Ancient languages and philology thread

[Anonymous No.13961845]

Let's have a philology thread - are any anons here studying ancient languages? What are your interests/specializations? What is your favourite text?

I'm myself going to be starting my study of Akkadian next semester, and Sumerian the semester after that, but this thread is for anybody studying or just fascinated/interested in ancient languages.

btw, oldest found joke/piece of humor from Sumer, ca. 1900 BC:
>Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap

Image is the Sumerian creation myth/flood story, from around 1750 BC.

[Anonymous No.13961853]

>>13961845
The fact that Sumerians are almost never taught in Schools is proof modern education is an absolute joke.

[Anonymous No.13961874]

Starting ancient greek again once my old book comes in (moved places and need it sent over).
Not really directed study, but I pick up a bit of old Japanese every once in awhile. Just bought a copy of 百人一首 today, with modern commentary.

[Anonymous No.13961886]

>>13961853
They have never been taught in schools - the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians have dominated that landscape.

[Anonymous No.13961894]

>>13961853
What do you mean by 'schools'? The classics department at my school had classes on the Sumerians and other near-east ancient civilizations. I had to do a big unit on their law codes for my Ancient Greek law class, before we even got to the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.13962165]

>>13961894
I think he's referring to institutions of 'lower education', like public schools.

[Anonymous No.13962575]

Can anybody here read Plato fluently?

[Anonymous No.13963019]

what do the inscriptions on the old dinosaur turd say?
why do they never have a sense of margins etc, is it because portions of it have disappeared?

[Anonymous No.13963411]

>>13963019
probably

[Anonymous No.13963940]

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[Anonymous No.13963976]

>>13961853
What do you mean? im pretty sure every school goes over them in history class by middle school. Usually lumped with the rest of Mesopotamians yah,(unless you are doing a more specialized course) but they are almost always there. Of course more time is spent on the Mediterranean powers due to there more direct influence.

[Anonymous No.13964163]

>>13963019
Many preserved clay tablets are only accidentally preserved. When clay is fired it becomes brittle but basically indestructible as long as you don't mind having it in fragments. But most clay used for writing tablets wasn't fired, it was designed to be re-used (similar to how the Romans later used the cera, or wax tablet) for short-term purposes like account keeping. So pretty often we don't have great literature, but whatever the fuck was written on a warehouse full of mundane tax receipts when it burned down.

[Anonymous No.13964172]

>>13964163
>So pretty often we don't have great literature
relative to the whole corpus, yes, but mesopotamian literature is left to us in abundance (if you already agree, sorry for this post)

[Anonymous No.13964504]

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[Anonymous No.13965138]

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[Anonymous No.13966220]

Been studying sanskrit for two years now. I can read the bhagavad gita

[Anonymous No.13967058]

>>13966220
Very cool, anon. How is the study? Is it at a University?

[Anonymous No.13967583]

[Anonymous No.13967808]

>>13961845
Started studying Akkadian this semester. Very normally semitic. Just trying to familiarize myself with some more languages in the semitic language family. Also doing work on modern Aramaic

[Anonymous No.13968532]

>>13967808
What is your primary study?

[Anonymous No.13968574]

>>13968532
I’m a double major in Math and Linguistics

[Anonymous No.13969175]

>>13961845
I hope these threads keep going.
I am taking ancient greek and the verbs and participles are still tripping me up. Anyone got any tips for addressing this problem?

[Anonymous No.13969239]

>>13969175
>ancient greek
Very nice, anon. I suspect a lot of philologists on /lit/ are taking classical Greek or Latin, so people should be able to help you.

Any favourite texts yet?

[Anonymous No.13969306]

>>13967808
Been studying akkadian on my own for some time now.
>>13967808
any tips on correctly drawing cuneiform signs? My written signs aren't very legible some times. Also, are you using huenegard's manual in class(if it's von soden's; how does one learn the language with it(if that's at all possible)?)? I find it pretty great(even though his cursive signs aren't the most legible some times).

