TAC 2017-2018 dEhiN

[dEhiN]

I spent the evening looking up declensions for Albanian vocab. It was a bit frustrating because Wiktionary had the full declension for some nouns, but only the nominative forms for others. I tried looking for an Albanian dictionary that would list the declensions, but I could only find this. Unfortunately, like Wiktionary, that dictionary only lists the declensions for some of the nouns and even then only the nominative forms. I also found this other dictionary, but they don't even list the forms. However, using a mix of the three of them I've been able to determine at least the nominative forms for the nouns that I had added some time ago from the Peace Corps course. I'm still going through what I added, but I'm making headway. I think I'm also starting to understand the adjectival articles in Albanian, and how they're used.

Wiktionary had a page of Albanian declension table templates which I guess people can use for regular nouns? Through that table and from looking up some nouns, I now know that regular feminine nouns ending in -ë are declined (sing.indef./pl.indef./sing.def./pl.def.) as -ë/-a/-a/-at for nominative and -ë/-ën/-a/-at for accusative. As you can see, both nominative and accusative cases use the same definite endings. However, I'm not sure how to tell yet if a feminine noun that ends in -ë is regular or not. (I'm also not sure if there's such a thing as regular noun declension patterns in Albanian. I'm assuming so because Wiktionary has those templates.) I did edit the Wiktionary entry for gocë to include the declension table because from what I could tell, it seemed to follow the same pattern (at least for the nominative). Hopefully I was correct!

One thing I found cool when I was looking up stuff was that the Wiktionary entry for çantë 'bag' has equivalent entries in Malagasy, Cherokee, and Fijian, but not in any other major language (except for Russian)!

[vijayjohn]

I have a feeling that happens for a lot of Wiktionary entries in lots of languages other than Albanian.

There's your ten, Vijay-san.

But I want your ten languages, not dEhiN's!

The TA (as in assistant) role is where you and a teacher work in a classroom and deal with a whole class of students rather than just one. Other than that, it's kinda the same thing.

TA for me means Teaching Assistant at a university. Such TAs are always grad students.

[księżycowy]

But I want your ten languages, not dEhiN's!

Why?

TA for me means Teaching Assistant at a university. Such TAs are always grad students.

I hopefully will be one of those soon enough!

[dEhiN]

But I want your ten languages, not dEhiN's!

Why?

Well you have ten languages that you can give him. He never said anything about you needing to be currently working on all ten, right? Start with the 3 (4?) that you're currently doing, then just throw in those you've done in the past.

[księżycowy]

But, but....he never said he wanted ten languages from me! He only said he thought I was talking about ten languages, not Anki cards!

(And depending on how you count them, I'm doing 4 or 5. It all comes down to what you do with Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew. I tend to lump them together, for better or worse.)

[dEhiN]

(And depending on how you count them, I'm doing 4 or 5. It all comes down to what you do with Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew. I tend to lump them together, for better or worse.)

Interesting...for me, the different periods of a language I consider separately. So if someone says they're studying Old English and Middle English, to me that's 2 different languages. (Technically I see them as 2 separate variants of the same language, but sufficiently different from each other that I count them as 2 not 1).

[księżycowy]

I guess that's what it is, I concider them very closely related, and if you know one, you can easily figure out the other. Sure the verbs are understood differently, but the forms are the same, and the translations roughly coincide.

The biggest thing that throws me off is the lack of niqqud.

[dEhiN]

niqqud

What exactly is niqqud? I've seen that term a few times in reference to Hebrew (and possibly with languages that use the Perso-Arabic script?), but because I've never tried learning these languages, I don't know what it is.

[linguoboy]

niqqud

What exactly is niqqud? I've seen that term a few times in reference to Hebrew (and possibly with languages that use the Perso-Arabic script?), but because I've never tried learning these languages, I don't know what it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud

I've informally heard it called "vowel pointing", even though the term niqqud (lit. "dotting") covers more than just the vowels. Apparently it's also translated as "vocalisation", which strikes me as ambiguous (since "vocalising" a text usually means reading it aloud).

In reference to Arabo-Persian, the vowel diacritics themselves are called ḥarakāt, whereas the process of adding them is termed taškīl. Nevertheless, in English, I see "harakat" used loosely to refer to both.

[księżycowy]

You disappoint me, dEhiN. You call yourself a Unilanger and you don't know what niqqud are!

