Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Moderator:Ashucky

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)
Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby mōdgethanc » 2013-08-08, 18:26

Lowena wrote:I was under the impression that all known pronunciations of Classical Chinese words were hypothetical, from reconstruction. If that is the case, then you couldn't even pretend to be able to speak the language, since nothing was known for sure.
Yeah, and? The pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew and Ancient Greek is reconstructed too. I don't see how it means you can't speak the language just because we're not 100% sure how it sounded. We have a better idea of that than we do of Egyptian, at least.
Although, I am aware that the older Chinese script was more phonetic in some regards, so maybe some things can be known for sure, but I don't know enough about the subject to say for sure.
And there are plenty of modern descendants and borrowings into other languages. There's more than enough data for us to arrive at a close enough approximation. Besides,
I'm with mōd on this one. Classical Chinese premiers always give the pronunciation in Modern Mandarin (and even Korean or Japanese sometimes) and it seems to work just fine for the academia.
Granted this is like pronouncing Homeric Greek like modern Tsakonian, but if it works, hey.
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

User avatar
Viridzen
Posts:396
Joined:2013-12-12, 2:09
Real Name:Viridzen Ilitukas
Location:Deitscherei

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby Viridzen » 2014-05-11, 0:55

Learnable:
Coptic
Old Babylonian, Middle, New, Late; Standard Babylonian
Old Assyrian -> Middle Assyrian -> New Assyrian
Eblaite (?)
Classical Arabic
Ge'ez
Classical Syriac
Biblical/Classical Hebrew**
Ancient Greek/Koine Greek**
Latin* **
    Old Galician/Old Portuguese
    Old Leonese
    Old Castilian
    Old Aragonese
    Old Occitan/Provençal
    Old Catalan (splits from Occitan at some point)
Old French-> Middle French
Old Welsh -> Middle Welsh
Middle Cornish
Old Irish -> Middle Irish
Old Norse (Old Icelandic)
Old English -> Middle English
Old High German -> Middle High German
Old Church Slavonic/ Old Bulgarian**
Sanskrit**
Middle Persian
Pali/Prakrit
Avestan
Classical Tibetan
Classical Japanese
Old Tamil -> Middle Tamil
Ottoman Turkish
Chagatai
Classical Nahuatl
Classical Chinese

On the fence:
Sumerian
Middle Egyptian (no vowels)
Old Akkadian (pre sargonic -> sargonic -> Ur III) (???)
Ugaritic
Umbrian
Oscan
Gothic
Yola
Old Prussian*
Old Persian
Sogdian
Hittite
Tocharian A/B
Gaulish*
Norn*

Not-learnable:
Etruscan
Lepontic
Galatian
Noric
Primitive Irish
Celtiberian, Astur, Galaic, etc *
Lusitanian
Tartessian
Iberian
Phoenician
Moabite
Elamite
Hurrian/Urartian
Hattic
Phrygian
Ammonite
North Picene
South Picene
Venetic
Messapian
Lydian
Lycian
Sidetic
Pisidian
Carian
Illyrian
Dacian
Thracian
Volscian
Meroitic
Vandalic*
Lombardic
Burgundian*
Goguryeo
Buyeo
Silla
Baekje
Gaya

*reconstruction and/or revival movements exist
**in use as a ritual language

Feel free to make any changes.

Anyway, I'm surprised Classical Japanese is on the "Learnable" list. I could never even find a lexicon.

