TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English)

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-15, 14:24

[flag=]sq[/flag] Since I've finally attained a working knowledge of Standard Albanian (decent B1 in reading and A2~B1 speaking) and intend to keep going, I'm starting to fine-tune my ears to the peculiarities of Gheg dialect and introducing said features into my own speech, even if I may sound a bit contrived in doing so; I did it for the first time "IRL", and I was not replied to in English, so I must have done something right… :P

Since my textbook has barely touched on the directions of the compass thus far for some odd reason, I took it upon myself to learn and master them real quick:
veri, -u north — nga veriu northern ("from the north")
jug, -u south — nga jugu southern ("from the south") [←borrowing from Serbian]
lindj/e, -a east — lindor, -e eastern
perëndim, -i west — perëndimor, -e western

[flag=]en_old[/flag] Learnt about umlauted plurals, i.e. fōt/fēt, tōþ/tēþ, månn/männ, cū/cȳ, mūs/mȳs among others, as well as some more basic vocabulary, but I have yet to start on Chapter XII (i.e. 7/17)'s exercises.
Last edited by Michael on 2017-07-18, 19:53, edited 1 time in total.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-15, 21:04

[flag=]sq[/flag] I went on a "marathon" today. Having zipped through these reviews, I'm now up to speed and ready to move on to Mësimi 15/18.

Image

[flag=]en_old[/flag] Completed the exercises for the aforementioned chapter. 7/17 (41%)
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby dEhiN » 2017-07-17, 3:31

You went through 483 cards in 70 minutes! That's quite amazing. Did you do it all in one sitting? These days I'm averaging about 70-100 cards over 9 decks, although I only have 2 decks that I'm learning new cards in. (I have closer to 100 cards when I'm learning new cards). It takes me about 15-30 minutes but lately I've been splitting it up over 3-4 study times during the day. So today for example I had 74 cards of all review, and it took me 11 minutes in total but split over 4 different times.
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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-17, 4:19

dEhiN wrote:You went through 483 cards in 70 minutes! That's quite amazing. Did you do it all in one sitting? These days I'm averaging about 70-100 cards over 9 decks, although I only have 2 decks that I'm learning new cards in. (I have closer to 100 cards when I'm learning new cards).

No, I did it spread out across 6 hours, taking distractions into account… I get less than 100 tops on a day-to-day basis, but I had to get all those Anki reviews done before I could progress in the Albanian course.

[flag=]en_old[/flag] As of now, I'm completing the latter half of the exercises of the eighth chapter. Will update this post upon total completion.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-17, 6:34

[flag=]en_old[/flag] I've started thumbing through the most recent edition that I have of Mark Atherton's course again, through TY Complete Old English (Anglo-Saxon) (pub. 2011). This time round, however, everything is starting to make more sense and to not seem so "random" now that I've begun intensively learning Old English [morphology] with the succinct PDF grammar.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-18, 19:52

[flag=]en_old[/flag] Completed the exercises to the eighth lesson. 47%
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-19, 1:34

[flag=]sq[/flag] Have commenced the 15th lesson, with this one and 2 more left until total completion. I'll try and finish the first of the three dialogues and word lists tonight.

Here's some assorted folk music from Kosovo. When compared with folk music from Albania (especially from the south), the Serbian influence in this music becomes obvious, if it was not already from the beginning.

“O ju fusha, o ju male
Pritni sot nji mysafir…”

Oh you meadows, oh you mountains
You await today a guest…


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWa4lAaNAJg&t=519s
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby voron » 2017-07-19, 8:53

Michael wrote:the Serbian influence in this music becomes obvious, if it was not already from the beginning

Is it in the lyrics or in the melody? I can't notice anything Serbian in the two lines you quoted... (I can notice mysafir though which is obviously an Arabic loan via Turkish).

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-19, 17:40

voron wrote:
Michael wrote:the Serbian influence in this music becomes obvious, if it was not already from the beginning

Is it in the lyrics or in the melody? I can't notice anything Serbian in the two lines you quoted... (I can notice mysafir though which is obviously an Arabic loan via Turkish).

