Lisa's Linguistics Class

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Keran_Shadlag
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Lisa's Linguistics Class

#1 Post by Keran_Shadlag » Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:56 am

How's that going, Kida85? Your linguistics class this semester? Is it boring or interesting? Ever get to ask about Atlantean?

Ironically, I've got my first linguistics class this semester. Want to hear about it?

It's funny because my approach to the field is very..."arcane", to quote my professor. Linguists these days are interested in science; neuroscience, phycholinguistics, modern languages, spoken languages.

And here I am, all gung-ho about Archaic Sumerian and a hundred bizaare dialects that haven't seen working articulators in millenia. But I have a professor who understands, the guy who teaches me Ge'ez, the "Ethiopian Latin".

I've been trying to learn as much and as well as possible. It's not too hard for Intro Linguistics, but I also have Intro Phonology. The subject just doesn't grow on me. I'm trying to get it. It's all these rules and terminology. Maybe I'm more into syntax or morphology. And of course, historical linguistics.

I really just seem to do my own thing with linguistics. I can't force myself to open a book on semiotics (study of symbols), yet that's the field I'm told is most associated with what I'm really interested in (hieroglyphic writing systems).

Atlantean is still fun.
Dig Adlantisag kwiyimos po esetot.

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#2 Post by Kidagakash85 » Sun Dec 02, 2007 2:41 pm

HORRIBLE. The teacher spent like two days on the IPA and anything else remotely interesting and then spent the rest of the semester talking about THE SAME STUFF that I've already learned in every other cutural anthropology class at this school. I wanted to learn about linguistics, not languaculture kthnx!

We had to make up a language for our semester project, which is due tomorrow. I made an alphabet, came up with the grammatical structure, and other stuff like that, but I feel really lost because he spent such little time on what makes a language a language and instead wasted the semester prattling about sociopolitical context and economic status and stuff like that, and yet now I'm supposed to write a paper using words like "lexicon" and "morphology" that I kind of know what they mean but not really, that he spent NO time going over in class, and that I basically had to teach myself.

*screams*

I wish the class had gone in a different direction. It would have been fun to talk about Okrand's Atlantean.

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#3 Post by Kidagakash85 » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:42 pm

HA HA HA HA I'M DONE WITH THAT CLASS FOREVER!!! *dances* Yaaaaaaaaay :dance:

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#4 Post by RifleExpert » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:22 am

Recieve my congratilations! +)))) (So exited... :))
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#5 Post by Keran_Shadlag » Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:49 am

:oops: Aw, dang. My bad. I kinda missed the boat on this one.

I'm sorry your class went so badly. I imagine Intro Linguistics classes usually do. See, here's maybe what went wrong:

When a person gets a professor position in any of the 3,000+ subfields related to linguistics, they have to teach Intro Linguistics for the rest of their life. Some people dislike this task and others aren't any good at teaching to begin with.

You got a hella tight final project though (to me, anyway). Everything else about the class sounds bogus. Post exactly what you wrote here on RateMyProfessor.Com. I read that stuff all the time.
----------------------------------------
Wow. And now that you're scarred for life you probably don't want to have anything to do with linguistics. Maybe someday down the road you might try reading a good book that doesn't bore you in the first 15 pages...? I like my O'Grady Contemporary Linguistics OK, but not super-fantastic.
------------------------------------------
See, when I get to teach this class as a graduate, I want to fill it with bizaare languages and interesting stuff on what makes a language a language and stuff like that.

My class was often boring, too. Even for me! A lot of Academia is jumping through these hoops, even as one recieves their "education". Eventually I'll get to do my thing and hopefully make up for the ones who did their lesser things poorly.

