Quote:
Originally Posted by scathe30
Although I'm Russian I'm not fond of my native language very much. Maybe it is not very patriotic, I don't know. Russian is a very expressive language, it has a lot of different means to express different emotions and feelings, it is rich with synonyms. Russians themselves... i mean WE usually call it 'the great and the mighty Russian'  That's what I don't like about it. I hear the term 'the great and the mighty' from my early schooldays - it all looks like some kind of language chauvinism! The fact is that previous generations of Russians know little languages. This tradition to study linguistics became popular in our country only in the middle of the 'Perestroyka' years. |
You know, I've always had an interest to "understand" your native language but never really got round to it. I would like to
just at least have an idea of what they talk about though.
I simply don't pick up any bits of it, yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kinbard
I think they are dealing with ancient Aramaic, which is different from modern Aramaic. I haven't looked into it yet, though. Did the site seem to move slow to you, or is it just me?
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Yes, I'm aware. The modern form of Aramaic (mainly Biblical remains) that remains sparsely in Northern Syrian villages is not much adulterated from the classical form of 300BC derived from Phoenician, since it's not widely spread for quite a while now, at least since the Arabs ruled it in 630AD. There are increasingly shorter numbers of speakers and it's only taught by living with the culture as most cannot write it. One or two of their local leaders that I've come across understand the biblical form very clearly actually. I would love to learn all Semitic languages, those of Canaanites, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Moabite and classical Hebrew at the time of Moshe. I find those languages very straight forward as much as my experience and learning goes, much like modern Hebrew of Leshon Ha-Qodesh, the common alphabets such as pe, waw, quoph, he, tua, nun, mim etc are all very similar across the board, and so are the sounds and nasalizations in speech. All Afro-Asian languages share many foundational similarities.