And, while I'm at it, I may as well add the websites for the reconstruction/revival movements:

Old Prussian: http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/lang.htm (includes modernised form)
Gaulish: http://www.moderngaulish.com/ (includes modernised form)
Norn: http://nornlanguage.x10.mx/index.php?nynorn (includes modernised form)
Celtiberian: no actual website that has any information.
Vandalic: It's actually my project, but we don't have a website yet.
Burgundian: http://onska.lescigales.org/index.html (includes modernised form)
Please, correct my errors. S'il vous plaît, corrigez mes erreurs.
C2: [flag=]en[/flag] B1: Focusing on: [flag=]fr[/flag] (A2), [flag=]got[/flag]

User avatar
TeneReef
Posts:3074
Joined:2010-04-17, 23:22
Gender:male
Location:Kampor
Country:HRCroatia (Hrvatska)

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby TeneReef » 2014-05-11, 1:27

Vedic Sanskrit
Ancient Tamil

would love to learn them :yep:
विकृतिः एवम्‌ प्रकृति
learning in 2019: (no-nn)

księżycowy

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby księżycowy » 2014-05-11, 19:20

Viridzen wrote:Anyway, I'm surprised Classical Japanese is on the "Learnable" list. I could never even find a lexicon.

There are plenty of resources. The only "issue" being that most of them are in Modern Japanese.

gvm40
Posts:13
Joined:2014-06-29, 9:00
Gender:male
Country:TRTurkey (Türkiye)

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby gvm40 » 2014-06-29, 10:20

There's also Old Anatolian Turkish (predecessor of Ottoman Turkish), Karakhanid/Middle Turkic/Qarluq (predecessor of Chagatai), Kipchak, Cuman, Old Tatar, Orkhon Turkic/Old Turkic and Old Uyghur.

My college offers Old Anatolian Turkic, Ottoman Turkish and Chagatai as standalone courses and a 2-semester "Turkic Languages and Dialects" course which includes Old Turkic, Old Uyghur, Karakhanid and Kipchak :D
Fluent: Turkish, English
Learning: German, Ottoman Turkish
On the backburner now: Kazakh, Uyghur, Spanish, French
Eventually want to tackle: Persian, Malay, Swahili

User avatar
Viridzen
Posts:396
Joined:2013-12-12, 2:09
Real Name:Viridzen Ilitukas
Location:Deitscherei

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby Viridzen » 2014-08-24, 21:08

Learnable:
Coptic
Old Babylonian, Middle, New, Late; Standard Babylonian
Old Assyrian -> Middle Assyrian -> New Assyrian
Eblaite (?)
Classical Arabic
Ge'ez
Classical Syriac
Biblical/Classical Hebrew**
Ancient Greek/Koine Greek**
Latin* **
    Old Galician/Old Portuguese
    Old Leonese
    Old Castilian
    Old Aragonese
    Old Occitan/Provençal
    Old Catalan (splits from Occitan at some point)
Old French-> Middle French
Old Welsh -> Middle Welsh
Middle Cornish
Old Irish -> Middle Irish
Old Norse (Old Icelandic)
Old English -> Middle English
Old High German -> Middle High German
Old Church Slavonic/ Old Bulgarian**
Sanskrit**
Middle Persian
Pali/Prakrit
Avestan
Classical Tibetan
Classical Japanese
Old Tamil -> Middle Tamil
Ottoman Turkish
Chagatai
Classical Nahuatl
Classical Chinese

On the fence:
Sumerian
Middle Egyptian (no vowels)
Old Akkadian (pre sargonic -> sargonic -> Ur III) (???)
Ugaritic
Umbrian
Oscan
Gothic*
Yola*
Old Prussian*
Old Persian
Sogdian
Hittite
Tocharian A/B
Gaulish*
Norn*

Not-learnable:
Etruscan
Lepontic
Galatian
Noric
Primitive Irish
Celtiberian, Astur, Galaic, etc *
Lusitanian
Tartessian
Iberian
Phoenician
Moabite
Elamite
Hurrian/Urartian
Hattic
Phrygian
Ammonite
North Picene
South Picene
Venetic
Messapian
Lydian
Lycian
Sidetic
Pisidian
Carian
Illyrian
Dacian
Thracian
Volscian
Meroitic
Vandalic*
Lombardic
Burgundian*
Goguryeo
Buyeo
Silla
Baekje
Gaya

