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Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-06, 10:30
by księżycowy
Hello challenge, goodbye brain.
Seriously though, good luck with whichever one you choose! I won't lie, Tlingit is even harder then Navajo! Though I've been interested in Tlingit for a long time myself, and I hope to learn some one day.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-06, 21:08
by Lauren
What about Oneida or Cree? I have (almost?) enough for Cree, but I don't know about Oneida. It seems like there are enough free materials to learn Oneida well, and maybe Cree too.
The only thing I'm lacking for Cree is a coursebook, but I could make do without one if I really liked it.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-06, 23:01
by księżycowy
As in, am I doing either?
Yes, I'm quite interested in Oneida, it's the one I'm doing for the up coming Powwow. And I've been interested in Cree for a long time. For a textbook look up
Spoken Cree by Ellis. It's a bit pricey at 60$, but you'll get more then your money's worth.
Both languages are highly polysynthetic. So they do things like combine verb stems, noun stems and affixes to create long words that would equal whole phrases in English (with quite a few separate words to translate the Oneida/Cree). Though it can also be more cumbersome then the English too, just like quantifying things. Just like my most recent sentence in the multilingual thread:
áhsʌ nikanáskwake kató·s khenáskwayʌ
áhsʌ ni-ka-náskw-ake kató·s khe-náskwayʌ
three PART-1PP-domestic_animal-verb_root* cat 1->3PP-to_have_as_a_pet
I haʌe three cats.
[Literally: Three domestic animals, cats, I have them as pets.]
*I can’t figure out which verb this is.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-06, 23:07
by księżycowy
I also neglected to mention Creek and Choctaw in my list above. Creek in particular has some wonderful textbooks by the University of Oklahoma, and there are some traditional stories and even some personal letters posted online. Plenty to choose from really.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-07, 2:25
by Lauren
księżycowy wrote:As in, am I doing either?
Well, I meant about the difficulty of those two, but that was still an informative post, so thank you. I'll take a look at Beginning Tlingit when I get it, then decide if it's too hard or not. If I decide it is, then I still like Navajo a lot, and Cree is pretty cool.
Koyukon and Lenape are pretty cool, I'm looking into them. What your thoughts on Koyukon?
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-07, 10:30
by księżycowy
Hildakojon wrote:Well, I meant about the difficulty of those two, but that was still an informative post, so thank you.
I thought that might have been it, so I figured I'd post some info just incase.
Koyukon and Lenape are pretty cool, I'm looking into them. What your thoughts on Koyukon?
Koyukon is pretty awesome. I hope to get some resources from the University of Alaska this fall (along with some for Iñupiaq).
I've looked over both grammars that are available on the Alaskan archive, and they are very good. Especially the
Scope and Sequence one.
It's a typical Athabascan language. It has complex verbs, but they are not as bad as some in the family. And there are no tones to speak of. The only thing I find lacking is a really good, comprehensive dictionary.
As for Lenape, it's a typical Algonquin language, like Cree.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-08, 5:54
by Lauren
Cool, thanks.
What are your thoughts on O'odham? It seems pretty awesome.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-08, 12:37
by księżycowy
I haven't looked at it extensively, but I have looked at others in the family (Nahuatl and Shoshoni), and it seems it would be a fairly easy language. Most of the grammar for O'odham is regular, from what I remember.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-08, 14:18
by Alluns
I also don't know much about O'odham. The dictionary recently posted here as well as a written and audio Bible are both available which provide for some pretty good resources. I am currently working my way through "An Introduction to the Shoshoni Language". So far I am really enjoying it. The language appears to have features much more similar to the Indo-European languages with which I am more familiar including marking nouns for Plural, possessive, and Objective cases. Word order is typically SOV and modifiers are postpositives, but even then the language seems much easier to get into than say an Algonquian language such as Lenape.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-17, 11:24
by Massimiliano B
Hildakojon, do you know this grammar of O'odham?
http://www.sil.org/acpub/repository/15222.pdfIn this book the language is called Papago, which is its former name.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-09-17, 20:40
by Lauren
Thanks! I did not know of that.
