one that said that guesswork is good because if you just look at culture clues you will figure everything out.You still did not decipher that Catullus passage using your method. I accept your defeat.
>>23348339how are you fighting against a strawman version of the method you yourself suggested? the anon you were originally replying to clearly doesn't have a problem with commentaries and other supplementary materials.
>>23348494Ha yes, you get it
Is learning Latin over Japanese worth it?t.650 day duo streak
I have learned the Greek alphabet and how to pronounce the letters. Today I read my first two words of Ancient Greek (I have no idea what they mean). You could say my chin is tilting a little upward today.
>>23345526If we let Esperanto in here we will be worse than /int/’s language thread instantly. Not even they take serious that joke.
>>23344074What language are you native in? Cyrillic or Italic script language?
>>23341088 Only the Irish/Scots/Goidelic font filter me. Got used to Germanic font by now.
>>23348240>The feeling of looking up all unknown words, tracing out parts of speech, and still being confused is demoralizing. Do I just keep reading facing translations?Like any language, you'll eventually reach a level where you know enough and what you don't know can be easily looked up or just dismissed because it doesn't interrupt the flow
ah fuck I didn't know I needed to get filtered even by greek mathematical terms, thanks Plutarch
>>23349556Well that's intimidating
advanced textbook Latin:>And then, the battle being won, Romulus retook the city, which had in the meantime been burned.easiest beginner tier Latin author:>The city being than which there can be nothing since the founding with respect to the enormity of the decision of Romulus' decision greater than that decision as I might say that I would not dare to declare myself fit with respect to the task of the historian which is as I say before me now that perhaps I should declare to you dear Augustus that there can be no honor more esteemed than that to which by respect of which I am less fit than to incline to dare to having said all that request your grace in acceding to that which is proper to the magnitude with respect of that which having been mentioned is an honor and then Romulus ate some cake
>>23344339Update:For the final I have to poop on the desk and smear it around (or better) to pass the class.
>>23349582Latin is funny>Spanish 1: he drives the car>Spanish 2: she drives her car to workHere's a sentence from late 2nd Semester Wheelock, supposed to be translated into Latin:>That man, who used to be very humble, now so keenly wishes to have wealth that he is willing to lose his two best friends.
>>23348339this obstinate continued misunderstanding of what he's saying is very cringe, anon
>>23349582Kek
>>23349647Ille, qui tunc humilissimus erat, nunc ita acriter divitiis studet ut duos amittere contubernales velit.
>>23349991>humilissimusOops, *humillimus
checked this out for my exam tomorrow. what's the catch? my prof kept rambling about how it used wade-giles and was difficult to search up characters with but this edition uses pinyin and seems quite easy
>>23349647Textbook sentences are always awkward, Greek is no exception>Never will you learn even those small things, wretched man. For it will seem noble (or good) to the citizens not to be persuaded either by money or by blows to say these things.
I'm doing it lads. I'm 2 books deep into Eutropius and I only have to look up 97.7% of everything I read! And it's gone DOWN from 98.1% since book 1!!!!
How to figure out whether the ablative of a 3rd declension Latin noun is -ī or -e?
>>23351240Don't overthink it. -e for nouns, -i for adjectives (except comparatives, which take -e).Some third declension adjectives can take -e in the ablative if they are used substantively, but it is quite rare, and the fact it's not all of them makes it a waste of time to remember.
Is it correct that if one wants to have only single one pronunciation for all Ancient Greek texts from the language's entire lifespan, he should choose the modern pronunciation because reading later pieces with older pronunciations is way more ridiculous than vice versa?
>>23337958You don't read real authors enough, you retard.
>>23348783I'm not suggesting we should have discussions about Esperanto here, I only mentioned it at all because other people started it by posting falsehoods about it, which I won't stand for.
>>23346319>oppidis suis vicisque exustisTogether with proficiscantur, I would rather interpret this in the original meaning of the ablative "depart from their burned cities and villages", no?
>>23351440Arguably.
>>23339881It would be more likely translated as 何物善惡兼?Also 舌哉 not 舌也
>>23351661Interesting, I wasn't familiar with that usage of 兼, and looking through ctext I can't find an instance of it going after the things it refers to like that, why do you think it should be after? And why should it be 哉?
>>23351657mmh, maybe it could have such an interpretation but it depends on whether proficiscor takes the simple ablative, especially since in this case it's not a big city or island, and I think it usually doesn't, even in Caesar himself you can find e.g ab urbe proficiscor
>>23351679fair enoughEven when translating it as an abl. abs., I think an impersonal translation would fit better, e.g. "that they depart ... now that their towns and villages have been destroyed". Translating "after burning down their towns and villages" implies that they do it themselves and that's not really in the text.This way, both syntactical interpretations lead to a rather similar translation in meaning.
>>23351709I mean in the phrase taken isolated you could have the ambiguity of who did it, but I'm pretty sure the consilium that they would follow in this context was precisely to burn down their own stuff just like the Helvetii did, so I basically translated by following the story I remembered from the book
This might be of interest to German anons: Because of the publisher's insolvency the bilingual WBG release of Plato's works is only 40€ (new) now. I remember being happy when I got it for only 80€ last year, kek.
>>23351734Maybe not worth getting if you already own a different release with the Schleiermacher tl though. The quality is rather poor.