Wow. Well, I can teach you everything you want to know about linguistics or Atlantean, so feel free to post. Sorry again. As I've grafted myself onto the Academia Monster, I feel partially responsible. :hug:

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#6 Post by Kidagakash85 » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:28 pm

YOU SAID "HELLA." WIN. PEOPLE FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MAY MOCK US NOR-CAL FOLKS, BUT APPARENTLY PEOPLE IN OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY CAN SAY IT TOO. *huge grins*

Anyway, yeah. I definitely enjoyed the stuff that was in our textbook/workbook by Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer, which we unfortunately spent only two weeks on. In my free time I may read it a bit more in-depth. I like learning languages, and can see the benefits of knowledge of linguistics in that, so it's definitely something to at least be aware of. It's just unfortunate that he chose to take such an ethnographic spin on the class rather than a more traditional linguistics one, because it basically turned the class into "every anthropology class I've ever taken rehashed with reference to 'language' thrown in at intervals." *le sigh*

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#7 Post by Keran_Shadlag » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:52 am

Check it out. Today was the last day of instruction for my linguistics class. When I'm bored out of my mind in that class I construct a new language.

Here's the English text:

Help! I'm trapped in the last Linguistics class! It's boring and I can study on my own. I want this class over so I can move on with life and learn more interesting things about morphology or French, which is more so.

Here's the text in today's artificial language. Let's call it "Bo-we", the words for "language" in that language. It's modeled on Chinese and Amazon languages. I packed it with wierd idioms, just like a real language. It has 13 phonemes, which occur in this alphabetical order:
[mo ki we ba go li je na po] with phonetic values as in IPA.
And 3 tones, 1 2 3, rising even falling, -! = ! :

Then grammatical bits or special conjunctions are in CAPS.


IMPERATIVE help-! last room learn science thought tongue cage I
Na2 kwa1-! Ge3 po3 ma3 ji2 bo1 we2 nwi2 gi1

PRESENT ONGOING is-! flies PRESENT ONGOING gather bannana
kwa2 po3 ga3-! Ne1 kwa1 po3 be2 ba3

PREFERENCE SOLITARY ABILITY study I. Gather learn this VOLITION
jo1 na3 mja1 ni2 gi1. Be2 ma3 ga2 ko3

to-finish I ORDER FUTURE walk forward I and thunder thunder, France
li2 gi1 la3 mo1 mjo2 ki2 gi1 bi1 bo3 bo3 je3

thought tongue or science structure word in thunder topics FUTURE learn.
bo1 we2 mi2 ji2 ko1 le2 wo1 bo3 ke3 mo1 ma3.

And here's a few notes: There's a few compounds, like 'tongue thought' for "language" and 'word structure science' for "morphology", but both of these occur in reverse order because compound modifiers go after their modified. It's OVS because that's a really cool, bizaare order, so we get for "The Last Linguistics class is my cage" that " 'Last room Linguistics cage my is!' and so on.

Then there's idioms. "It's boring." is said as "The bannana gathers flies" which makes no more sense than "I'll get right on it, boss!" Similarly,
they don't say "I'm trap in..." but 'My cage is...' and not "move on with life" but 'walk forward' and "thunder" is the word which equates with 'interest' and various conjunctions have more to do with narrative logic than just trudging along.
Last edited by Keran_Shadlag on Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hello ! Supak ! Good-bye ! Gamok !
Success ! Badeg ! Fail ! Karok !
Please. Beket. Thanks. Pag.
I speak a little Atlantean. Ad tip. (do "little" gesture)

Photo Credits:
"Atlantis-The Lost Empire Model Sheets" The Disney Informer. Ed. Tim Montgomery, 1996-2007. 27 Feb. 2007
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#8 Post by Keran_Shadlag » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:05 pm

Oh, and there really aren't any plurals (as in Chinese). It's just implied through context.

Na2 ma3 bi1 mjo2-!

Now I have to go and study for my stupid exams some more and more and more. Somehow I had more fun studying for Calculus. Bo1 bo1 Calculus PAST COMPLETED ni2 when PAST COMPLETED enjoy gi1.

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#9 Post by RifleExpert » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:12 pm

*after readings of 3 atlentean lessons* im a deep dummy in a linguistics :))
Good luck to you on your exam =)) Be happy that it's not STL using in c++ =)))
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#10 Post by Keran_Shadlag » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:49 pm

Those lessons aren't too good.