[Anonymous No.13969310]

>>13969306
*Huehnergard

[Anonymous No.13969326]

>>13968574
you should check out morris kline's history of math

also if you ever go for a phd consider his/phil of math. it's a small niche but with your linguistics background and interest in near eastern languages you might find interesting opportunities if you keep an eye out

[Anonymous No.13969330]

>>13962575

Start with Socrates otherwise you'll have no clue what Plato is about

[Anonymous No.13969356]

>>13969306
I’ve been using Huehnergard. I’m not taking a class in Akkadian so Ive been going through myself. I do research with a professor who specializes in semitic languages, and he wanted me to familiarize myself with an older member of the family.

[Anonymous No.13969365]

>>13969326
I’m actually in a history of math class right now. I haven’t been paying much attention since I prefer to read in class. Though studying for the quizzes is quite fun.

[Anonymous No.13969372]

>>13961853
>>13961886
Wtf, I learnt about the Sumerians in primary school. Where did you go to school?

[Anonymous No.13969380]

>>13969326
>>13969365
I had been applying to PhD programs in linguistics, but I think I’d like to take a break after my undergrad. Maybe teach English in Mongolia through Peace Corps

[Anonymous No.13969396]

>>13961845
Kinda jealous of the ancientfags itt. I was taught to read and somewhat read Ancient Hebrew in my teens, since then I haven't progressed much. But I spent two weeks in Israel and it motivated me to study it more thoroughly myself. Also planning to learn Basque at some point (not really ancient, but old and well-preserved, like those living fish relics in the Pacific).
Any tips on self-study or is my aim foolish and forever beyond my means?
I'm a French native speaker if that helps.

[Anonymous No.13969410]

A textbook on ancient Hebrew would probably be a good start - i don't know of any, though?

[Anonymous No.13969448]

>>13966220
How did you study? Any advice? I'm looking to learn Sanskrit too.

[Anonymous No.13969500]

>>13967058
>>13969448
On my own. At first i tried with some book by max muller. That didn't work. Some anon here told me to google thomas egenes and i downloaded his introduction books. But the most progress i've made was watching this channel
https://youtu.be/NQ6CLekQJO0
What motivated me was finding an old gita in a second hand bookstore that had the original text and script(yes it was the prabhupada translation). I copied the devanagari alphabet and tried to learn vocabulary from the book. But it proved useless without knowledge of grammar. So, first alphabet, then the grammar, then vocabulary

[Anonymous No.13969522]

>>13969500
Thank you!

[Anonymous No.13969555]

What books would you recommend as good introductions to the following civilizations (and sorry for probably sounding ignorant, but I'm highly motivated to learn a lot about them)
>Babylon
>Ptolemaic Egypt
>Ancient Greeks (socratic era)
>Aztecs during the age of Conquistadors
Anything regarding their language, culture and philosophy is welcome. Are any of the corresponding languages "easy" to learn?

[Anonymous No.13969570]

>>13961886
>They have never been taught in schools - the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians have dominated that landscape.

I learned about Sumerians while in elementary school during the 80s. Yes I'm old. It was a Catholic school in a large US city.
I hated Catholic school while I was there but I became grateful later because of the history and cultural/religious material we were taught. They would have Hindus, Jews etc come in and talk about their religion and customs. We even learned about Sufism. It was pretty nice. It wasn't some rich kid school either. Lower middle class Irish/Italian neighborhood.

[Anonymous No.13970078]

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[Anonymous No.13970178]

>>13969570
I also went to a predominantly Irish/Italian Catholic school. What was your opinion of the clergy that taught there? I thought that some were simple, while others were absurdly knowledgeable and intelligent.

[Anonymous No.13970196]

>>13969555
Learning to speak and understand babylonian(at least old babylonian) isn't too hard, but the writing system makes it exceedingly difficult to read it.

[Anonymous No.13970526]

>>13970196
Any particular recommendations on Babylon(ian)?

[Anonymous No.13970532]

>>13970526
Huehnergaard

[Anonymous No.13970536]

>>13969555
This link was posted in a link thread a while ago, I thought it was pretty interesting. It discusses the basis of aztec metaphysics:
https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/aztec-philosophy

[Anonymous No.13971099]

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[Anonymous No.13971225]

>>13966220
I'm jealous anon. I attempted to learn Sanskrit a little while back but it eventually all fizzled out. I managed to learn Devanagari and some of the grammar. I'd like to return to it soon.

