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Language Dilema
9 years ago
Well, I've hit a situation involving language studies and now I can't choose. My main problem is:
Which language should I learn? Spanish or Turkish?
I started learning Spanish nearly two weeks ago online and it seemed fairly easy. I already know a few expressions, nouns, possessive pronouns, and basic verb conjugation, which is more regular than French verbs to be honest. After learning French for a year already, Spanish should be easy, right? Actually it is. The only problem is that now I'm lacking some motivation to do it. Mainly I chose Spanish just because some of my favourite people here use Spanish to write and I wanted to be able to be a little like them, I suppose. Spanish is the most widely spoken Romance language after all. Losing my motivation in Spanish made me realise that I already knew two Romance languages; French and Romanian. Mostly Spanish is spoken in America, but I am very interested in European and Asian languages. French and Romanian are quite influential in their regions in Europe, while Spanish and Portuguese set out trade routs to explore the world. Perhaps I might continue doing the lessons for a few weeks but then again, school is starting in 2 weeks.
Also, the languages I set out and learned are very important and influential in my story, "Encounter in the Graveyard". I want to concentrate on the further chapters of this story since an editor has seen that chapter just two days ago. She wants me to send her my write-ups regularly. So, I wish to concentrate more on cultural, linguistic and symbolic elements in the story. French is an important literary language and has influenced some Russian words and idioms, Romanian has loads of Slavic vocabulary, and many Turkic languages are spoken in Russia, the setting of my story.
Also, I have been concentrating on IE languages a lot, perhaps I might switch to a different language family.
Again, I might not ignore Spanish completely, but just stop taking lessons and take it as a hobby, while raising the importance level of Turkish.
So here are some cultural points of the language (families)
- Spanish is an IE (Indo-European) language which descended from Latin, like French, Romanian, and Sardinian. Other IE languages include English, German, Russian, Armenian and Bengali.
- Spanish is 25% different from Latin, compared to Romainian which is at 23% and French at 44%. Spanish is very similar to all the other Ibero-Romance languages like Portuguese, Galician and Asturian, and also to Occito-Romance languages like Catalan, Occitan.
- In IE culture, the wolf (*wĺ̥kʷos) and bear (*h2ŕ̥tḱos) are animals associated with negative taboo. The Irish descendant of this word (olc) means "evil". Also the Greek word for wolf (lýkos) was supposedly slightly altered (<*álkʷos) to avoid the negative taboo. So was the Latin word (LVPVS<*lucus).
- The main IE languages spoken in Russia are Russian and its dialects, Ukrainian, Armenian, Ossetic (Iranian), and French, German, English.
- The old pagan Indo-European culture has mainly been replaced by religions today like Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism. The only pagan elements still present are the great Gods Jupiter, Zeus (Other Greeks Gods are mainly non-Greek in origin), and historically also Dyaus Pater (Sanskrit). Also are the superstitious beliefs. Russia has more of these superstitions than other places in Europe dating from the Slavic pagan era.
- Slavic people have a lot of symbols from their pagan era. Most Greek Gods come from a non-Greek origin, so do many Greek words.
- Turkish is a Turkic language, another different language family altogether. Other Turkish languages include Kazakh, Kyrghyz, Azerbaijani, Tatar and Uyghur.
- The wolf is a major figure in Turkish mythology and culture. There is a legend of the "Mother Wolf" or so that I've read. There are many pop/folk songs in Turkic languages like Kazakh and Kyrghyz which have wolves standing beside the warrior.
- Turkic peoples are passionate about their language so they do enjoy when people speak their native tongues.
- Many Turkic countries were under the rule of the Soviet Union. As a result, Russian is still used in communication in all former republics of the USSR. However, when speaking about culture, art, and music, they enjoy using their native languages while speaking.
- Many Turkic languages are spoken in Russia, such as Yakut/Sakha and Altai (Siberian Turkic), and Tatar, Crimean Tatar, Bashkir, Karalchay-Balkar and Chuvash.
Bullet; Yellow Turkish is 85~90% similar to Azerbaijani and about 60% similar to Turkmen. It's also similar to Kazakh, but there are more sound differences. Chuvash is different from the other Turkic languages. It's the last remaining language of its branch in the Turkic family.
So that's it. I need some advice. Mainly I learned the languages due to my interest in European culture, and now more into Russian culture. I might continue Spanish, but as a dabbler and not very serious. I will make my plans after a month as it may just be an impulse and I need to think through it.
Spanish is similar to Portuguese and I am thinking about learning not Portuguese, but a Portuguese creole, mainly spoken in areas in India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Again, I'll have to give myself time and probably a new story to do as such.