Hand in you badge and gun!

[dEhiN]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud

I've informally heard it called "vowel pointing", even though the term niqqud (lit. "dotting") covers more than just the vowels. Apparently it's also translated as "vocalisation", which strikes me as ambiguous (since "vocalising" a text usually means reading it aloud).

In reference to Arabo-Persian, the vowel diacritics themselves are called ḥarakāt, whereas the process of adding them is termed taškīl. Nevertheless, in English, I see "harakat" used loosely to refer to both.

Thanks; I should've just looked up Wikipedia in the first place! So that article led me to cantillation, which makes me wonder two things:

1) Does such a thing exist in Arabic, Persian, or Udu?

2) Did the original texts for the Book of Psalms (in the Bible) contain cantillation? In the English translations, frequently above a psalm would be a note saying "for the musical director". As well, some psalms would have the untranslated Hebrew word Selah written at the end of each strophe, which if I remember correctly, was most likely some sort of musical instruction (perhaps akin to our coda?).

You disappoint me, dEhiN. You call yourself a Unilanger and you don't know what niqqud are!

Hand in you badge and gun!

Well there's a great many things I don't know, like pretty much any case beyond nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative, locative, instrumental, and ablative. Oh wait, I think I know essive: something about coming out of? (I'm going off the top of my head, so it's probably wrong). But you can have my badge; I wasn't given a gun though, something about concern for personal safety.

[księżycowy]

The only cases you need concern yourself with are: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative. Fuck the rest of em.

[aaakknu]

Oh wait, I think I know essive: something about coming out of? (I'm going off the top of my head, so it's probably wrong).

Essive case expresses being in a particular state:
Ma töötan tõlkijana. - I work as a translator.

The case you're talking about is elative.
Ma olen Ukrainast. - I am from Ukraine.

[dEhiN]

Oh wait, I think I know essive: something about coming out of? (I'm going off the top of my head, so it's probably wrong).

Essive case expresses being in a particular state:
Ma töötan tõlkijana. - I work as a translator.

So in this example translator would be in the essive case?

[aaakknu]

So in this example translator would be in the essive case?

Yes.

[linguoboy]

Oh wait, I think I know essive: something about coming out of? (I'm going off the top of my head, so it's probably wrong).

Essive case expresses being in a particular state:
Ma töötan tõlkijana. - I work as a translator.

księży! Note the parallel to the bí i + POSS construction in Irish.

[księżycowy]

Sorry, but what am I suppose to be noting?

[linguoboy]

Sorry, but what am I suppose to be noting?

Ma töötan tõlkijana. ~ Táim i m'aistritheoir.

In both cases, a profession is treated as something you are "in".

[księżycowy]

Ah, I see. Sorry to be a bit dense.
Go raibh maith agat!

[Linguaphile]

Sorry, but what am I suppose to be noting?

Ma töötan tõlkijana. ~ Táim i m'aistritheoir.

In both cases, a profession is treated as something you are "in".

I don't know about Táim i m'aistritheoir at all so I can't say whether or not they are similar, but Ma töötan tõlkijana has nothing to do with being "in" anything. For being "in" something in Estonian you would use the inessive (seesütlev) case ending -s, but it's never used with professions.
Essive case (Estonian olev kääne) has to do with a state of being and it's usually translated into English using the word "as":
Ma töötan tõlkijana. = I work as a translator.
Ta on arstina väga tubli. = As a doctor he's very good.
Olin lapsena tihti haige. = As a child I was often ill.
Emana muretsen oma tütarde pärast. = As a mother I worry about my daughters.

Edit: now I've found where Irusia said that essive refers to "being in a particular state." She's absolutely right, of course. But now I can see now where the comment about "something you are in" came from. Essive case is specifically "being in a particular state of," like Irusia said, but not any other context of "in". In other words it is the "state" part that is the key to essive here, not the "in" part. Is it the same in Irish too? Specifically a state of being? It's normally translated into English using the word "as," not "in," so the idea of a profession being "something you are in" doesn't seem like the right way to describe it for Estonian. More like "something you work as," "a role you have," "a state of being in which you exist."
By the way, if you want to talk about a profession you want in the future, you use translative rather than essive:
Tahan tõlkijaks saada. = I want to be a translator.
Ta õpib arstiks. = He is studying to be a doctor.