[Anonymous No.13972478]

bumparoo

[Anonymous No.13972777]

>>13970526
Martin Worthington's "Teach Yourself Complete Babylonian" is pretty good to learn how to speak it, but he doesen't teach you any signs so you've got to use someone else to learn how to read(i.e. huehnergard).

[Anonymous No.13972781]

>>13970196
>>13970532
>>13972777
Thank you. What about some books on Ancient Babylon in general, insights into their culture and what not?

>>13970536
Amazing, thank you!

[Anonymous No.13972834]

>>13972781
H. W. F. Sagg's Babylonians is a pretty comprehensive book on the history of all of mesopotamia(including the babylonians).

[Anonymous No.13972837]

Hello, if I'm a STEMfag who's interested in Ancient Cultures and would like to learn a lot about ONE culture and possibly its language, what would you recommend? Latin (which I'm acquainted with as I studied it in High School and use many phrases of), Greek or Sanskrit? Maybe something else completely?
I'm honestly looking for something to fill my time with and I think this will be both fun and illuminating, I've been thinking about it for quite a while but never actually started it.
As for studying some modern day languages, I'm putting that off for now because there is a huge chance of me moving away to another country in the course of the following year and will start on that once I actually figure out where I'm headed.

[Anonymous No.13972917]

>>13972837
>Latin (which I'm acquainted with as I studied it in High School and use many phrases of)
I'm in a similar position; what books can anyone recommend(preferebly in german, since I've heared there was great material in german) to learn it?

[Anonymous No.13973311]

>>13972837
Sanskrit.

[Anonymous No.13973323]

>>13972837
I generally dvocate Latin because it gives one a rigorous grammar basis, doesn't require learning a new alphabet, and is a great intro into Romance languages (if you already speak a romance language it will also be much easier). It's a very good entry-level ancient language. Also translating Latin is easier than, say, translating Greek, and practicing translation is a very good way to become better at a language.

[Anonymous No.13973414]

>>13973323
This, but if you really want to read homer and plato in ancient greek, ancient greek might be the better option.

[Anonymous No.13973504]

How fluent can one become in akkadian in a couple of years? Fluent enough to read a clay tablet without relying on a dictionary?

[Anonymous No.13973535]

>>13973311
>>13973323
>>13973414
So I've been given the benefits of learning Latin, what about Greek and Sanskrit? (I don't mean for this to sound offensive or aggressive)
And how long would it take someone who's pretty good with other languages to learn one of those?

[Anonymous No.13973913]

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[Anonymous No.13974373]

>>13969396
Nothing foolish about it. Just spend time on it and you'll get there, mon brave

[Anonymous No.13974565]

>>13972837
Elementary texts one can read with basic Latin and Sanskrit?

[Anonymous No.13974638]

>>13961853
>whole world is america

[Anonymous No.13974958]

>>13961853
that's the first book you are forced to read in high-school where I live

[Anonymous No.13975186]

>>13974958
Kramer?

[Anonymous No.13975912]

So what's the Duolingo for Sanskrit?

[Anonymous No.13976501]

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[Anonymous No.13976599]

Two questions before I go to sleep, hopefully the thread survives
>How many books and pieces of literature become accessible to someone who knows say Sanskrit or Latin?
>What are the main resources to studying these languages? Books, videos, combination of both?

[Anonymous No.13976745]

Starting a YouTube channel about philology and ancient languages and literatures soon.

I have studied, among other things, Old Norse and Babylonian at uni. AMA.

[Anonymous No.13976772]

>>13976745
>Babylonian
was it difficult? how long did fluency take?

[Anonymous No.13976784]

Seems this is a bit late by this thread's standards, but I do Greek, Latin, Syriac, and a bit of Classical Arabic. I focus on late antiquity and especially intellectual history.

