I found a fantastic book on Uz Translations. It's Eling Eling!, a Uyghur textbook in Japanese. After browsing through it I immediately decided to switch to it because it is modern, the dialogues are less fake and more lively, and above all, it's not communist. I know I can trust it. From now on I'll post lessons and exercises from that book.
Sometimes you gotta LOVE the Japanese!
Showing posts with label random babbles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random babbles. Show all posts
Friday, 2 October 2009
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Starting from Uzbek and Uyghur
I received my Uzbek book today after so much wait. It was because I was a total idiot in paying with insufficient funds on my card. So the delivery got delayed by two weeks! Well, the good thing is I have it now.
Since the first crush on Turkish I have been dabbling with Turkish/Turkic languages for three years now. Many times I have decided to start learning Turkish seriously, but the plan always failed, succombing to other business I called 'more important' as an excuse. If I really had started Turkish three years ago I would be very good by now.
Oh no regrets. I'll do it now. With a PhD in Turcology in mind I need to lay the foundation right from this moment. I'll start from Eastern Turkish, represented by Uzbek and Uyghur, because I have a passion for Central Asia and I'm planning a trip there in the near future. Uyghur will probably be the focus of my PhD and I need to learn it well now. However, due to the unavailability of more advanced Uyghur grammars, I can only depend on Uzbek and even Chagatay materials, which can be found in abundance. I'm ordering some easy-to-follow Uzbek textbooks from CelCAR because the Bodrogligeti's book I have now a. doesn't have recording b. is too intensive. While waiting for the book from CelCAR, I'll finish 'A Basic Course in Uyghur', the book I got from China, and then I'll keep it up with the CelCAR book, and finally the more advanced, more comprehensive Bodrogligeti book. When my Arabic and Persian are good, I'll progress to Chagatay, but that's not planned for the near future.
Western Turkish, represented by Turkey's Turkish, is not really planned for the near future either. I'll work on the 'foundation languages' first, i.e. Arabic, Persian and Eastern Turkish which is more Turkish than Western Turkish. I'll probably start Western Turkish in my fourth year of university or after, and if I'm lucky I'll probably go to a language class in Turkey.
What is planned for the near, or immediate future, in addition to Eastern Turkish, is Arabic. I'm having a break from Persian because I think I've reached a level when I need good Arabic to make greater progress in Persian. I read in the preface of a famous Persian-English dictionary that 'Persian is so imbued with Arabic that any Persian scholar will ultimately end up being an Arabic scholar' or something along the lines, can't remember the exact words. I find Arabic words in Persian excruciatingly hard to retain in memory unless they make sense to you when you analyse them, breaking them down into their original, meaningful triliteral roots in Arabic. Otherwise you'll just have to remember them as they are, which I'm not at all good at doing. I have a good vocabulary in English and Romance languages thanks to the limited Latin I know. Latinate words actually make sense where they don't seem to. I guess it's the same thing with Arabic and Persian.
Uzbek and Uyghur contain enough Persian words for me not to forget the Persian I have already learnt. If I'm to progress to Chagatay, Persian words and structures are more prevalent. These languages will most certainly imprint the Persian words more firmly than ever in my mind. The cool thing is, in these Turkic languages, Persian words are conjured up with a more fascinating, less boring structure (Oh God I adore agglutinative languages!! The structure just makes more sense and is so much more logical!). As I said, I've been dabbling with the structure for too long, ever since the bit of Japanese I learnt at nine. I'm lucky that agglutination isn't alien to me at all. Since a couple of years' Japanese and Korean during puberty somehow made it natural for me. Now I need to pick it up again, and be serious about it. Finally serious about the beautiful Turkic languages!
I need to be serious about Arabic as well. I'll learn it to the finest details. The language itself is a science! Especially a science of words and word formation, العلم الكلمات. I'm still not too old to learn it well. And I will learn it well, including a perfect pronunciation! I'll have my first Arabic lesson next Monday, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Since the first crush on Turkish I have been dabbling with Turkish/Turkic languages for three years now. Many times I have decided to start learning Turkish seriously, but the plan always failed, succombing to other business I called 'more important' as an excuse. If I really had started Turkish three years ago I would be very good by now.