>>23351440if you care even a bit about poetry, the reconstructed pronunciation should be your only choice
>>23351440If you care deeply enough about the Greek language to want to read from all periods, you should (and will necessarily) become familiar with multiple pronunciation schemes.
>>23348522Latin will help you learn more languages of much more cultural and real life inpact despite the benefits of culture, entertainment, history just in Latin alone.
https://youtu.be/UiY_kqSliTQ?si=NyTgshLkrip91_zVBest sounding language
>>23352094Seems strange to praise the sound of a language based on how it sounds in an artificial spelling pronunciation that was never anyone's native language.
>>23352105To my understanding there is more ground for it than that, I dont know the massive scientific procedure of it all, it seems that people are pretty confident about its accuracy, but that is my personal way of incorporating obscure scientific research like that
>>23352105Also I am pretty sure that is ecclesiastic anyways so it doesnt even apply because it isnt attempted to be an exact reconstruction of the original sound
>>23351732Ah, makes sense. I was looking at the sentence in isolation only, and your translation adds information that is not in the specific sentence. (I'm not the one who asked the question originally)
>>23352143>>23352161I'm talking about traditional pronunciations (such as Ecclesiastical), not Classical.
>>23352267You may be right in a way, I havent gone looking around for gifted speakers of classical latin, it sounded better from hearing some of the internet lectures, and im sure that is good as well, I will say this to you since I am giving an opinion. This is fine as well from the beautiful words in the spelling
Sanskrit is just algebra for nerds
I've conditioned myself to pronounce ττ in Attic texts as σσ am I going to smitten by a thunderbolt?
>>23352362Yett
>>23352362I pronounce the hidden gamma
>>23351670Coordinate adjectives + verb instead of adverb + coordinate verb哉 because it's an exclamation and smart people answer questions with 哉 not 也
Easy Greek translation challenge>Μοῦσαι καὶ Χάριτες, κοῦραι Διός, αἵ ποτε Κάδμου>ἐς γάμον ἐλθοῦσαι καλὸν ἀείσατ᾽ ἔπος:>‘ὅττι καλόν, φίλον ἐστι, τὸ δ᾽ οὐ καλὸν οὐ φίλον ἐστίν:’>τοῦτ᾽ ἔπος ἀθανάτων ἦλθε διὰ στομάτων.
Low-Intermediate Chinese challenge>自有五白貓,鼠不侵我書。>今朝五白死,祭與飯與魚。>送之於中河,呪爾非爾疎。>昔爾齧一鼠,銜鳴遶庭除。>欲使衆鼠驚,意將清我廬。>一從登舟來,舟中同屋居。>糗糧雖甚薄,免食漏竊餘。>此實爾有勤,有勤勝雞豬。>世人重驅駕,謂不如馬馿。>已矣莫復論,爲爾聊欷歔。
REQUESTING HELP>>>/x/37837205
τὸν δ᾽ Ἑλένη τανύπεπλος ἀμείβετο δῖα γυναικῶν:..."νῦν δ᾽ ἄλλους μὲν πάντας ὁρῶ ἑλίκωπας Ἀχαιούς,οὕς κεν ἐῢ γνοίην καί τ᾽ οὔνομα μυθησαίμην:δοιὼ δ᾽ οὐ δύναμαι ἰδέειν κοσμήτορε λαῶνΚάστορά θ᾽ ἱππόδαμον καὶ πὺξ ἀγαθὸν Πολυδεύκεααὐτοκασιγνήτω, τώ μοι μία γείνατο μήτηρ.ἢ οὐχ ἑσπέσθην Λακεδαίμονος ἐξ ἐρατεινῆς,ἢ δεύρω μὲν ἕποντο νέεσσ᾽ ἔνι ποντοπόροισι,νῦν αὖτ᾽ οὐκ ἐθέλουσι μάχην καταδύμεναι ἀνδρῶναἴσχεα δειδιότες καὶ ὀνείδεα πόλλ᾽ ἅ μοί ἐστιν."ὣς φάτο, τοὺς δ᾽ ἤδη κάτεχεν φυσίζοος αἶαἐν Λακεδαίμονι αὖθι φίλῃ ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ.
It's great to be able to read Greek but I feel this immense gulf between myself and the texts all the same. The greatest things I've gained from Greek are a sense of rhythm for poetry and deeper awareness of that distance.
>>23353069
>>23352348All language is algebraic in its form functions.
Ecclesiastical or Classical or Vulgar Latin?
Once again I am reminding you to read classical philosophical texts from the 17th century for easy peasy Latin After having my bussy ripped open and slept inside like a fentanyl addict's tent by Cicero, I am reading Hobbes' own Latin edition of Leviathan and my bussy is healing
>>23353339Have you tried Sallust?
>>23353287Differences are minimal and only people who know almost nothing of Latin debate that.Once you study a little more, you'll notice the irrelevance of choosing classical or ecclesiastical.
>>23353386I just tried it and got filtered by that too. In fact I also got filtered by the Hobbes and changed my mind. I think I might just be too dumb for Latin.
>>23353287>>23353434Vulgar latin is actually something we can learn and use?
>>23353542no, it's just the name for non literary variants
>>23352814I asked some other people and they disagreed with your correction. I don't know how to say this politely, but I'm really not sure if you're at the level where you should be offering other people corrections in general.
>>23353852Backing this up. There truly is no substitute for years of reading.