Favorite text by language:

>Greek
Mimnermus

>Latin
Tie between Aeneid and Confessions of Augustine

>Syriac
Hymns on Paradise by St. Ephrem

>Classical Arabic
Haven't really read enough yet but the Chronicle of Seert is cool

[Anonymous No.13976803]

>>13976772
Babylonian is pretty difficult and cuneiform is probably the most fucked up writing system that was ever really used.

I didn't study Babylonian until fluency.

[Anonymous No.13978195]

>>13976784
If I may ask, is that your job or your hobby?

[кoт No.13978347]

>>13961853
this. Mesopotamia in general is never taught in school even though it is very important historically. most people only know about that babel tower from the bible

[Anonymous No.13978449]

>>13976745
Be sure to eventually share it.

[Anonymous No.13978499]

>>13976803
Did you learn to read just OB, or also something like SB, NA, etc.? I'm asking since I'm learning OB at the moment and would like to know long it would take me to read SB or even NA texts.

[Anonymous No.13978510]

>>13976784
How long does it take until one can read latin fluently?

[Anonymous No.13979312]

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[Anonymous No.13979654]

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[Anonymous No.13979680]

>haven't done latin in ages
>assume i'll have to start from scratch
>full verb paradigm for all 4/5 conjugations naturally comes back in 5 minutes

[Anonymous No.13979699]

>>13979680
I hope I will have a similar experience, since I had it in school for years and am going to relearn it. God, I don't want those 4 years of latin to have been a wasted effort.

[Anonymous No.13980360]

>>13975186
I meant the first book being epic of Gilgamesh, got me into Eliade, his treaty of history of religions i recommend to all those passionate about ancient mythologies.

[Anonymous No.13980369]

>tfw reading vulgata
Comfy thread brahs

[Anonymous No.13980387]

>>13980360
Eliade is cool but now I am into Durkheim. Have you read Toynbee? He's like an optimistic Spengler. Quite interesting.

[Anonymous No.13980392]

>>13979680
I am reading wheelock and am on chapter forty but still really stumbling to read real latin despite a good grasp of conjugations and declensions. Any suggestions?

Also, I wanna read post-classical (medieval, renaissance, early modern) philosophy.

[Anonymous No.13980824]

>>13980392
i'm still in the intermediate phase myself but i will say from my limited experience classical latin is ball breakingly hard, i guess because they were all huge showoff fags trying to impress eachother. anything ciceronian is intense to read, same with anything poetic. sometimes it feels like an entire page worth of writing will be constructed entirely out of those weird "exceptions" you wonder how you'll ever remember (and pray you'll never see), and only after consulting a gloss do you realize how esoteric the grammar was for some section.

but other authors can be refreshingly easy. certain authors are renowned for being accessible to beginners like cornelius nepos and caesar. check out a website called dickinson college commentaries, they have free online glossed editions of many good beginner writings. with a good gloss, the idioms, rare special usages, and bizarre periphrastic constructions will usually be explained for you, so you can focus on working your vocab/syntax comprehension muscles. gradually you will absorb the more esoteric stuff.

but my advice on the really difficult/rare stuff is: don't sweat it too much. imho, your realistic goal is to be able to read 90-95% without trouble, and consult a translation for the really wacky shit that completely throws you. gradually, that number will approach 98% and 99%, but you will always need to look things up once in a blue moon, if only because there exist genuinely ambiguous/controversial/incredibly rare expressions that even experts are divided about. if you lower your expectations from "perfection" to "mostly smooth sailing," you'll have a lot better time. read to enjoy and mostly comprehend the text, don't punish yourself for needing a bit of help or not remembering every little bizarre vernacular periphrastic that only appears in three authors a total of five times.

later latin is often easier and more standardized because it becomes a lingua franca rather than an extremely high literary language used by native speakers. if your goal is to read philosophy that's even better, i'd say most latin-writing philosophers write in pretty simple expository latin and don't aim at being literary virtuosos. plus, you yourself will be reading for general comprehension of the ideas, not literary appreciation of the latin itself like a humanist, so you can take a pragmatic view.

[Anonymous No.13981041]

>>13980387
Any specific book recs pertaining to the thread subject?