Here's a sentence in Atlantean to help you along:

English: Mikhail shot a rifle at a target.

Atlantean:

Mihayl [neshing-esh wokan-uses] [tak-ag keran-tem] net
Mikhail-NOMINATIVE rifle-INSTRUMENTAL target-OBJECTIVE at


neshing-i-mot.
shoot-PAST-he.

neshing wokan-uses - rifle, "weapon speedy", a speedy weapon

neshing - to use a weapon

tak-ag keran - "fish marker", because spearing fish requires good aim

Explanation:
-------------------------------
Nouns

See, Atlantean has grammatical cases (ПАДЕЖ) just like Russian but there's no "masculine noun, feminine noun, neuter noun". It's all one declension (СКЛОНЕНИЕ (ГРАМ.)) or set of endings:

Only Atlantean Declension for All Nouns:
ИМЕНИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ГРАМ.)
Nominative: no ending : Mihayl
ВИНИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ГРАМ.) И
ДАТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ГРАМ.) И
ПРЕДЛОЖНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ГРАМ.)
Accusative + Dative + Prepositional = Objective: -tem: Mihayl-tem
РОДИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ГРАМ.)
Genitive: -ag: Mihayl-ag: "of Mikhail"
ТВОРИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ГРАМ.)
Instrumental: -esh: Mihayl-esh: "using Mikhail"
ЗВАТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПАДЕЖ (ГРАМ.)
Vocative: -top: Mihayl-top: "Hey Mikhail!"

First Russian Declension for Masculine Nouns:
-
-у И –у И -е

-ом
(Russian doesn’t have a Vocative anymore. It became the Nominative.)

Atlantean is much, much easier than Russian. Instead of many, many sets of ending for different types of nouns, it only has one. And instead of a separate column of endings for “plural”, it just adds –en.

-------------------------------------------------
Verbs:
neshing-i-mot
‘neshing’ mean ‘to shoot’
-i- means ‘past tense’ which means ‘in the past’
-mot mean “he”
“shoot + in the past + he” = “he shot”
In English, we show that “shoot” is in the past by writing it “shot”.
“Shoot” is pronounced “shoot” with the u-sound in boot and “shaht” has the a-sound in father, sort of. In Cyrillic: ШУТ and ШАТ.


Pronuciation:

If we took the sentence in Atlantean and spelled it in Cyrillic:
Mihayl [neshing-esh wokan-uses] [tak-ag keran-tem] net
МИХАЯЛ НЕШИНГ-ЕШ WOКАН-УСЕС ТAК-AГ КEРАН-ТЕМ HET
neshing-i-mot.
НЕШИН-ИOT.


Do you understand? This site might help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gr ... line_nouns

Russian Alphabet:

А а (a) Б б (b) В в (v) Г г (g) Д д (d) Е е (yay) Ж ж (s in treasure) З з (z) И и (ee in feet) Й й (i in pin) К к (k) Л л (l) М м (m) Н н (n) О о (oa in boat) П п (p) Р р (r –strongly rolled) С с (s) Т т (t) У у (oo in boot) Ф ф (f) Х х (ch in Scottish loch) Ц ц (ts) Ч ч (ch) Ш ш (sh) Щ (shch) Ь ь (softens the sound before it) Ю ю(yoo) Я я (yah)

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#11 Post by Keran_Shadlag » Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:56 pm

Now I'm done with this semester, too.

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#12 Post by Pharoah » Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:58 am

congrats to all! :D

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#13 Post by Keran_Shadlag » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:26 pm

Where are you, Kida85? Will I get to find out about your language?

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#14 Post by Kidagakash85 » Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:07 pm

Busy...haha. I've moved back home and haven't hooked up my personal computer here yet, which is where all my language files are. I will post it...someday...

Seriously though, it's not that great. Don't get too excited about it. :oops:

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#15 Post by RifleExpert » Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:36 am

Hold on))) We gonna pass this exam session!
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