>>23352902 Muses and Graces, daughters of Zeus, who once,Going to the beautiful marriage of Cadmus, sang the verse "Whatever is beautiful, is loved, and whatever is not beautiful is not loved"This verse went through the mouths of the undying ones Could someone tell me why it's either "beautiful marriage" or "beautiful verse (song etc.)"? Because it seems like it could be either.
>>23353892It is syntactically ambiguous, but every translation I've found renders it beautiful verse, beautiful words, etc.
>>23353892It is almost certainly καλὸν ἔπος because of the phrase's position relative to the caesura
New to Greek and reading through Thrasymachus. Does Greek use the dative the same way Latin uses the ablative of means?>ὁ Χαρων τῳ πλοιῳ φερει τους νεκρους εισ ἉιδουAm I right in reading this as Charon carries the dead to Hades using the boat?
>>23353948yes, simple dative instrumental
>>23353948Yes, it does. The ablative got partitioned between the genitive and dative (thank fuck, I hate the Latin ablative).
>>23353542You can basically call it ‘Proto-Romance’ if you wish. It definitely existed by all the existence, but wasn’t written, so we don’t know how it exactly sounded or the extent of its influence.
>>23353973Isn't it more like the Latin ablative absorbed the instrumental, while the Greek genitive and dative absorbed the ablative and instrumental respectively?The Greek dative really has no pure ablative functions.
>>23351658For me, the sole strong point of the reconstruction is its phonemic nature, it's quite natural that each letter in the alphabet composed specially for that one exact language is obligated to correspond to one distinct sound of this language without both mergers and allophones but I'm in doubts if this easiness and firmness should be favored over the tradition. >>23351945>poetryThe dumbest meme on this board. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound trying to mimick these long vowels and tonal accent? You don't even know for sure if it wasn't dropped there exactly for the sake of rhythm like in modern rap in the languages with such features. Besides, nobody in academics even actually use these two anyway and nothing else actually affect the poetry. >>23351998>and will necessarilyFor what reason? Not for authenticity for sure, because the modern conventional Attic standard would still be perceived as foreign by the vast majority of the ancients, not speaking about the even more numerous native accents of Koine that was an even bigger mish-mash.
>>23354085ok this is fair
>>23354157 #With Latin, for comparison, the problem of pronunciation is solved much more easily because the language is, at first, way younger with a way shorter literary tradition and, at second, was diverged into a handful of dialects without a recent unification with some dialects even among the major ones being fairly conservative. You can read Latin just the same as Portuguese with only correction of C being always /k/ and perfectly pass for an Imperial Roman - with all these velarized /l/, retracted /s/, fricatives in-between of vowels, and abundant nasalization that were characteristic features of the actual Classical Latin yet are usually omitted in all the Italianate models, both ecclesiastic and academic - as well as for a Medieval monk or a Renaissance scientist altogether.
>reading Psalms with an old Vulgate translation>has variants like "projicit" for "prōicit" making it harder to search>2:6 "Ego autem constitutus sum rex ab eo super Sion, montem sanctum ejus">KJV has "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.">Hebrew also uses 1st person>check the Nova Vulgata>"Ego autem constitui regem meum super Sion, montem sanctum meum."Welp time to switch.
Are there any recordings of Latin poetry that actually sound good?
>>23354339>actually sound goodThe best way that poetry is interpreted is in a song, there is a ton of latin in classical musichttps://youtu.be/dy-9HoZEjMk?si=CsFf77t_V18_F-fM
>>23353952>>23353973Thanks. It's good to have my theories confirmed.Speaking of the dative, I assume the line >μιαρᾳ τῃ φωνῃ λεγειis also using the dative the way latin would use ablative. He speaks with a terrible voice.
Am I reading this right? Commentary has me confused.>What disaster has been suffered by the fault and due to the temerity of his legate, he instructs that it shall be borne with a calm mind, because by the favour of the immortal gods and their own valour, this injury once avenged, neither shall lasting joy be left to the enemy, nor very lasting grief to them.
>>23353948Day IV of learning Greek. I could only understand the names and νεκρους when I read it, but I CAN ACTUALLY READ IT!!! MWAHAHAHAHA!!! THE POWER IS MINE!
>>23354157>Do you realize how ridiculous you sound trying to mimick these long vowelsNo because those are also a feature of my native language. I have to assume you're an anglo and I'm sorry you will never be able to appreciate Greek poetry.
>>23354254>Kjv>HebrewNGMI.
>>23354254There has to be a reason for this disagreement
>>23354339Tyrtarion
>>23354918And what is your language, liar? Chinese? Would you mind to post some rap in your language for us all to hear all these pretty long vowels perfectly matching the rhyme, huh?
>>23355155why do keep talking about rap? read a book on the basics of greek metre
>>23355196Because it's the way poetry has been always recited in any language you shitskin barbarian baboon.
>>23353852Ok mb
I have to keep looking up certain words again and again and again. I've looked up `praestertim' in my Latin dictionary at least 100 times. With other words, however, I can remember them on the first try. I legitimately think I'm brain damaged.
>>23355273>praestertimI can't even spell it. FUCK this word.
>>23353485 just read side by side with a translation and check the translation if you don't know, then go back over the original text and make out what the proper meaning is; this way you maximize input (and therefore the speed of learning the language) and get to actually enjoy reading rather than playing stupid dictionary puzzle games. I do this for all my languages now, I'm never going back
>>23355155>liarwow are long vowels like a mythological concept for you? how is that hard to believe?>grug hold twice length? how for?
>>23355293>and get to actually enjoy reading rather than playing stupid dictionary puzzle gamesHow do you learn the gender and principal parts doing that?
>>23355226>talking about rap>typical racist retardLmao, what is your ludicrous life? Pure comedy.
>>23354562yup>>23354710I think more or less correct, maybe I'd say something less strong than "instructs", maybe "recommends" or "advises"
>>23355310nta but you may have a more fantastical thought than I do if you think that hating rap is disgusting and comedic, I would like to hear about it
>>23355309>genderTo the extent that it is actually useful for understanding, this is acquired through mass-input>principal partsCompletely unnecessary, no Greek, or even a random Thracian who had ever learned Greek as a second language, had ever heard of the concept of a principal part. It is purely an abstraction used to aid understanding and should not become an autistic obsession; there is no point to being able to recite all of them or whatever, you can do all that for 500 verbs and still not be able to read worth jack, or vice versa.Note that I'm saying this after having bothered myself excessively over the damned things in the past. All that is truly useful is knowing the general patterns that form different tenses (like reduplication for perfects, recognizing the θην endings for aorist passives and so on).For Sanskrit it is worth gaming the grammar more precisely because it is far more regular. For Greek this is like driving a sharp piece of wood under your nails.Do note (2) that I'd recommend doing this after having gotten the basic grammar, like having done a textbook or something, but even there don't beat yourself up over it.Just read, read a lot, and reading a lot is mainly done by making sure you enjoy reading a lot, which is done by not using the dictionary every second word or meticulously back-conjugating every irregular aorist.
>>23355320I see, thank you
>>23355503I just realized I used Greek as an example rather than Latin. Oh well. Mutatis mutandis.
>>23352017I disagree with your point about cultural impact, but it's true Latin has birthed more languages for obvious reasons. But if you're most interested in Japanese culture, then just learn Japanese.
>>23351737>>23351734What do you mean by poor quality? The translations or the quality of the books themselves?
>>23355503Do you find this method more fun in Greek than in Latin? Latin is just ridiculous, my goal with Latin at this point is to be able to read 80% comfortably and rely on translation for the rest or for the tough parts.Greek feels way easier.
>>23354157But Greek and Roman poetic meter is entirely based on vowel lengths. It would make no sense for it to be dropped for the sake of rhythm.
>>23354968The Tanakh was written in Hebrew.
>>23355273Try making flash cards, either digital or physical. If digital, just use something like Anki. If physical, the way I do it is just shuffle them, go through the deck putting them in two piles depending on whether I knew them or not, then immediately go back through the "didn't know" pile repeatedly until they're all in the "knew" pile.
>>23355321Most rap is bad because most art in any genre or medium is bad, but the best rap shows an impressive grasp of language and form.
>>23355543Has it? Japonic is also a whole family, it's just that most of them are only spoken on a few small islands.
>>23355884I don't know Latin, but I really doubt Latin is harder, because Greek is ridiculous in comparison to Sanskrit and I've heard others say that Latin is easier, also ("A man can master Latin if he wishes, but he'll only know as much Greek as the good Lord allows" or something).I guess that might well depend on how much fun you're having with it, though.I started applying it for Greek because I was just having very little fun, and I realized this would lead to me dropping it despite all the previous effort because at the end of the day I put all that effort in for fun.Also, I read several articles on how really all that matters for learning languages is exposure and how traditional didactic methods are basically only coincidentally effective (insofar as they guarantee some degree of exposure). The optimal way to go about it, therefore, would be to maximize both fun and quantity of input: fun because it ensures you'll get the input and input because that's the whole language learning process.I know it's a different animal altogether because it's far more similar to my native language, but I applied the same method for German, never even really regarded it as something I was "learning" but just kept reading, and now I can read German mostly without any sort of crutch. I even learned words fully through context rather than translation because I never bothered looking them up. I just kind of read over the gaps wherever possible. I genuinely think that sort of "laziness" actually pays off in this case, because it'll allow you to engage with it without any notion of it being work, so long as you actually enjoy what you're reading, and that'll ipso facto ensure that you're going to be doing it, which means you'll be learning the language.
>>23355974Rap is retarded and keeps niggers down. Imagine if you were a 13% minority in China and instead of just being YOU, some white guy, the Chinese people expected you to act like an overexaggerated caricature of an American southerner and say shit like "now just wait one cotton-pickin' minute, y'all!," and the only whites Chinese people paid any attention to were the ones who oblige them by shouting "YEEE-HAW!" and wearing ten gallon hats and spurs on their boots, so even if you decide not to play that game you will be treated as some kind of invisible anomaly. Imagine the Chinese people performatively celebrated Brave White Voices and bent over backwards to kiss the ass of White Culture, but by White Culture they meant shitty early 2000s country/rock fusion music, and when some of them wanted to look cool they'd claim to like Merle Haggard and Willy Nelson more than Toby Keith. Keep in mind that while they're doing this, you're an Irish guy who has never been to the South or even to the United States. Now imagine a minority of your own 13% minority within China lives its entire fucking life within the cowboy LARP and actually has rootin'-tootin' standoffs and shoot-outs, which are tolerated by the Chinese, and when someone of French heritage in your neighborhood shoots another guy dead with a revolver, the Chinese all say "Don't arrest him!! You don't understand his culture, it was a duel! Big Willy challenged him over a gamblin' debt, and he had to oblige!" meanwhile you're just trying to get a Chinese law degree so you can live a middle class existence. Imagine all the other whites around you are celebrating chewing on pieces of straw and going "well sheeeit, pardner, looks like Big Willy finally met his match!," and listening to Toby Keith and riding around on stupid fucking fat unhealthy horses they lease at exorbitant interest rates from a Chinese breeder, twirling revolvers and saying "Ain't no law man around who can take on Black Billy!" to Chinese beat cops.Fuck rap music, I pray every day for the niggers to be delivered from it. The only thing that actually makes me ashamed to be white is how fucking gay it is that we've imposed this minstrel show on them. We're gay as hell for doing it, they're gay as hell for being duped by it, everyone is gay. I unironically hope Tariq Nasheed convinces niggers that rap is feminine and white people are trying to psychically rape black people by consuming and promoting it, because we basically are.