Re: help deciding on a nail language
Posted: 2012-10-22, 23:50
by handsomenavajo01
księżycowy wrote:Where as I'm not really an expert or anything, I might still be able to help some.
If I'm not mistaken, poly-synthetic means that 'words' are made up of different grammatical parts, right? Like having a noun or verb stem and then having a few prefixes and suffixes?
If I'm right, take your pick!
Many Native American languages are poly-synthetic to my knowledge.
As far as one that doesn't have tones, or doesn't have a large phonetic inventory . . .
Well the Iroquoian, Uto-Aztecan and Algonquian languages (to my knowledge) don't generally have large phonetic inventories. Generally they have only a handful of consonants, vowels can be a little more numerous, but still not that bad in my experience.
If you're just starting off in N.A. languages, I'd be wary or Navajo and similar languages (Athabascan). The grammar of the verbs can be difficult (though not impossible) to understand. Just a suggestion.
Oh, and most of the languages you (and I) mentioned don't have tones. Only Navajo does, but only high and low tones, so even Navajo isn't too bad with the tones.
Hope that helps some . . .
Maybe someone like Formiko or Nero can help out a little more.
Navajo does not just have high and low tones. We have high, low, rising and falling tones.
If you don’t make the tones rise or fall in some instances you change the meaning of the word completely and I mean completely sometimes these words are offensive.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-10-22, 23:54
by księżycowy
Yes indeed, though I've always put it simply, Navajo does have contour tones. But they are still made out of the two basic tones.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-10-23, 22:52
by handsomenavajo01
księżycowy wrote:Yes indeed, though I've always put it simply, Navajo does have contour tones. But they are still made out of the two basic tones.
Not bad on tones is an understatement. We can hear the differences, even in the slightest.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-10-23, 23:01
by księżycowy
I'm hardly an expert on tones, let alone Navajo, as I had said before.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-11-25, 9:08
by limoneneis
Is anyone still learning Greenlandic? I am
. What books are you using after Qaagit and Grønlandsk for begyndere? I just completed Grønlandsk for begyndere 2 and now I am working on Qanoq 2. I am not sure what to use after that. I have some children's books that I haven't read yet because the level used to be to high. But maybe I'll have another try at those. Do you have any recommendations? I wish there was a Grønlandsk for begyndere 3, it's such a great book.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-11-25, 13:09
by zeme
So am I! I'm currently learning Greenlandic greetings from a phrasebook.
Re: Questions/Help
Posted: 2012-11-25, 13:22
by księżycowy
It's not exactly Greenlandic, but I'll be learning some Iñupiaq soon.
Advice for learning an Eskimo language
Posted: 2012-12-04, 11:24
by yaktubu
Hello, I'm Yaktubu and I am currently looking to learn Inuktitut as part of my Inuktitut-Swahili 2013 TAC. Now, one of my main problems is the *learning process* involved in Inuktitut- its grammar is astonishingly different from IE, obviously, and right now I'm finding it difficult to separate the grammatical and lexical affixes properly. So here I'm asking, how did you (non-natives) learn an Eskimo language? What were your methods?
Thanks,
Yaktubu
Re: Advice for learning an Eskimo language
Posted: 2012-12-06, 19:21
by księżycowy
Sorry for my absence in this thread, my computer is taking longer then I would like to get fixed. At any rate:
Obviously Inuktitut or any other Eskimo-Aleut language is quite different from English and the Indo-European languages most of us know. But aside from stating the obvious my advice would be to do what you would do to learn any other language. Surround yourself with it as much as possible.
Place special emphasis on learning to distinguish word bases. That will both help you in learning the affixes you're being taught, but also help you when you come across new ones. Once you start to get a handle on the way that Inuktitut (or any other Eskimo-Aleut language) functions it'll become a lot easier. Just allow yourself some extra time and don't get discouraged by slow progress in the beginning. This is especially true for you, seeing as this seems to be your first time learning something that isn't Indo-European.