/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2562434]

In your view, which language complements English the most? Are its benefits chiefly in mutual vocabulary or grammar?

I've heard that Latin makes you more meticulous in phrasing, diction and the like. Languages like French and German would certainly extend your vocabulary.

Also, when you think about all the books you've read, what languages, aside from English, appear the most? McCarthy had a lot Spanish in his books, or so I've heard.

(Excuse my English, I'm not a native speaker.)

[Anonymous No.2562435]

>>2562434
There seems to be a lot of Russian in many of the books i've read

[OP No.2562444]

>>2562435
Did the Russian hinder your understanding of certain scenes? Was the Russian in latin or cyrillic script?

[Anonymous No.2562447]

There's an interesting phenomenon in english, of triplicate synonymy where due to the anglo-saxxon roots, the norman french nobility and ecclesiastical latin we actually managed to pick up three distinct synonyms, that's not true of all our words, but we do have very richy synonymy. Anyways they've don studies and it turns out the words of germanic origin tend to be the common man's words, while the norman-french and latinate words tend to be used by more and more educated people.

So as a non-native speaker german would probably be the most useful, especially because of its close grammatical ties. Whereas Latin would be more valuable to a native speaker who needs better understanding of english's more esoteric words.

[OP No.2562458]

>>2562447
Very interesting. I wonder which one of those languages has the most to offer in terms of literature, as reading books in their original language is often desireable.

[Anonymous No.2562506]

>>2562447
Right. The rare words are mostly of Greek and Latin origin. So, it's useful to know some Latin and Greek in order to better guess what words mean without looking them up. One doesn't need to know the grammar in order to this. I know almost no Greek or Latin grammar but can guess word meanings quite well.

[Anonymous No.2562511]

ignore the fucktard above I'm studying to become a translator, if you are a native English speaker, French is 100 times easier than German to learn

this is a fact

Though I'm struggling to find interesting contemporary french literature, and all of the classics everybody usually reads in school.
>>2562506
romance languages are great to know, if you know one you can understand a good chunk of all of the others

[Anonymous No.2562529]

Latin uses a different grammar than English and for the most part the same one as spanish/french/italian. It's more valuable to improving your English as a vocabulary builder. English takes its grammar from germanic languages, but a large part of its vocabulary is constructed from latin and greek root words.

[OP No.2562559]

Am I wrong in assuming that knowing the grammar of multiple "similar" languages helps you write better in one of them?

[Anonymous No.2562566]

>>2562559

You are right.

OP: Germanic is the best language for English. Anglish ftw!

[Anonymous No.2562577]

May I just pop by to voice the virtues of learning Old English (aka Anglo Saxon)? It is of course the root of English and so that alone makes it a good study for anyone interested in the language. It's literature is very "strong" as some would say and extremely image-filled and playful with words (making much use of the Germanic kenning style). It will help you gain a sense of strong roots in your writing and allow you to tap into the Anglo Saxon power our language has which has been hidden by Normans. Many great writers like Seamus Heaney and Gerard Manley Hopkins value Anglo Saxon quite a bit.

It's a fucking awesome language. Easy to learn too, because it's so similar to English (or hell, IS English).

Check out the "Teach Yourself Old English" book by Mark Atherton if you're interested.

[OP No.2562590]

>>2562577
Thanks, man. Hadn't thought of that.

[Anonymous No.2562594]

>>2562590

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLJGTYkEKLI

Here's the good old Prof. Arguelles talking about it a little and running through a reading.

[Anonymous No.2562614]

Latin is absolutely useless. Go for German, it's beautiful and very useful.

[Anonymous No.2562615]

>>2562577
>great writers like Seamus Heaney and Gerard Manley Hopkins

Do you honestly believe this, or is this just some regurgitated slop you picked up somewhere?

[Anonymous No.2562619]

>>2562615

[Anonymous No.2562620]

>>2562614

I hate people who look at languages in a utilitarian manner.

[Anonymous No.2562633]

Walking forward with a bit of supernaturally-induced swagger, you close the remaining distance with your trembling victim, oblivious to the fact that your full platemail are rapidly disengaging themselves from your body and dropping to the forest floor. She weakly protests, exposing her stinger, but the threat is clearly futile. There's no way she'd touch you or your magnificent infernal prick with such an inferior organ.

[Anonymous No.2562652]

>>2562633

[Anonymous No.2563015]

late night bump