>>23356027I feel like you're rather narrowly linking it to one particular American subculture- which is a significant part of its origins but not the only place where it lives now. Rap is made all around the world nowadays, you know?
>>23356033Exactly, now I get to see British cowboys descended from Nigerians stabbing eachother and going "Dis is for Slippery Pete, innit!"
>>23356042Not only by African diaspora- it's made from Belfast to Vladivostok and from Nome to Buenos Aires. And the degree of connection to the original cultural milieu it grew out of is decidedly variable.
>>23356002Greek definitely has a lot of front-loaded difficulty. I remember how overwhelming the sheer number of forms and irregularity of all of them once seemed.Beyond that, some anglophones find Greek easier than Latin at intermediate stages and above because of the productivity of roots and presence of articles. Everyone however seems to agree that the large base of shared vocabulary is a big advantage for Latin early on.They are all just classical languages. It's hard to acquire reading fluency in any language, let alone one where almost all possible input comes from difficult authors with a considerable cultural gap. After a few bad weeks, the difficulty of all classical languages is largely the same.
>>23356088>After a few bad weeks,Make this after a bad year for Chinese
>>23351737>>23355872>What do you mean by poor quality? The translations or the quality of the books themselves?Unburying the question hoping the original poster chimes in
>tfw I'll never be a cowpoke in cangzhou Latin authors for this feel?
>>23356341You'd like reddit or Harry Potter
>>23337834>Read Loeb of Caesar>Anytime I'm not sure what a phrase is getting at, I check the translation, read the phrase again with its meaning in mind>move onDoes this help or harm my acquisition? It's extremely helpful sometimes but it feels like too much training wheels.
>>23356760I think as long as you're actually going back and seeing how the logic of the translation applies and makes sense of the passage, you're goodFor certain very complicated sentences this is unreasonable and unnecessary but in general I figure the best approach is to at least make the attempt to reconstruct the original with the knowledge of the translated version in mind.
>>23356760bretty good as long as you do make an attempt to understand it yourself, and then possibly re-read everything, I find the latter also helpful with morale, if you have struggled with some chapter but finally you unlocked it, re-reading it fluently is a morale boost
>>23356760>like too much training wheels.You have to know your place anon. When you are learning you need those training wheels, and there is nothing wrong with that.t. also checks translations
>>23356760I'm hard pressed to think of any circumstance under which input could actually harm your acquisition.To answer your question, yes, this is a solid method, by which people have successfully learned languages in the past.
Completed Nala IV today. One more chapter until Nala I-V done. Not sure whether to release this as a standalone PDF or move on to Hitopadesha first.
>>23357268The alternative is to continue with Nalopakhyanam but I'm bored of Mahabharata style and language by now.
>>23356027>instead of just being YOU, some white guy, the Chinese people expected you to act like an overexaggerated caricature of an American southerner and say shit like "now just wait one cotton-pickin' minute, y'all!," and the only whites Chinese people paid any attention to were the ones who oblige them by shouting "YEEE-HAW!" and wearing ten gallon hats and spurs on their bootsThis is who I was born to be. >the Chinese all say "Don't arrest him!! You don't understand his culture, it was a duel! Big Willy challenged him over a gamblin' debt, and he had to oblige!" MY EXISTENCE HAS BEEN ROBBED.
>Sine amico quidem numquam erit. In sua potestate habet, quam cito reparet. Quomodo si perdiderit Phidias statuam, protinus alteram faciet; sic hic faciendarum amicitiarum artifex substituet alium in locum amissi.>Quaeris, quomodo amicum cito facturus sit; dicam, si illud mihi tecum converterit, ut statim tibi solvam, quod debeo, et quantum ad hanc epistulam, paria faciamus. Hecaton ait: " Ego tibi monstrabo amatorium sine medicamenta, sine herba, sine ullius veneficae carmine: si vis amari, ama."Oh really, Seneca? Making friends is just that easy?
>>23356027This scenario sounds appealing, honestly
>>23355274maybe try to use memory tricks for odd ones such as thatfor instance, remember it as a pricer tim with an image of a man named tim putting a price tag on somethingassuming you meant praesertim
>>23356027this ferum aint big nuf fer du two of us
If anyone wants to take a crack at it, here's the fragmentary Herculaneum account of Plato's death.