*reconstruction and/or revival movements exist
**in use as a ritual language

And, while I'm at it, I may as well add the websites for the reconstruction/revival movements:

Old Prussian: http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/lang.htm (includes modernised form)
Gaulish: http://www.moderngaulish.com/ (includes modernised form)
Norn: http://nornlanguage.x10.mx/index.php?nynorn (includes modernised form)
Celtiberian: no actual website that has any information.
Vandalic: It's actually my project, but we don't have a website yet.
Burgundian: http://onska.lescigales.org/index.html (includes modernised form)
Gothic: no website yet.
Yola: http://yola.wikia.com/wiki/Headzide (this is the closest thing).
Please, correct my errors. S'il vous plaît, corrigez mes erreurs.
C2: [flag=]en[/flag] B1: Focusing on: [flag=]fr[/flag] (A2), [flag=]got[/flag]

User avatar
Itikar
Posts:900
Joined:2012-10-10, 19:56
Gender:male
Country:ITItaly (Italia)

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby Itikar » 2014-08-24, 21:32

Maybe Punic too could be moved on the fence.
There are around a relatively decent corpus of inscriptions and some grammars.
Fletto i muscoli e sono nel vuoto!
All corrections are welcome and appreciated.

HoneyBuzzard
Posts:476
Joined:2009-04-18, 11:08

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby HoneyBuzzard » 2014-08-28, 15:28

Old Georgian is still learnable. Of course it's also still fairly easy for modern speakers to understand since Modern Georgian is very conservative.

Earwig
Posts:39
Joined:2015-04-20, 22:26

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby Earwig » 2015-04-23, 3:41

Old Prussian is on the fence but Etruscan is unlearnable? I really don't see the difference, other than the fact that we might find more Etruscan texts, but we're very unlikely to find more Old Prussian ones.
There really aren't enough examples of Old Prussian to do anything with in except make it up in pretense as slightly-archaic Lithuanian, giving learners the satisfaction of learning an extinct non-language.
Swap them round; Etruscan is potentially learnable; real Old Prussian isn't.

Koko

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby Koko » 2015-05-05, 0:00

Earwig wrote:other than the fact that we might find more Etruscan texts [...] Swap them round; Etruscan is potentially learnable; real Old Prussian isn't.

*ahem* Courtesy of me. (aspiring Etruscanologist)

Also, AFAIK Classical and Middle Armenian exist with resources. Why aren't they anywhere on the list?

Earwig
Posts:39
Joined:2015-04-20, 22:26

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby Earwig » 2015-05-05, 4:29

Koko wrote:Also, AFAIK Classical and Middle Armenian exist with resources. Why aren't they anywhere on the list?


Not to mention Old Georgian, the language of the Georgian orthodox rite, and 'the knight in the leopard's skin'.
Classical Mongolian is also missing as learnable.
Tangut is probably learnable too, although I've yet to track down a grammar of it in English (there is one in Russian; probably one or two in Chinese).

Old Tupi is also very well attested but missing from the list (with quite a number of grammars/dictionaries in Portuguese).

User avatar
Lauren
Posts:3581
Joined:2012-04-09, 7:50
Real Name:Lauren
Gender:female
Location:Seattle, WA
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby Lauren » 2015-05-05, 5:13

Well it's a cooperative list! If you have additions or changes feel free to make them.
Native:            (en-US)
Advanced:       (eu)
Just started:    (cs)
Trans woman  Image

baileyh1994
Posts:4
Joined:2016-01-25, 21:18
Real Name:Bailey
Gender:male

Re: Old-yet-still-learnable languages

Postby baileyh1994 » 2016-01-25, 21:31

I've never been interested in learning common languages but have want to learn ones which no one else seems to know. Old Norse is a big one for me, i've always wanted to learn it, but it's not like they have Old Norse language courses at my local college.


Return to “Ancient, Classical and Extinct Languages”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests