Introducing Myself

[Altair]

Greetings to all,
Like many on this board, I have a strong passion for language learning, with a small bent towards classical languages because of my interest in language change, etymology, and ancient history. My classical languages don't seem to overlap the interests of the contributors to this Board, however, except for my short renewed and recent interest in Sahidic Coptic.

I also like to read books on linguistics that are not too technical and recall one with special fondness: How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. It has significant sections from Greek, Latin, and other classical languages I have studied and goes into some depth about aspects of poetics and style that have come down from proto-Indo-European as seen in the works of Homer, Pindar, Vedic priests, medieval Celtic bards, and others, even showing up in one or two English nursery rhymes in certain cases. It was quite fascinating to see that certain literary devices and even specific phrasing have had such a long life and show such commonality across what I thought were quite different languages and cultures.

I study languages by riding waves of my current interests and following their currents. I have tackled Greek and Latin four or five times in the past, usually getting to a higher level each time and then slowly forgetting most of them as my interests have led to other languages.

Recently, my interest in Greek started to peak again as I was dabbling in New Testament Greek to help my study of Coptic. This led to more Greek (some grammar books and a little Homer) and on to some Latin through Woodcock's New Latin Syntax.

I've decided it's time to ride the wave further and maybe move from being a lurker on this Board to a more active participant.

Within Greek and Latin my main interests are: phonology, Indo-European etymology, discourse aspects of word order and syntax, semantics, and a little bit of poetry.

[bedwere]

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