Ἀλώπηξ, εἰς οἰκίαν ἐλθοῦσα ὑποκριτοῦ, καὶ ἕκαστα τῶν αὐτοῦ σκευῶν διερευνωμένη, εὗρε καὶ κεφαλὴν μορμολυκείου εὐφυῶς κατεσκευασμένην, ἧν καὶ ἀναλαβοῦσα ταῖς χερσὶν, ἔφη · << Ὦ οἵα κεφαλὴ, καὶ ἐγκέφαλον οὐκ ἔχει. >>Ἐπιμύθιον. Ὁ μῦθος [ προσήκει ] πρὸς ἄνδρας μεγαλοπρεπεῖς μὲν τῷ σώματι, κατὰ δὲ ψυχὴν ἀλογίστους.Vulpes, domum ingressa mīmī, et unasquasque ejus supellectilēs indagata, invenit caput persōnae apte confectum, quod sublātum manibus, dīxit, “o fōrmōsum caput, sed cerebrum non habet.”Perōrātiō. Fabula convenit homines magnifici corpore, āmentēs vērō animā. A fox, having entered the house of a mime, and having examined all of his furniture, found the head of a well made mask, which having been picked up by his hands, said, "o what a beautiful head, but it doesn't have a brain." Conclusion. The story is for people who are impressive in body but stupid in mind.
I just had this weird realization that although Latin and Greek seem more accessible, all the stuff that actually sounds interesting to read is written in Chinese, Pali, or Sanskrit. Learning Latin was very underwhelming and Greek seems a bit overrated since I don't care much about theology or sophistry. I want to read esoteric and mystical texts or at least religious works that weren't edited by Christian monks and cover topics beyond the Semitic worldview. I hear Sanskrit has an insane amount of inflected forms, but it's far more regular than Greek which is reassuring.Has anyone had a similar experience? By that I mean moving on from Latin & Greek to other languages and finding it more rewarding?
>>23357775I mean yeah if you want stuff beyond the western worldview you'll want Indian and Chinese stuff. I'll note though that there are some esoteric (albeit younger) works in Latin, particularly Alchemical texts.
>>23357775also to answer the main question I'm still a baby in Hebrew and I'm really tempted towards Sanskrit (I saw a comparison in Smyth and my interest has only grown), but man sandhi is tricky.
>>23357783Like what? I'm pretty disappointed by Latin literature so far
>>23357846>I'm pretty disappointed by Latin literature so farI never understood why Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit, and even Hebrew were so well maintained into the modern era and yet Latin was seemingly put down like a sick dog in the West over the last few centuries. Now it's pretty clear to me that anything worth reading was burnt or forgotten. I remember reading about one of the only copies of a particular work of Cicero being scribbled over by a Christian monk who wanted to make the millionth copy of Augistine's City of God - a work about how the fall of Rome doesn't matter because the afterlife is more important and this life is a meanings waiting room for heaven. I hate to turn this into a Christcuck rant, but once Christianity declined in the west, it dragged Latin down with it into obscurity. Nobody cares anymore to read theologians arguing about whether or not Jesus defecated nor do we need the trinity re-litigated and explained with more shitty analogies to defend it from accusations of polytheism. It's all so tiresome. I'm not huge into poetry, but I'm going to try to pivot into attempting to read poetry and satire. I can't have wasted all my time for Suetonius' gossip and Caesar's troop movements.
>>23357884I would argue that the decline of Latin is more due to the rise of nationalism.Before modern nationalism most educated men used Latin as the common langauge. Then people started focusing more on using and promoting their own tongue, along with surpressing other dialects in their country (French and Occitan for instance).As for Latin literature from antiquity being un-interesting, I think that would be more due to the fact that the more interesting works were written in Greek.
>>23357884I will also admit that I like Greek writing better than Latin, although Plautus is gut-busting to read.
>>23357940>I would argue that the decline of Latin is more due to the rise of nationalism.I think that explains the decline in original compositions and oral usage of Latin. I'm talking more about the tradition of reading texts. My point was that most of those texts are Christian in an age where that is not exactly what people want to read. This isn't the case in India, East Asia, or in the Muslim world where the religious faiths of those texts are still strong. Latin is so unevenly Christian, there is very little to tackle outside of medieval theology.
>>23357681Congratulations, yours is the first long (to me) post in Greek I've ever read. I struggled and comprehended little, but I enjoyed myself.
>>23357775I started with Japanese and Buddhism like a lot of retards. You're better off with Christianity, and, really, for any student of history that should be obvious.
I know Hebrew, and recently I've been trying to master Aramaic, I've read Daniel (chapters in Aramaic), and now I'm trying to read Targum Onkelos of Genesis, what should be my next step in reading Aramaic texts, preferably they should have Hebrew translations. Should I start with Talmud after I finish Genesis?
>>23356760That's how I also read it. I tend to just read over and over again until I can get a few chapters without having to refer to English. So usually about 3-4 times
>>23358158Why do you want to consume baby foreskins?
If you had to point to the single most interesting book written in Latin that you have read, what would it be? I want to have one specific book in mind as motivation for my studies
>>23358490Horace. Let Nietzsche say it best:>To this day, no other poet has given me the same artistic delight that a Horatian ode gave me from the first. In certain languages that which Horace has achieved could not even be attempted. This mosaic of words, in which every word — as sound, as place, as concept — pours out its strength right and left and over the whole, this minimum in the extent and number of the signs, and the maximum thereby attained in the energy of the signs — all that is Roman and, if you will believe me, noble par excellence. All the rest of poetry becomes, in contrast, something too popular — mere sentimental blather.