[Anonymous No.13981122]

>>13981041
Toynbee talks about classical civilizations so it is related. I recently encountered and seem to like Benveniste's Indo-European Dictionary as far as more esoteric language stuff goes.

[Anonymous No.13981746]

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[Anonymous No.13982409]

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[Anonymous No.13982817]

why am i being ignored

[Anonymous No.13984150]

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[Anonymous No.13984423]

Any books for anyone trying to study Biblical Hebrew?

[Anonymous No.13984461]

>>13984423
Would like to get an answer on this as well

[Anonymous No.13984799]

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[Anonymous No.13984862]

>>13966220
How is it to learn a language with no articles?
I speak German English Spanish and French, and never bothered with Latin because it has no articles. Makes me think it would feel very foreign and uncomfortable.

[Anonymous No.13984977]

>>13984862
It's not that weird once you get used to it.

Maybe start with Icelandic to ease yourself in. It have definite articles but no indefinite articles.

[Anonymous No.13985098]

>>13961853
Or the fact nobody has heard of the Scythian, Parthian empires, or the true history of the Phoenicians for that matter.

[Anonymous No.13985363]

GIRUGAMESH

[Anonymous No.13985973]

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[Anonymous No.13986226]

Has anyone used von soden's "Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik" to learn akkadian? I'm a quarter of the way through huehnergard and I'm unsure of how I'm going to learn all those remaining rules from it.

[Anonymous No.13986544]

>>13986226
There is a translation of Soden's work, i just can't remember the title. Anybody know the title?

[Anonymous No.13986588]

>>13976599
I'm not the best qualified person to answer, but since nobody else has done so:
>How many books and pieces of literature become accessible to someone who knows say Sanskrit or Latin?
A lot in both cases. Sanskrit has a millenia-long tradition of metaphysical inquiry and controversies (just like the Greek did, though with different focus), Latin encompasses both Roman literature (memoirs by statesmen, famous discourses, lyrical and epic poetry, plays...) and a good deal of Middle Age philosophy and high-minded writing (theology, politics, treatises of various sorts, liturgy and the occasional weird fiction).
So they both give you access to very rich corpuses. As for the study ressources, I don't know much (again, not the best qualified here), but I studied latin with textbooks and a good prof and I have fond memory of it (I'm French native so I used French textbooks).
For Latin it's important to be rigorous in learning grammar. It' not that hard a language, it's even pretty logical, with a regular grammar and a wonderful capacity for ellipsis. But you need to have wrapped your head around declensions. Even a dictionary won't be of much use unless you do so. That said, a firm grasp of declensions and conjugations, some basic vocabulary and a nice dictionary, a handful of annotated bilingual volumes and you're almost ready to translate the simpler Latin authors. As my Latin teacher used to say "translating Latin text is more or less always the same procedure once you get used to it, meanwhile, with every new Greek text I'm faced with a new difficulty".

[Anonymous No.13986898]

>>13986544
Isn't Huenhergaard a translation?

[Anonymous No.13986953]

>>13986898
No, he's just using him as a reference; von soden's Grundriss is much more comprehensive(though lacking in examples for individual rules and exceedingly dry).

[Anonymous No.13987453]

>>13975912
Just make sentence cards on anki dude

[Anonymous No.13987496]

Is Akkadian/Sumerian cuneiform really much much more difficult to learn than hanzi/kanji, for those of you who've tried both? I'm not sure if cuneiform has anything like Chinese radicals, but I'm sure it should be possible to make mnemomics for them based on what they more or less look like.

[Anonymous No.13987582]

>>13961853
The USA is too triggered to get into it's own origins of religion. Sumeria has alot to do with the beginnning of abrahamic myths like the flood story, but they believed in flying bulls instead of angels and such. People want to ignore the fact that modern religion is mythology so they ironically concentrate on the cultures of Greece and Rome instead despite the outbreak of the jewish religions. >>13961886
Indeed. They are the 'best' nations that nations now want to be the new one of. The new Roman Empire, the new Greece, the new Egypt. Sumeria and Mesopotamia in general are references to where the current popular religions were spouted from, Buddhism/Hindus and such notwithstanding. I mean the current new Rome's religion.

