Cross-linguistic Morpheme Analysis

[Frank Antonson]

Chester,

I am so glad that you seem to understand this so well. I am over my head, but in awe.

What I can principally offer is fun with Reed-Kellogg in whatever language.

Frank

[Frank Antonson]

When I think about it, though, since I am close to retirement and may be able to look forward to much more free time, some understanding of this macrofamily COULD be something for me to "tackle".

Chester, you continue to amaze me with your scholarship.

[Frank Antonson]

Chester,

About the website <Livemocha.com> -- membership is free and well worth it. I have not actively been studying a language there lately, but last year I refreshed my Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German and began to learn Italian, Icelandic, and Hindi.
What might be more important to you is that you can get involved with a circle of enthusiastic want-to-be linguists from all over the world, speaking all kinds of languages.

Frank

[chester_100]

If you have a plan to work on Hindi, you will be so close to Persian. Working on German and French will be just awesome.
The macrofamily seems to be a perpetual horizon.

And the circle of enthusiastic want-to-be linguists from all over the world is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’m not yet familiar with the mechanism of that website, but I’m very curious.
Demystifying the cryptic history of language is indeed inviting.
Wish I had more time.

[Frank Antonson]

I sure wish I had more time as well.

I chose Hindi and Icelandic because I thought they were about as far apart as Indo-European languages could get.

On Livemocha it takes a while to build a group of friends of the kind one wants, but there is usually a very wide choice.

The last I looked there were 34 languages to choose from. It is when you start the process of learning one that you begin to find friends available.

Let me know if you go on the site. I will "friend" you.

[chester_100]

I’ve already done that. But as I said it’s sort of confusing: I mean, is there something like a Forum there too where people can send posts publicly? Or just private messages? I would be honored to have you as my friend.

Yes, Hindi, or better said Sanskrit, is an important element of Indo-European languages. Some people believe it might be one of the very first proto-languages.

Please share your knowledge with me about Hindi, and I’ll try to find the correlations existing across Indo-Iranian languages. Here’s an example:

Ahriman is a word belonging to this family, and its pronunciation reminds me of Indian dialects. Upon closer investigation, I found out that RIMAN means deception and its morphological structure involves rim (maliciousness) + man (self).
As I’ve already mentioned, man in Farsi means I.
Can we propose that the English word man has historically something to do with the Perso-Indian root? To come up with an answer we need an Indian expert. Do you think if it’s possible to find one in that website?

[Frank Antonson]

Chester,

I barely began to study Hindi on Livemocha.com. and I am not nearly the linguist that you are.

What I know about those proto-languages is basically that about two hundred words of proto-indo-European have been reconstructed, along with its case system (I think there are 7 cases). The information, however, may be outdated. I'll have to look back into it. I'm sure there are scholars working intensely on the matter.

Regarding Livemocha.com, I don't think there is a forum. You have your work reviewed by a circle of friends -- and others. What you do in return is review others' submissions.

A friend that I have on that site (who is also on this site as "knowledge") is "Learn Languages". She knows Urdu and other languages. She actually diagrammed a sentence in Urdu for me. If you find her, tell her I sent you.

I have many other friends on that site as well, and I usually selected them from those that approached me who were native speakers of obscure languages. I'll have to go back and look at the list. I haven't used the site as much this year as I did last year.

[Frank Antonson]

Chester,

I have begun to take a sort of inventory of the Livemocha friends I have. It occurred to me that I could contact them all if we had a specific project that we would like them to help with.

I'll get back to you when I've gone through the list. You can see how active they have been and how recently they have been on the site. You can also see how serious they are about learning languages.

I had thought at one point of trying to assemble a sort of "League of Extraordinary Linguists".

[Frank Antonson]

Okay,

The result of my "inventory". Twenty-six friends who are actively engaged in studying multiple languages. They are native speakers of 17 languages: English, Mandarin, Ukranian, Russian, Croatian, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Indonesian, Portuguese, Tagalog, Hungarian, Farsi, and Cantonese. Arabic, Spanish.
I am reasonably certain they would all respond to a message sent from me. That all have English as a sort of "lingua franca".

This is not to mention the various viewers on this website.

[chester_100]

Chester,

I barely began to study Hindi on Livemocha.com. and I am not nearly the linguist that you are.

What I know about those proto-languages is basically that about two hundred words of proto-indo-European have been reconstructed, along with its case system (I think there are 7 cases). The information, however, may be outdated. I'll have to look back into it. I'm sure there are scholars working intensely on the matter.

Regarding Livemocha.com, I don't think there is a forum. You have your work reviewed by a circle of friends -- and others. What you do in return is review others' submissions.

Most probably that’s true because I spend 15 mins tying to find one, but I couldn’t. Instead, there was a list of members whose interests were similar to mine.

A friend that I have on that site (who is also on this site as &quot;knowledge&quot;) is &quot;Learn Languages&quot;. She knows Urdu and other languages. She actually diagrammed a sentence in Urdu for me. If you find her, tell her I sent you.


That’s really a good idea.

I have many other friends on that site as well, and I usually selected them from those that approached me who were native speakers of obscure languages. I'll have to go back and look at the list. I haven't used the site as much this year as I did last year.

Did your interaction with the speakers of those obscure languages involve word or morpheme analysis?