>>23358490perhaps harrius potterius is more to your liking
>>23358490Ovid's MetamorphosesHard to choose just one, guess it depends on your inclinations. A legalist will not care much for Ovid but will be thrilled with Cicero.
>>23358046>You're better off with ChristianityWhy do you think so? What's wrong with Japanese Buddhism?
>>23357681>Ὁ μῦθος [ προσήκει ] πρὸς ἄνδρας μεγαλοπρεπεῖς μὲν τῷ σώματι, κατὰ δὲ ψυχὴν ἀλογίστους.What's the role of κατὰ here?
>>23352931tried to make it rhyme but couldnt do the entire thingI have a cat, wubai, so the mice do not disturb my books.This morning wubai died, so fish and rice were sacrificed.I sent him off into the river, praying you wouldn’t forget me.One time you bit a mouse, meowing, carried it in your mouth round out the house.You wanted to frighten the other mice, to clean up my house and make it nice.From the moment you came on that boat, we lived together in that cabin.Although my provisions were very little, not one mouse did them nibble.In truth you were strong, more than the pigs and chickens in the barn.The people of the world like to go fast, they say you’re not as good as a horse or an ass.I already don’t want to write anymore, I’ll cry for you like a beat-up whore.
>>23359227Your grammar is odd.
>>23359505it's a poem and none of the grammar is explictly marked so I did what made sense to me
>>23356027least harmfully schizophrenic post in /clg/
any classical chinese learners around?I found this image in the archives.It says it's helpful to know an Asian language as a starting point.It seems obvious that Mandarin/Cantonese would be usefulbut how would knowing Japanese help with classical chinese, beyond having a feel for kanji?
>>23359514The result is a translation that's neither lyrical nor accurate. I would advise you to be as accurate as possible before trying to embellish.Read 自 as "since" here.>>23359549I made that infographic. Japanese is just as useful for CC as Mando or Canto, assuming a high degree of literacy. The exception is with poetry, which really wants some native sinitic recitation. The root of a lot of CC mistakes in this thread and elsewhere is the assumption that it's the same as any modern Chinese language: it's really not.
>>23359756Is there any classical chinese literature about older women courting younger men? Serious work needs serious motivation
>>23359896I guess you can read about elderly Wu Zetian's boy harem
The best classical language for straight smut is probably Sanskrit
>>23358909nta, the meaning of "regarding to" or "concerning" is one of the possible sense of κατὰ + acc. although the anon here could've probably made it more symmetric with another dative, or more Attic using the accusative of limitation for both(I seem to recall this kind of dative usage reminiscent of Latin being more common for later Koine, at least that's what I recall in the bible)
>>23357775I feel that way, but only for Indo-European since the spread of the Indo-European fascinates me and the phonology and cognates are easier. So things like Sanskrist interest me, but also commonly translated works in their original languages like Archaic Irish, Old Norse, and Old Church Slavonic for other major branches of Indo-European. Latin and Greek obviously still interest me, but the cognates and influence on English are more intuitive and less mysterious to me.
>>23358158Aramaic is very similar to Ancient Hebrew, is it not?
I just had an eureka moment and realised that the principal parts of εὑρίσκω only seem irregular because it loses the inchoactive suffix. -σκω is only kept in the present and imperfect, no matter the verb.Are there other suffixes I can just remove from the stem to derive the principal parts more easily?
>>23358909"in respect to" like ergā in Latin but I just translated it with an ablative of specification so instead of "ergā animam," "in animā.">>23360577I took the greek from Aesop. An aside. I really like the word "μορμολυκεῖον," or mask. A fascinating history. μορμώ means witch or boogeyman and λύκειος means wolf-like. Literally wolf-like boogeyman [mask] and was used in ancient times to scare children. Gellius adds an interesting note that in tragedies the masks of wolves were used. I love these rabbitholes.
>>23360719There is the nasal infix.
>>23360732>"in animā."oops I added an unnecessary "in"
salvētē, quirītēs.Hodie fuit dies bonus.
I was going to start Greek after I had finished Latin but recently Hebrew and Aramaic were added to my must-learn list. Should I drop Greek or I will lose too much? I'm not interested in christcuckery at all for that matter. Latin left me with the feeling I just wasted my time, it didn't help with Romance and there's only a handful of works that aren't about christcuckery or obsolete technical matters and these all are restricted to a very narrow period during which nothing was happening. Greeks looks way more promising than this but Latin looked good at the first sight too. Any advice?
>>23361190Either you are very Jewish or very incongruous. If you don't like Latin on account of religious texts then Hebrew and Aramaic will be nightmares. If I had to place a bet, the longest Aramaic work is probably the Talmud, and Hebrew doesn't have much outside of the Bible or other religious works. Greek has quite the variety of content, and makes for a good springboard into Sanskrit later, especially from Latin.
>>23361215>or very incongruousI thought I'll left brown classical languages like Arabic and Chinese for my elderly just to keep myself out of senility while learn both the European ones during my university years but it turned out I'm very Jewish.>the longest Aramaic work is probably the TalmudIt's Zohar probably, only half of the Talmud is in Aramaic and it's not even holy one so you can read it all in Hebrew if you want to. Though, wasn't it the main language of both Assyria and Persia? Hadn't they left anything of worth?>makes for a good springboard into Sanskrit laterHow so?
>>23341300Does Bertran de Born qualify? The one text I read from him in Bloch's Feudal Society was great.
