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Question?

Posted: 2014-01-28, 1:35
by Viridzen
I want to know, what are some of the easiest Ancient, Classical, and Extinct languages, for a native English speaker? Which ones don't have a lot of inflections? I'm wondering.
Thanks in advance.

Re: Question?

Posted: 2014-01-28, 2:37
by linguoboy
If inflections frighten you, give Classical Chinese a whirl. It's not as analytic in its grammar as contemporary Standard Chinese, but it's pretty close. (If anything, it's even more isolating.)

Sumerian would be another good choice. It's agglutinating in its morphology, so you won't find yourself having to memorise huge charts of defective verbs and irregular nouns.

Re: Question?

Posted: 2014-01-28, 21:48
by Viridzen
Thanks; I've shown interest in these before, so eventually, I'll use them. I also wanted to know from just general curiosity, although it would help in picking one. I've recently started with Old High German, and I refuse to give up this time.

Re: Question?

Posted: 2014-01-28, 22:11
by linguoboy
The chief difficulty with OHG is that it doesn't really exist. That is, apart from a few chance survivals elsewhere, nearly all we have is the product of Charlemagne's scriptoria. Most of what survived consists of translations of Latin originals and is, thus, not very reflective of the natural state of the language. Charlemagne had a vast collection of pre-Christian materials but his son had it all burned.

Re: Question?

Posted: 2014-01-28, 22:36
by Viridzen
Well, I don't know, it seems sufficient from what I've seen.