No, only in the melody. Here's some traditional Kosovar folk music from the same YT user, for comparison.

I've found some lyrics for the portion of the këngë popullore (folk songs) from 9:22-11:14, the beginning of whose lyrics I quoted in the post above, but I could not find the lyrics for the portion from 11:15-13:35, a famous folk song called Kur më del në derë (When you greet me at the door), like I wanted to. The song apparently originates in the northern Albanian city of Shkodra (predominantly Gheg like Kosovo), and this Kosovar rendition has the same melody but different lyrics.

O ju fusha e ju male
Pritni sot nji mysafir.
O kush e ka gushën e bardhë?
Qa* ai djali, qa ai bandill.

*the verb ka "he/she/it has" as sometimes pronounced in Gheg

Oh you meadows and you mountains
You await today a guest
Oh who has the white goiter?
That young man does, that striking lad does.


Ref.:
O qafë për qafë,
O i miri bylbyl.
Nga sevdaja jote shpirt-o
Çeli trändafil


Oh neck for neck
Oh fair nightingale
From your love, oh spirit,
Blossomed a rose
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-23, 15:54

[flag=]sq[/flag] I haven't progressed in the Textbook, but I have started watching skits of humor shqip on YT. It's really good practice for my colloquial Gheg listening comprehension. I think I could understand 65%~75% of what was going on, and could generally distinguish word boundaries, but I also wanted to listen for patterns of intonation.

I think the time has come for me to start prioritizing Gheg usage over Tosk, since it tends to predominate colloquially in the Albanian-speaking world in the SW Balkans as well as throughout the diaspora. The Tosk-based Standard is generally understood by all, but one cannot get far in colloquial Albanian without at least a rough knowledge of what to expect different phonologically compared to the prescribed register.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-07-31, 19:32

I'm in love with this rock ballad:

http://lyricstranslate.com/en/nentor-i- ... ember.html

Nëntor i Ftohtë ("Cold November")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v90XIaX3yE0
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-08-28, 18:20

It's been a good month since I last updated this thread. But I have not given up!

(sq) After a 4-month hiatus of putting off studying the next lesson in the textbook and merely cruising by, i.e. keeping up with daily Anki reviews, I've finally mustered the willpower to move forward. Have gone through the first third of the fifteenth lesson. Thus far, I've learned the use of the indefinite ablative and words referring to various types of meat.

(en_old) Have learned the cardinal and ordinal numbers, the formation of adverbs, all of the prepositions and conjunctions, and the comparisons of adjectives and adverbs. 12/17: 71%

(it) Even though I've been in Italy for over 3 weeks now, I haven't felt an urgent need to focus on Italian. I continue speaking dialect here in Molise, only switching to Italian when I'm speaking to store staff or when I'm speaking with the toddlers here at the house. My active production remains pretty basic, but I understand almost everything that I hear in conversation or on TV, and can get the gist of the more wordy texts I come across (i.e. ones written in a register of language employing a lot of erudite vocabulary).
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-28, 22:04

Why do you speak Italian with store staff? Is it just a matter of formality, or do they not understand Molisano? An Italian friend told me that, at least further north, dialects are close to death and people 30 and under don't really speak them - but it seems like the south is the exception to that.

Are you in a part of Molise where Albanian and/or Croatian are also spoken?
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby Michael » 2017-08-29, 7:15

eskandar wrote:Why do you speak Italian with store staff? Is it just a matter of formality, or do they not understand Molisano? An Italian friend told me that, at least further north, dialects are close to death and people 30 and under don't really speak them - but it seems like the south is the exception to that.

It depends on how I want to come across. I code-switch, like most people here. Dialects are still strong here in this predominantly rural and strongly agrarian region of the country, thank heavens, despite the headway that the national language is making especially among youth here.

Are you in a part of Molise where Albanian and/or Croatian are also spoken?