>Psalm 4:9 (Nova Vulgata)>In pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam,quoniam tu, Domine, singulariter in spe constituisti me.>In pace in idipsumWhat's the second "in' for?
>>23361245NTA but Greek forms resemble Sanskrit forms a good deal, except that Sanskrit forms are highly regular whereas Greek ones are a nightmare of irregularities. Basically, Greek now will make Sanskrit seem easy later.I'm not buying this line of thought. Just study what you want.
>>23356027thank you anon, hilarious post and a bit insightful, too
>>23361190Sanskrit has many times the Greek and Latin output put together, so you could do that.
>>23361664All output is not created equal. When we say correctly that the Sanskrit corpus dwarfs those of Greek and Latin combined or that the Chinese one dwarfs those of the other three combined, we ignore relevance to the given reader. This anon here who's committed to Hebrew and Aramaic, languages with small and smaller corpora respectively, is a perfect illustration of that. This is not a statement about merit of any given text.
>>23361245To be honest, I'm not entirely certain about the Aramaic corpus, but I think most secular works in it are either letters or administrative. I guess it depends on your interests, but I found it weird that you'd be disinterested in Latin which has a variety of pre-Christian works still extant, while still being interested in two languages which have a lot of Jewish literature. Syriac, an Aramaic dialect, has a lot of Christian literature as well. The Greek springboard into Sanskrit has to do with the fact that it's an Indo European language far more closely related to the Indo-Iranian langauges (According to one of my professors it was pretty trivial for a Greek to learn Persian). Even looking at a little Sanskrit morphology, the forms are very similar, and the largest barrier for me has been the fact that I've been too lazy to practice the writing. Of course if you're really interested in Sanskrit then just go straight there. I happen to really like Greek, especially the poetry, and so I am actively shilling it.
>>23361732Of courseI was just responding to the>only a handful of workspart.
>>23359549Not only would you already know kanji, but also a bunch of Sino-Japanese vocabulary. It's the same reason knowing English helps with Latin even though they're from different branches of Indo-European.
>>23360355"Straight" as in "heterosexual" or as in "straight up", "undiluted"?
>>23361190Are you Jewish?
>>23362243Both
>>23361264Works in Occitan do not qualify, but knowing Old French makes it quite effortless to learn Old Occitan.>>23361494I'm also intrigued by this.I couldn't find "idipsum" in the Oxford Latin Dictionary, but some online dictionaries (probably just following Wiktionary) confusingly list it as an adverb. I turned to the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae where it is listed as a synonym of ipse, so "in idipsum" ought to be translated as "into that same" or something along those lines.After digging a bit more and finding this blog post: https://saintpaulsanglicancatholic.net/the-psalms it seems like it's really just unidiomatic Latin stemming from a clumsy translation of the common Greek phrase ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό, meaning together but literally taken as "upon the same".
>>23362238nice. I'm already studying it/moving to japan so I'll spend the next couple years on that before starting a sino language.I assume I should just skip classical japanese on the way, and read modern jp translations if I want to go through the classics of their literary tradition
>>23362967If you're going to read modern Japanese translations you may as well just read English translations. All translations are interpretations by the translator, and not the original. (I'll also note that the Japanese way of reading Classical Chinese involves glossing it in (a specific semi-artificial register of) Classical Japanese.)
>>23362967NTA but no, you should learn classical Japanese if Japanese culture and society and classical languages in general interest you. Decent editions of classical JP texts are readily available for cheap. Kambun also makes the two classical languages fairly complementary.
>>23361215It would be the other way around: Aramaic is classical and Hebrew is medieval.But really, the only classical languages I would fool with are Latin and Greek. Almost nothing is actually preserved in Aramaic, unless you happen to think the DSS are not forgeries.
>>23363064>this troll againDon't you have anything better to do?
>>23363087What are you talking about?
>>23357884I can't speak so much for Sanskrit and Chinese, but much of Hebrew and Arabic classical literature is religious in nature. The reason why a scribe erased and copied over Cicero is that City of God was more valuable to him or his boss. The reason things survive is because people valued them enough to copy them. The reason things don't survive is not because they were burned or written over, but they simply weren't copied enough.
>>23358158Excellent work. I recommend you to read Ezra. Then, you should read more from Palestinian targums. I find JPA to be closer to BA than JBA. You could try reading Aramaic in the Dead Sea Scrolls. You could also browse CAL to find texts to read. LikeI said earlier, JPA is closer to BA, so if you choose to read the Talmud, choose something from the Palestinian Talmud.
>>23362773Thanks for the explanation.
I'm in a facebook group for LLPSI and a member decided to remake chapter 3 of FR because he thought that some people would be uncomfortable by the depiction of family members hitting each otherSad!
>>23363514>I recommend you to read Ezra.The first language Ezra was written in was Attic Koine.
making new now because I'll be busy for a while otherwiseNOVVM>>23363760>>23363760>>23363760
>>23363766pretty early for a new thread
>>23363759This is schizophrenic nonsense.
>>23364732Normal people call that the historical record.
>>23360706It's not very similar, it is impossible to understand most sentences without learning the other language, but knowing Hebrew (and in my case other semitic languages) helps a lot.
>>23363514Thanks. I will try to read Ezra next. And then I will try to read some stories from Palestinian Talmud, iI've tried to read Talmud Bavli before, but I had to use Hebrew translation in order to understand anything. Do you know Syriac? Is it similar to BA? Could it be compared to the difference between BH and Mishnaic Hebrew?
