Living Languages

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Keesa
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Post by Keesa »

Well, I can't join in the discussion on how Hebrew sounds when spoken, because I've never heard it spoken. :oops: However, I do plan to take it at college in a couple of years (they don't offer it to first-year students-- :roll: ), so I've been following this discussion with fascination.

"and it also has a system of numbers that uses the alphabet, and that makes each word have a numeral value. in comparing values of words one can reach things that are sometimes astonishing - the name of god equals double of the value of the word for love, and things are endless to start describing here."

Wow! I knew a little bit about the relation between the alphabet and the numbering system, but I had no clue about the rest-the way different words had different "values" so to speak. That's neat!

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

And how many other languages are you planning to take, Keesa?
No offence but I doubt very much that you do all, or even a small fraction, of the languages that you plan to study. That's to say you'll never become strong in so many languages.

Language for me is like sounds, and the sound of Hebrew is disgusting to me. Also the alphabet is not very nice to put it nicely. I can only state my opinion based on the sounds and alphabet as I neither know nor desire to know Hebrew poetry. Sorry not many here like Hebrew :?

Keesa
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Post by Keesa »

Episcopus wrote:And how many other languages are you planning to take, Keesa?
No offence but I doubt very much that you do all, or even a small fraction, of the languages that you plan to study. That's to say you'll never become strong in so many languages.
As many languages as I can take. :D I absolutely love playing around with words and sentences and grammar. As long as there are languages that interest me, I'll be aspiring to learn them.

And no offence is taken. There's a chance that you're right, and I'll never excell in all my language studies. (Although, I am an overachiever.) Even so, though, I'll get farther by trying than I will if I never tried at all. I haven't set any time limits on my studies, so I'm not rushing anything. Given the rest of my life, there's a good chance that I'll at least become fluent in most, if not all, of the languages I pursue. And if nothing else, I'm having fun and expanding my mind while learning them.

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klewlis
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Post by klewlis »

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that applies to languages as well.

I have learned a bit of hebrew and it is, aesthetically, a beautiful language (and Keesa, surely you have seen Prince of Egypt, no? If so, you have heard hebrew spoken and sung).

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

For some random reason I would like to take out Aramaic although I know not even her look.
Plus it sounds strikingly like my name.

Keesa I did not mean to be nasty at all - the same thing will happen to me also. I suppose there are always insecurities and doubts before that a time consuming task be done.

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Post by Kalailan »

episcopus - sorry to dissapoint you, but hebrew and armaic are very much alike!
aramaic was the language the jews spoke in babylon, and the babylonian Talmud is written in it. many sentences from aramaic are used in hebrew.

here is one that is not very commonly used, but i like it anyway:

Lechakima birmiza - uleshatia bekurmiza.

it means "for the wise by hint - and for the stupid by punch".

i would like to learn sanskrit. after acomplishing that and latin, i would know the three "holy" (in the eyes of their speakers and worshippers) languages!

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Post by Keesa »

klewlis wrote: (and Keesa, surely you have seen Prince of Egypt, no? If so, you have heard hebrew spoken and sung).
Hehe. Nope. Never. I don't watch many movies...too much other stuff to do, I guess.

And don't worry about it, Episcopus. I wasn't offended in the least. I ask myself the same question-can I really do all this and become good at it?-at least a dozen times a week. And I look at Leonardo da Vinci, who did a little of everything that interested him, and at C. S. Lewis and David Farragut, and I think yes, I probably can, if I'm dilligent.

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

Yes I knew that the Talmud was originally aramaic - I had to study Judaism for a whole year last year! But I hoped that it would not be like Hebrew!

Anyway I may indeed try just to be incredibly contradictory!! :twisted:

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

Kal - which Aramaic was used by Jesus? Biblical or classical? Did Aramaic have her own alphabet? For one book that I intended to buy (Biblical) uses Hebrew script :cry:

I am sure that I have seen a nice alphabet of aramaic...

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Post by Episcopus »

That's to say, I know originally the script of Hebrew to be Aramaic, but I recall a much nicer looking script, with a letter that looks like a "F".

Can you tell me any differences?

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klewlis
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Post by klewlis »

I think that Aramaic and Hebrew are more or less dialects of the same language. As far as I know, they used the same alphabet and many of the same words. Parts of the Old Testament are written in Aramaic, and it would have been commonly spoken by all Jews, at least in the time of Jesus (and I think prior to that as well). I believe they spoke Hebrew in the temple, Aramaic at home, and Greek for trade.

So if you are looking for big differences between Aramaic and Hebrew, I think you're looking in vain ;)

Kalailan
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Post by Kalailan »

Here are a few of aramaic sites i found

members.aol.com/assyrianme/aramaic/aramaic.html

cal1.cn.huc.edu/aramaic_language.html

www.assyrianlanguage.com

and just type 'aramaic' in google...

Clemens
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Post by Clemens »

i would like to learn sanskrit. after acomplishing that and latin, i would know the three "holy" (in the eyes of their speakers and worshippers) languages!
You forget Greek, for it is the language of the new testament it is considered to be holy too...:)

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

Oh my...this topic has gone off itself. Thanks people I've decided against it as it's closely related to Hebrew.

On topic someone!

Keesa
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Post by Keesa »

What was the topic? :wink:

Oh! I remember...we were discussion places on the web that were like Textkit, but for living languages. (I knew there was a reason this thread was called Living Languages, other than the fact that we were discussing any of them that happened to pop into our heads.)

I have never found a place like Textkit, although I have found some sites that have language lessons on them, sometimes for free. (The Gaelic lessons I'm using are an example.) They're only lessons, however, and they don't have all the books you can download and forums where you can discuss things and tutorials and all that good stuff.

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

You can learn scottish Gaelic or Welsh through the extremely simple Hugo In Three Months simplified language courses. Make sure you obtain the new looking ones as they are the easiest to understand.

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1%homeless
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I got my unused German grammar for about $20

Post by 1%homeless »

Thanks, but I have several French grammars. (Thank you, outlet book stores!) I was looking for a good German grammar that doesn't cost $40 for a paperback, and haven't been able to find any in PDF form on the web.
http://www.alldirect.com/book.asp?isbn= ... 0935030513

If you live in the US, this place has slightly better prices than amazon. Before, you only had to order 50 bucks worth of stuff to get free shipping. Now it's a hundred. Sheesh.

Hammer's German grammar is the best one that I could find for less than 50 bucks. Although, he doesn't chart out german inflexions too well. I like "Master the basics, German" for better inflexion charts.

mingshey
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Post by mingshey »

Welcome, Homeless!
(I'm homepageless on the web myself :))

And for the topic:

Many living languages that sells have their institutions and copyrighted materials that're mass produced and relatively cheap. Who would feel the need to open a web site to hand out free materials?

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Lex
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Post by Lex »

mingshey wrote:Welcome, Homeless!
Many living languages that sells have their institutions and copyrighted materials that're mass produced and relatively cheap. Who would feel the need to open a web site to hand out free materials?
Who would feel the need to do so for Greek and Latin?

(Fortunately for us, somebody does! :D )
I, Lex Llama, super genius, will one day rule this planet! And then you'll rue the day you messed with me, you damned dirty apes!

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Lex
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Post by Lex »

Oh, BTW, I found this recently. It's not TextKit for German, but it does have PDF and MPEG files online, for free.
I, Lex Llama, super genius, will one day rule this planet! And then you'll rue the day you messed with me, you damned dirty apes!

mingshey
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Post by mingshey »

*applause*
Long live the Persistence!

Clemens
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Post by Clemens »

...looks quite nice...

btw, if you have a question considering German just ask me...:)

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

Sweet! Methinks, I should follow that course instead of sitting there in school being bored! German is dodgy language. Tricksy.

Ausgezeichnet!

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