Which language should I learn? Spanish or Turkish?
I started learning Spanish nearly two weeks ago online and it seemed fairly easy. I already know a few expressions, nouns, possessive pronouns, and basic verb conjugation, which is more regular than French verbs to be honest. After learning French for a year already, Spanish should be easy, right? Actually it is. The only problem is that now I'm lacking some motivation to do it. Mainly I chose Spanish just because some of my favourite people here use Spanish to write and I wanted to be able to be a little like them, I suppose. Spanish is the most widely spoken Romance language after all. Losing my motivation in Spanish made me realise that I already knew two Romance languages; French and Romanian. Mostly Spanish is spoken in America, but I am very interested in European and Asian languages. French and Romanian are quite influential in their regions in Europe, while Spanish and Portuguese set out trade routs to explore the world. Perhaps I might continue doing the lessons for a few weeks but then again, school is starting in 2 weeks.
Also, the languages I set out and learned are very important and influential in my story, "Encounter in the Graveyard". I want to concentrate on the further chapters of this story since an editor has seen that chapter just two days ago. She wants me to send her my write-ups regularly. So, I wish to concentrate more on cultural, linguistic and symbolic elements in the story. French is an important literary language and has influenced some Russian words and idioms, Romanian has loads of Slavic vocabulary, and many Turkic languages are spoken in Russia, the setting of my story.
Also, I have been concentrating on IE languages a lot, perhaps I might switch to a different language family.
Again, I might not ignore Spanish completely, but just stop taking lessons and take it as a hobby, while raising the importance level of Turkish.
So here are some cultural points of the language (families)
- Spanish is an IE (Indo-European) language which descended from Latin, like French, Romanian, and Sardinian. Other IE languages include English, German, Russian, Armenian and Bengali.
- Spanish is 25% different from Latin, compared to Romainian which is at 23% and French at 44%. Spanish is very similar to all the other Ibero-Romance languages like Portuguese, Galician and Asturian, and also to Occito-Romance languages like Catalan, Occitan.
- In IE culture, the wolf (*wĺ̥kʷos) and bear (*h2ŕ̥tḱos) are animals associated with negative taboo. The Irish descendant of this word (olc) means "evil". Also the Greek word for wolf (lýkos) was supposedly slightly altered (<*álkʷos) to avoid the negative taboo. So was the Latin word (LVPVS<*lucus).
- The main IE languages spoken in Russia are Russian and its dialects, Ukrainian, Armenian, Ossetic (Iranian), and French, German, English.
- The old pagan Indo-European culture has mainly been replaced by religions today like Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism. The only pagan elements still present are the great Gods Jupiter, Zeus (Other Greeks Gods are mainly non-Greek in origin), and historically also Dyaus Pater (Sanskrit). Also are the superstitious beliefs. Russia has more of these superstitions than other places in Europe dating from the Slavic pagan era.
- Slavic people have a lot of symbols from their pagan era. Most Greek Gods come from a non-Greek origin, so do many Greek words.
- Turkish is a Turkic language, another different language family altogether. Other Turkish languages include Kazakh, Kyrghyz, Azerbaijani, Tatar and Uyghur.
- The wolf is a major figure in Turkish mythology and culture. There is a legend of the "Mother Wolf" or so that I've read. There are many pop/folk songs in Turkic languages like Kazakh and Kyrghyz which have wolves standing beside the warrior.
- Turkic peoples are passionate about their language so they do enjoy when people speak their native tongues.
- Many Turkic countries were under the rule of the Soviet Union. As a result, Russian is still used in communication in all former republics of the USSR. However, when speaking about culture, art, and music, they enjoy using their native languages while speaking.
- Many Turkic languages are spoken in Russia, such as Yakut/Sakha and Altai (Siberian Turkic), and Tatar, Crimean Tatar, Bashkir, Karalchay-Balkar and Chuvash.
Bullet; Yellow Turkish is 85~90% similar to Azerbaijani and about 60% similar to Turkmen. It's also similar to Kazakh, but there are more sound differences. Chuvash is different from the other Turkic languages. It's the last remaining language of its branch in the Turkic family.
So that's it. I need some advice. Mainly I learned the languages due to my interest in European culture, and now more into Russian culture. I might continue Spanish, but as a dabbler and not very serious. I will make my plans after a month as it may just be an impulse and I need to think through it.
Spanish is similar to Portuguese and I am thinking about learning not Portuguese, but a Portuguese creole, mainly spoken in areas in India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Again, I'll have to give myself time and probably a new story to do as such.
