Dead languages

Have you actually ever studied one? If so, which one and why?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=pryhOBhkRNI&
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

I studied Attic and Homeric Greek at university for about a year.

It was fun. Great language, but very difficult. I'm surprised at how much I still understand too.

Phoenician so I could capture the linguistic essence of the proto-merchant Jew.

Studying Latin so I can teach at a Catholic high school.

How does it feel to brainwash kids?

I studied Latin for two years in high school because I needed two credits of a foreign language (American here) and it was the only language offered at my weird school. If they only had the resources for one foreign language, why wasn't it Spanish, maybe French, or even Mandarin? Who knows. They chose Latin.

Eventually ended up studying French in college, so the Latin came in handy.

Because they understand those other languages only have temporary importance, while Latin's will last much longer.

My college in the middle of nowhere Maine only offered Farsi every other semester, that was really odd.

I live in Canada, where French is mandatory and other languages are distant second voluntary options that many schools don't even offer. I've heard of occasionally Spanish, Italian, German or Mandarin on offer but don't know anyone who has actually done them...

We had Latin by chance, so I took two semesters of it. Was fun and not too hard (yet -- just beginner stuff, translating vocabulary without too much worrying about grammar intricacies). The classes were almost cancelled due to low enrolment, and the teacher was literally alcoholic. Often quite nice, but could flip into total apoplectic rage fits over the smallest things. Other teachers hated her. I was a bookish boy and did OK, but she WOULD NOT TOLERATE idiot, yikes. Anyway, eventually only me and two other guys signed up for Latin so it was cancelled and that was the end of it.

They had a Farsi speaker on staff, so made the most of it.

Id kill for a Farsi class

It's a really cool language. Only thing that sucks is the script. Arabic script is totally not built for the language. There are multiple letters for s and z and shit like that. Also they don't write their vowels which is a pain for any Indo-European language.

>They also don't write their vowels
Explain.

I've been studying Latin for 3 years, and I'm going onto my fourth next year. I love it. It's the language of my church and my ancestors.

>Because they understand those other languages only have temporary importance, while Latin's will last much longer.
alright Marcus

>Because they understand those other languages only have temporary importance, while Latin's will last much longer.

No, that's not why. It's because they respect the Western tradition and the humanities.

You can tell really easily by looking at the curriculum of high schools and colleges which of them have been saturated by self-hating poststructualist propaganda, because they stop giving lectures in the Western Canon.

Latin is a good base language to teach if you don't have the resources to to teach other languages. My brother and I were taught Latin in high school and we both went on to become fluent in Spanish and myself am literate in Portuguese. Brother eventually got his certification to teach Spanish, but not before taking a detour into other languages like Greek and Hebrew.

Thought about studying French but I don't think it is worth it

Well, drat, I was hoping to hear someone here maybe studied ancient Egyptian, because I've got a mild curiosity about it (dated an Egyptian girl who made me interested in her country's ancient past), as I'd have liked to ask what was some good literature for it.

I'm studying German which is soon to be extinct. In 20 years I'll be a regular Indiana Jones.

This
My dad speaks Dari (Afghan Persian dialect) and I really want to learn it but A) not from him and B) not with that shitty Ar*b script

Arabic scripts don't use vowels. They just write the consonants. It makes sense in semetic languages because they are not as vowel dependent. But sucks for Indo-European, it's why Greeks added their vowels when they took on the Phoenician alphabet.

At least learn it spoken. I really enjoyed that. I just hated writing it.

Learn Coptic to get an idea. It's obviously changed but it's a good foot in the door.

With many dead languages it's hard, we don't actually know how they were spoken or if we pronounce them right at all, especially ancient egyptian (no vowels were written)

>dated an Egyptian girl
Was she black?

>With many dead languages it's hard, we don't actually know how they were spoken or if we pronounce them right at all, especially ancient egyptian (no vowels were written)

Yeah, I realized that as much with just some basic searches online.

Nah. When she stayed out of the sun, she could go really pale, but when often in the sun, she was more olive toned. Really, when I first met her I had no idea she was Egyptian, she looked more like Greek to me.

Middle Egyptian is pretty cool.

youtube.com/watch?v=pryhOBhkRNI&

You can really hear the Afroasiatic language tree in there.

I'm studying to become a botanist and because they use Latin for scientific names I thought it'd be fun to learn the language. So I'm going through Wheelock's Latin, a video game on Steam called Influent, Anki, etc. [spoiler]not a dead language but I want to learn Chinese[/spoiler]

>ancestors
Depending on where you come from, it's unlikely the bastard modern pronunciation - especially Church Latin - sounded anything like what they may have spoken.
Unless you're the illegitimate descendant of some priest and his housekeeper.

Learn Classical Chinese then. There's a free PDF online, Classical Chinese for Everyone, get that and see how you go.

You're referring to Vulgar Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin. Same language. Only difference is lexical and pronunciation.

You also seem to forget that various other countries have their own distinct forms of pronunciation, England, for instance. But perhaps you claim to be of Roman stock. Another matter entirely.

I would but I'm focusing on Swedish now, I don't give a fuck about Sweden but I'm really fascinated with their military history

>Because they understand those other languages only have temporary importance, while Latin's will last much longer.
Ah yes, I'm sure I will live to see those other languages die in a couple hundred years.

It's called an Abjad.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad

They don't have to die to be relatively pointless. German and French have diminished in importance considerably in a just a few decades. Current languages are too dependent on the political situation.

I'm learning Classical Latin and the course is focused heavily on translating the works of Cicero, Terrence and Virgil, among others. I'm descended from the French, Portuguese and Italians, all of which were part of the Roman Empire at one point.

So you know it's pronounced Kikero?

Is it easier to learn Classical Latin as a Romance Language native speaker (Spanish)?

Yes, Latin has more complexities as Ana archaic language, but vocabulary and some grammatical concepts will be closer than they would be for somebody with a Germanic background.

kill yourself.

*tips*

Never really learned it, but I know a decent amount about PIE. If I had the drive, I'd probably actually learn it for shits and giggles.

Nobody knows PIE, It's completely reconstructed and we can only really learn things about it, not the language itself. I think I read somewhere that even though PIE is the most studied proto-language, we still can't confidently write out a full sentence in it.

I studied Latin for four years in high school. I like languages and it was an opportunity for more credit.