zompist bboard

A place to dump all those inflexion tables you draw up when trying to learn or at least make some sense of a particular language. Add your own ...

I'm learning Lithuanian's incredibly dense noun declension system ... Perhaps I should post my crib sheet for Latvian, you may be able to adapt it. I think I'll start a Declensions thread in the Museum section rather than put it here where no one will find it. The Rulers of the ZB Universe are of c...

Well, I suppose it helps to look over the system as a whole and note any consistencies across declensions, between cases etc. Then learn to recognise the cases in use. The above seems to work for me with Latvian, not that I've gone very far yet. I managed German at school OK. With Greek there is alm...

There's an interesting wrinkle to the situation in Ireland: The constitution is officially bilingual but--in cases of conflict--the Irish version takes precedence. Nowadays amendments are draughted first in English and then translated, rather than being worked out in parallel, as was earlier the ca...

Have you tried adding the magic keywords "linguistic" & "pdf"? :wink: Well obviously, otherwise I'd get 1001 sites about botany, geology, archaeology ... That's odd, because I found two of them on page 1: http://www.romanistik.uni-freiburg.de/pusch/Download/korpuslinguistik_2010/Dixon_2007.pdf (a 2...

M Mira wrote: Have you tried adding the magic keywords "linguistic" & "pdf"?

Well obviously, otherwise I'd get 1001 sites about botany, geology, archaeology ...

I've always wondered about "field methods". I'd assumed there would be handbooks, guides, or at least class notes, but when I've searched the internet I've never found anything. Is there anything you can point me to, or is it simply a black art taught only to initiates?

There already is plenty of media in Welsh. Some of it even gets consumed. *LOL!!* Only one of the best things to come out of British telly. Rwy mor grac oherwydd na alla i gael y fersiwn Cymraeg fan hyn. Creda neu beidio, well gen i'r fersiwn dwyieithog na'r fersiwn Cymraeg. Dwi'n meddwl bod Mathia...

However, the most striking thing I've learnt from that site so far is that people from munster are all very angry... In the same way maybe that Italians sound emotional (to Brits at least) and Germans seem to be always giving orders? I wonder how much received 'national characteristics' depend on m...

Apparently, the Irish pronounciations are all wrong (no surprise there!). Which has lead me to look at other sites that pronounce Irish, both by speakers and by synthesisers, which inform me that, indeed, as expected, not only can I not pronounce Irish sounds, but I have no sodding clue how to tell...

There already is plenty of media in Welsh. Some of it even gets consumed. *LOL!!* by the way, does anyone have any references to anyone official actually suggesting making all schools Welsh-medium? All I've found is people reacting to it with the normal anti-Cymraeg bollocks I don't have a referenc...

Because they watch English television. You may have a point there. Last year I found that a new season had started to appear online of a Swedish series I'd quite enjoyed. As it had been a while I did a weekend marathon watch of all the previous episodes to remind myself who all the characters were ...

I've heard Kevin becoming more popular in mainland Europe due to footballer Kevin Keegan, & Home Alone bring a bit international hit. Spare a thought for Caoimhín. At some stage a Caoimhín gave up the struggle and settled for 'Kevin'. However all Kevin's are by convention expected to revert to Caoi...

Hardly. Wales and Ireland are similar western European societies, so what went wrong? What do you mean? Without exception, every single Welsh or Irish person I've ever met has near perfect functional English. (Somehow I get the feeling you may not have actually read the article Yiuel linked to.) Th...

The real problem is that L2 teaching seems to be pretty rubbish in English speaking countries, why? This may be appropriate. L2 learning is not rubbish only in English-speaking countries though. Yet every Dutch person, Scandinavian, Finn, Latvian ... etc. that you meet, even teenagers, seem to have...

This is more of less the same report in English : http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/ruthin-private-school-heads-welsh-9256221 Seems the guy has now been forced to apologise (see link) Discussion (all the usual POV's) : https://www.facebook.com/dailypostwales/posts/10152880153087532 Th...

Having realised that the teaching of Welsh in English speaking schools (Welsh as L2) is rarely effective, the Welsh Government are thinking about moving towards making all state schools there Welsh medium. I.e. everything (almost) taught through Welsh. This has produced the expected backlash followe...

I hadn't known that Welsh's TAM had been influenced by English's. Very interesting! OTOH the Breton system has been influenced by French. In both W and B (or possibly some stage of Late British) the inflected present and future tenses fell together. W like English now uses a construction equivalent...

Some extracts from the Welsh language blog I referred to above for the benefit of the di-Gymraeg (because I think these issues are not confined to Wales) : Mae nifer o Gymry Cymraeg yn gweld bai ar y person Saesneg hwnnw a fudodd i Gymru 10 mlynedd yn ôl ond sydd dal ddim yn deall gair o’r iaith. On...

Yeah - although the Welsh people from Welsh-language education outside the Bro speak is barely Welsh imo Could you give examples? I'm not exactly saying you're wrong, but I expect things are not quite as simple as that. There's an interesting suggestion here (*) from an 'insider' that the native sp...

A recent report in Wales more or less said that 'Welsh as a second language' that is Welsh as taught in English medium schools was pretty much a waste of time. So that might lead to Welsh Medium Education becoming near universal, to cries of 'racists, nazis' etc from the usual astrotruf organisation...

You can understand the disappointment among other language groups though. Ireland, with 100 years of independence behind it and a commitment from the start to restore the First Official Language, ought to be a shining example, a guiding light for everyone else. Instead it's something of an embarrass...

Here are some videos about people learning Irish, the state of the language etc. Often funny ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXhDlYREJyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymjsAAyEykg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYtG9BNhfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXrjouPxuAo https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Just a note to say that the Scots Gaelic sound files are working again (today at least) here :

http://faclair.com/

Hover over the icon or the IPA and wait a second or two ...

Dialect levelling, if that's what this is, could simply be the result of broadcasting, recordings, increased travel and perhaps a higher profile for Welsh in public, so that contacts between Welsh speakers from different areas are more often mediated through Welsh whereas at one time English would h...