Oh no regrets. I'll do it now. With a PhD in Turcology in mind I need to lay the foundation right from this moment. I'll start from Eastern Turkish, represented by Uzbek and Uyghur, because I have a passion for Central Asia and I'm planning a trip there in the near future. Uyghur will probably be the focus of my PhD and I need to learn it well now. However, due to the unavailability of more advanced Uyghur grammars, I can only depend on Uzbek and even Chagatay materials, which can be found in abundance. I'm ordering some easy-to-follow Uzbek textbooks from CelCAR because the Bodrogligeti's book I have now a. doesn't have recording b. is too intensive. While waiting for the book from CelCAR, I'll finish 'A Basic Course in Uyghur', the book I got from China, and then I'll keep it up with the CelCAR book, and finally the more advanced, more comprehensive Bodrogligeti book. When my Arabic and Persian are good, I'll progress to Chagatay, but that's not planned for the near future.
Western Turkish, represented by Turkey's Turkish, is not really planned for the near future either. I'll work on the 'foundation languages' first, i.e. Arabic, Persian and Eastern Turkish which is more Turkish than Western Turkish. I'll probably start Western Turkish in my fourth year of university or after, and if I'm lucky I'll probably go to a language class in Turkey.
What is planned for the near, or immediate future, in addition to Eastern Turkish, is Arabic. I'm having a break from Persian because I think I've reached a level when I need good Arabic to make greater progress in Persian. I read in the preface of a famous Persian-English dictionary that 'Persian is so imbued with Arabic that any Persian scholar will ultimately end up being an Arabic scholar' or something along the lines, can't remember the exact words. I find Arabic words in Persian excruciatingly hard to retain in memory unless they make sense to you when you analyse them, breaking them down into their original, meaningful triliteral roots in Arabic. Otherwise you'll just have to remember them as they are, which I'm not at all good at doing. I have a good vocabulary in English and Romance languages thanks to the limited Latin I know. Latinate words actually make sense where they don't seem to. I guess it's the same thing with Arabic and Persian.
Uzbek and Uyghur contain enough Persian words for me not to forget the Persian I have already learnt. If I'm to progress to Chagatay, Persian words and structures are more prevalent. These languages will most certainly imprint the Persian words more firmly than ever in my mind. The cool thing is, in these Turkic languages, Persian words are conjured up with a more fascinating, less boring structure (Oh God I adore agglutinative languages!! The structure just makes more sense and is so much more logical!). As I said, I've been dabbling with the structure for too long, ever since the bit of Japanese I learnt at nine. I'm lucky that agglutination isn't alien to me at all. Since a couple of years' Japanese and Korean during puberty somehow made it natural for me. Now I need to pick it up again, and be serious about it. Finally serious about the beautiful Turkic languages!
I need to be serious about Arabic as well. I'll learn it to the finest details. The language itself is a science! Especially a science of words and word formation, العلم الكلمات. I'm still not too old to learn it well. And I will learn it well, including a perfect pronunciation! I'll have my first Arabic lesson next Monday, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
A Grammar of Chagatay
Finally I found this famous Chagatay grammar book by András J. E. Bodrogligeti in the Oriental Institute Library. Joy joy joy joy! If it looks promising I may keep it for long and learn the language properly.
I flipped through it. It strikes me how similar this Turkic tongue of the 12th century is to modern Turkic languages.
In Oxford, Tolkien discovered Gothic, Finnish and Welsh, Alexander Ding discovered Chagatay.
I flipped through it. It strikes me how similar this Turkic tongue of the 12th century is to modern Turkic languages.
In Oxford, Tolkien discovered Gothic, Finnish and Welsh, Alexander Ding discovered Chagatay.
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