Ancient Greek!?!?

[Atenmeses52]

Παιδεύομαι γλῶτταν ἑλληνίκην νῦν, καί βούλομαι λέγειν σύν τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀνθρώποις. Ἐγώ καί πολύ καλῶς νομίζω αὔτον γράφειν 0 Α.Δ. ἐν γλώτταις ἑλληνίκῃ τε καί ῥομαίᾳ.

I am currently learning Ancient Greek, and I wanted to see if anyone would like to practice it. I find writing and translating English->Greek to be the best way to keep it up. Also, it might be cool if someone translated 0 A.D. into Ancient Greek and Latin at some point!

[TheMista]

I am greek.

[idanwin]

Do you have to learn ancient Greek in Greece? It's just a question I've asked myself before, back when I had Greek in school.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I am currently learning the language in North America, so no.

[TheMista]

Yeah we do Ancient greek + Ancient greek literature for 6 years . (grammar etc.)

[historic_bruno]

Cool! I, for one, am thankful we didn't have to learn Old or even Middle English in school Unless a modern translation of Beowulf counts.

[Pureon]

Cool! I, for one, am thankful we didn't have to learn Old or even Middle English in school Unless a modern translation of Beowulf counts.

Doesn't reading Shakespeare count as learning Old English?

[TheMista]

We are reading Aristotelis Sofoklis Pericles etc dated 1100-0 bc

[Almin]

Doesn't reading Shakespeare count as learning Old English?

I'm also a little bit surprised. (I just wrote my english exam for my A-levels here in Germany and we also read Shakespeare)

My mum did learn Ancient Greek the time she went to school.

[zoot]

I'm also a little bit surprised. (I just wrote my english exam for my A-levels here in Germany and we also read Shakespeare)

Did the words look like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beowulf.firstpage.jpeg

[Atenmeses52]

Doesn't reading Shakespeare count as learning Old English?

Shakespeare is actually modern English-- This is Old English: Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,

þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,

hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, 5 monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,

egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð

feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,

weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,

oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra (From the Original Introduction to Beowulf)

[idanwin]

Doesn't reading Shakespeare count as learning Old English?

You're lucky*, in Belgium I've had to learn Dutch, French and English .... and read Middle Dutch, Middle English and langue d'oil (predecessor of French) ...

I've also taken Latin and German, but those are not obligatory.

*I like learning languages, so I didn't really mind ... except for the examinations maybe

[historic_bruno]

Shakespeare is actually modern English

Correct, while perhaps the best known and most entertaining example of Middle English would be Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this is how the prologue begins:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye,

That slepen al the night with open yë,

(So priketh hem nature in hir corages):

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

which is almost readable when transcribed that way, though if we were looking at the old manuscript, it would seem like, well... ancient Greek to most of us

I am actually fascinated by languages, but never seem to find time (or energy) to study them. And anyway when I can read works like Íslendingasögur or Kalevala in my native language, there's no need to become proficient in Old Norse or Finnish, of course the end result is only as good as the translator

You're lucky*, in Belgium I've had to learn Dutch, French and English .... and read Middle Dutch, Middle English and langue d'oil (predecessor of French) ...

I've also taken Latin and German, but those are not obligatory.

If I may ask, why would a Belgian need to learn Middle English? Is that university level or primary school

[idanwin]

We don't have to learn Middle English, but in decent secondary schools you're expected to read some of the grand literature and write essays about it. It comes as no surprise that Belgium (Flanders in particular, the French-speaking people are less motivated to learn other languages because French is a world language anyway ... and - unfortunately - some Flemish people feel sooo proud of their language and history that they refuse to speak other languages and would like to ban speaking foreign languages in public because it makes them feel threatened) has some really good translators. When you go to university you should be trilingual, but a lot of people still struggle with their third language, and people who choose practical courses end up speaking other languages less fluently as well. I studied Latin-Mathematics at school, which meant that I had a lot of cultural education, and this included English, French and Dutch literature (as well as Latin of course, and some Greek, but that was generally translated for us). Unlike most other countries, a Belgian diploma does not require you to do 'A-levels' or anything similar, rather you have to take examinations in every course taken (which in my case resulted in 13 examinations, bad luck xD ) I've often wished we could specialize here as well, but then again it is probably a good thing we get such a broad spectrum of knowledge before going to University. Unfortunately getting into a British university is really hard because of the requirements (getting really high average scores when you hate half of your subjects is not easy).

In Science subjects at university some courses are even given in English.

[Pedro Falcão]

Wow...

Around we only have to study (some) the Brazilian and Portuguese (a micro part of it, mainly Luiz Vaz de Camões) literature, and since the oldest document in Portuguese is younger than my country (which is 513 years old, and the documents are in Gaelic-Portuguese, not purely Portuguese), in most cases there are only some different/unused words.

I read Shakespeare, but it was out of curiosity and it was with the comfort of it being in my own language.

People here also generally don't bother learning other languages. A superficial understanding of Spanish is being teached, nowadays, because of the Mercosur agreements, a superficial English is teached (but 50-60% of what i learned was due to my own interest in understanding what the characters were saying in the games i used to play)...

State Colleges here are free, but you have to compete (generally through a national test once a year) for your place in there. There are professors from many nationalities, of course, but i don't know of any classes in another language besides Portuguese and English (And English only for foreign teachers who don't speak Portuguese).

Edited January 15, 2013 by Pedro Falcão

[Almin]

Did the words look like this: http://en.wikipedia.....firstpage.jpeg

Wow...now that's somewhat interesting and fascinating! It's sad not to have been confronted with the english language like that in school. To be honest, I somehow really thought Shakesbeare would be "old". lol

[Atenmeses52]

Correct, while perhaps the best known and most entertaining example of Middle English would be Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this is how the prologue begins:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye,

That slepen al the night with open yë,

(So priketh hem nature in hir corages):

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

Hah! I had to memorize that for my English Class! XD

Also, Is anyone interested in trying to learn Farsi? I've always wanted to...

Edited January 15, 2013 by Atenmeses52

[idanwin]

Wow...

Around we only have to study (some) the Brazilian and Portuguese (a micro part of it, mainly Luiz Vaz de Camões) literature, and since the oldest document in Portuguese is younger than my country (which is 513 years old, and the documents are in Gaelic-Portuguese, not purely Portuguese), in most cases there are only some different/unused words.

I read Shakespeare, but it was out of curiosity and it was with the comfort of it being in my own language.

People here also generally don't bother learning other languages. A superficial understanding of Spanish is being teached, nowadays, because of the Mercosur agreements, a superficial English is teached (but 50-60% of what i learned was due to my own interest in understanding what the characters were saying in the games i used to play)...

State Colleges here are free, but you have to compete (generally through a national test once a year) for your place in there. There are professors from many nationalities, of course, but i don't know of any classes in another language besides Portuguese and English (And English only for foreign teachers who don't speak Portuguese).

Dutch is a really small language, and we love seeing English movies ... in English. Ask any Flemish people, they'll you they don't like dubs, this is for most part because movies that have been dubbed in Dutch are dubbed in Dutch from the Netherlands (which is to Flemish like American is to British). Most Flemish people dislike the Dutch spoking by our northern neighbours. Internet is mostly English for us as well. The English wikipedia is often used instead of the Dutch one. All games are in English. There is no escaping it. Everyone here tends to know English ... and most like it. Many words have found their way into our language: "Cool", "Chill", "Hot", "Rocks", "Hi", "See You" ... and when it comes to technology: "Computer", "Stereo" ... okay, most languages take these from English ... but in Dutch we pronounce them exactly the same (or at least try to). Saying "I love you" has become more popular than "Ik hou van jou". When giving a lecture, using some English phrases makes it sound 'more professional' (there has been research on this).