No. The town where I'm staying is in the western hinterlands of the Province of Isernia, close to the border with Lazio, while Arbëresh is spoken in 4 coastal towns in the Province of Campobasso, to our east. My uncle (I call him that, but he would be my grandmother's nephew) said that it would take about an hour in order for us to reach one of these towns, which are ~100 km away, half the distance from this town to Rome. I'll keep on nagging him for us to plan a trip to one of these communities, though!
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby dEhiN » 2017-08-29, 15:22

Michael wrote:No. The town where I'm staying is in the western hinterlands of the Province of Isernia, close to the border with Lazio, while Arbëresh is spoken in 4 coastal towns in the Province of Campobasso, to our east. My uncle (I call him that, but he would be my grandmother's nephew) said that it would take about an hour in order for us to reach one of these towns, which are ~100 km away, half the distance from this town to Rome. I'll keep on nagging him for us to plan a trip to one of these communities, though!

How similar are Arbëresh and Albanian, or at least the Gheg dialect? If I remember correctly you've been practicing Gheg, right? So would you be able to communicate with the people in those communities?
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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Italian, Old English)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-29, 17:48

I believe there's also a distinctive variety of Romani spoken in Molise.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby Michael » 2017-08-30, 17:08

dEhiN wrote:How similar are Arbëresh and Albanian, or at least the Gheg dialect? If I remember correctly you've been practicing Gheg, right? So would you be able to communicate with the people in those communities?

The Wikipedia article on Arbëresh would do a better job of explaining the peculiarities of the dialect than I would… I was branching into Gheg for a little while, but as of now I'm just focusing on finishing up learning the basics of the Tosk-based Standard Albanian. As far as I can tell, it's easier for the Arbëreshë to understand the Albanians who emigrated from the collapsed Socialist State of Albania post-1991, than vice-versa.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby Michael » 2017-09-03, 11:02

(en_old) Have binge-learned all the seven classes of strong verbs, e.g. the ancestors of MnE speak - spoke - spoken, ride - rode - ridden, give - gave - given, etc. There were about 300 of these verbs in Old English, of which only about 80 of these survived to our days. Also learned some basic vocab relating to warfare and administration. 15/17, 88%
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby Bubulus » 2017-09-03, 13:56

Michael wrote:(en_old) Have binge-learned all the seven classes of strong verbs, e.g. the ancestors of MnE speak - spoke - spoken, ride - rode - ridden, give - gave - given, etc. There were about 300 of these verbs in Old English, of which only about 80 of these survived to our days. Also learned some basic vocab relating to warfare and administration. 15/17, 88%

Does the number "300" include derived verbs as well, or just the basic root-and-inflectional-suffix verbs?

As an interesting comparison, I just checked my list of German verbs with vowel changes and I found that there's only 143 of such verbs, counting only basic forms, e.g. counting bieten but not anbieten.

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Re: TAC 2017 - Mike (Albanian, Old English, Italian)

Postby Michael » 2017-09-03, 15:10

Serafín wrote:Does the number "300" include derived verbs as well, or just the basic root-and-inflectional-suffix verbs?

As an interesting comparison, I just checked my list of German verbs with vowel changes and I found that there's only 143 of such verbs, counting only basic forms, e.g. counting bieten but not anbieten.

C. Alphonso Smith (1896) wrote:Of the 300 simple verbs belonging to the O.E. Strong Conjugation, it is estimated that 78 have preserved their strong inflections in Mn.E., that 88 have become weak, and that the remaining 134 have entirely disappeared, their places being taken in most cases by verbs of Latin origin introduced through the Norman-French.
NOTE.—Only the simple or primitive verbs, not the compound forms, are here taken into consideration. The proportionate loss, therefore, is really much greater. O.E. abounded in formative prefixes. “Thus from the Anglo-Saxon flōwan, to flow, ten new compounds were formed by the addition of various prefixes, of which ten, only one, oferflōwan, to overflow, survives with us. In a similar manner, from the verb sittan, to sit, thirteen new verbs were formed, of which not a single one is to be found to-day.” Lounsbury, ib. part I, p. 107.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.


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