[Anonymous No.13987883]

>>13986588
Thanks for responding. I think I'll study both during the next year or so, I've already got a somewhat firm grasp on Latin having studied it before, and I've also found out that Sanskrit shares a lot of words with (proto)Slavic which is nice since my mother tongue is one of the Slavic languages.
>and you're almost ready to translate the simpler Latin authors
Examples of some simpler Latin authors? I'd like to try and read some passages while studying, I think that will be both more engaging and motivational

[Anonymous No.13988514]

>>13987453
What?

[Anonymous No.13989047]

Here's an odd request for anyone learning tough languages. Do you ever become "conscious" of your learning and memorizing process, or partly conscious? For me, I feel like I learn things by focusing on them and trying to fit them into a structure that makes sense in my mind. If there are "lumpy" or badly fitting parts, I can remember them more easily sometimes as long as the rest of the structure is good, because weird exceptions will stand out almost like beauty marks or landmarks on an otherwise logical whole.

But I am absolutely terrible at rote memorization. It's like I don't trust my mind to just grab something if I run over it ten times. There's some voice in me that says "so what? I didn't feel the 'click', so we have no guarantee it's been assimilated. Are we just going to trust to some unconscious background function of the memory we can't check directly?" So I tend to be resistant to just doing rote practice or review, which is dumb because I do know it works, for me as well as anyone else. It's just that the intuitive feeling of distrust in it is so strong.

Anyone else have a different perception? Do you just like to dive in and swim around until it starts to feel familiar? Do you have a similar "structural" feel for morphology? Just curious.

[Anonymous No.13989824]

Is pic a good guide?

[Anonymous No.13989866]

>>13987582
This. Ask a Young Republican whats the difference between Religion and Mythology and you'll see a man very, very confident in his ability to quickly look up the (wrong) answer on wikipedia.

[Anonymous No.13989877]

>>13989866
What IS the difference between religion and mythology?

[Anonymous No.13989928]

>>13987883
Not sure, I learnt Latin in middle school and highschool, and we very quickly got to hard stuff like Cicero. Our teacher even commented that was like learning French by translating Proust, but that's how the curriculum is designed.
Very late (Middle Age) latin is much easier but would probably give you bad habits as a start. Perhaps some light comedy like Plautus' Aulularia might do the trick, I dunno.

[Anonymous No.13989951]

>want to study old norse or latin
>my uni doesn't offer any classical languages
>brain too fried to self study only

[Anonymous No.13990095]

>>13961845
>>Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap
I've read this about a hundred times and I still don't get it. None of my ex's have ever farted on my lap

[Anonymous No.13990258]

>>13989877
One is obsolete while the other is still believed in

[Anonymous No.13990838]

>>13989877
Mythology: A collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.
Religion: The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

[Anonymous No.13991386]

>>13969396
Hi, I am Basque, hit me up if you want
[e-mail]

[Anonymous No.13992006]

>>13961853
When they tried to change BC to BCE, it all went downhill.

[Anonymous No.13992062]

>>13985098
>Scythian

[Anonymous No.13992845]

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[Anonymous No.13992941]

>>13991386
based basquefriend helping others

[Anonymous No.13993025]

>>13980387
No i didn't, Spengler either. Philosophy wasn't really my shtick

[Anonymous No.13993057]

>>13990838
so when did greek religion become greek mythology

[Anonymous No.13993061]

>>13987496
The biggest problem(for me at least) with learning and reading cuneiform signs that have been written per hand, is that half the time I'm not entirely sure what sign it is I'm seeing.

[Anonymous No.13993097]

>>13993057
You mean the other way around; in ancient greece(not mycenaean greece), the people simply worshipped the deities from myths that have been transmitted orally since the time of mycenaean greece.

[Anonymous No.13993437]

My Uni offers Sanskrit but I'm not sure if it is a meme and I won't get anything out of it. How long would one have to study to be able to read something like Shanakra? How much Sanskrit terminology is used outside of India? Is it only in Buddhist thought that Sanskrit's influence went beyond India?