I read Shakespeare in my first grade (1st and 2nd year of secondary/highschool) for fun. Normally you have to learn it in 3rd grade (5th and 6th).

Dutch doesn't have a very long history of literature (but it does have really great literature) because it was mostly a spoken language. At first Latin was the elite language, so any decent writer wrote in Latin and then French took over. French stayed the elite language until the 20th century ... after ww2 ... luckily we had some really (nationalist) writers would wrote for 'het volk' and not just for the well placed people who spoke french. Unfortunately they wrote all of their great works in Dutch, so they never got a wide public. There are no Flemish writers who don't need a half-time job, it's sad.

Anyway I learned English before I went to school, by reading Antony Horrowitz and Terry Pratchett and learned French thanks to a language immersion of three years in a French college. I've never had problems to get high scores in languages because I'm quite fluent in all of them. Most people here have more trouble than me.

@Bruno: That was actually fun to read. When it didn't sound like English ... it sounded like Dutch to me xD (Yonge Sonne = jonge zon, the droghte of Marche = de droogte van Maart, so priketh hem nature = zo prikt natuur hem)

@Atenmeses: What is Farsi?

@Zoot: I love Beowulf!

[Loki1950]

Farsi is the proper name for the Persian language.

Enjoy the Choice

[Atenmeses52]

Farsi is the proper name for the Persian language.

Enjoy the Choice

Do you speak Farsi?

[Loki1950]

No but I have had several Farsi speakers work for me over the years so I recognize it's cadences if not the words.

Enjoy the Choice

[dvangennip]

I think the situation idanwin describes for Belgium is the same for the Netherlands. Nearly all young people have to learn Dutch, English, and German and/or French (higher levels of education require both German and French, although not at a very high level). This is for historical reasons: most money is made trading with Germany I've had English literature classes in secondary school, including the Canterbury tales and some World War I poetry. I think we spent more time on it than we did on contemporary literature. Latin and ancient Greek are optional, I did those for four years (but forgot most of it by now).

As idanwin explains, not knowing English in smaller countries is really an issue. Not just because half the internet is written in English, but many products and manuals tend to be as well, not to mention advertising. Apparently products advertised in English are considered more sophisticated, with one exception: washing powder commercials must be dubbed, preferably badly out-of-sync Even job titles like operations manager, account manager, or process operator are kept in English. It turns out people may feel better about their jobs and are more willing to accept these jobs, even if you'd pay slightly less

Edited January 16, 2013 by dvangennip

[Atenmeses52]

I wish education in America was more heavy on languages-- I find that I have to learn them on my own if I want to learn languages other than French and Spanish very well. (I do tend to enjoy learning less "mainstream" languages though, and that may not be the case for many Americans...)

[Pedro Falcão]

I plan to spend some time studying in Dresden (Germany), so i'm learning German (currently by my own, but i'll take a course when i finish my English course, this year). I'm fascinated by all these Central/Northern European languages (i even hope to someday learn Magyar(Hungarian)).

[sanderd17]

You're lucky*, in Belgium I've had to learn Dutch, French and English .... and read Middle Dutch, Middle English and langue d'oil (predecessor of French) ...

I've also taken Latin and German, but those are not obligatory.

*I like learning languages, so I didn't really mind ... except for the examinations maybe

Yeah, middle Dutch,

Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic anda thu uuat unbidan uue nu

Btw, almost all the middle Dutch comes from the region of West Flanders now. Go figure. They hardly call it Dutch these days.

We didn't need to learn a lot of middle English or Middle French though.

Btw, it's impossible to learn ancient Belgian, as there are no written sources. It must have been something Celtic, or Germanic (depending on the tribe), but nobody knows.

Oh, and languages were a nightmare for me. Week after week getting extra lessons of French, only getting 50% on my theoretical exams, but luckily, my practical exams, especially talking and listening made sure I never failed in the end.