The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages

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Anyone who loves languages simply has to read this book cover to cover. Bodmer manages to present many of the more interesting anecdotes of linguistic lore in a truly accessible fashion, which alone is worth the time of working through this sizable volume. YtownPolyglot Orange Belt Posts: 227 Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2016 9:42 pm Location: Ohio, USA Languages: English (N), French (C1), Spanish (B2), German (B2), Italian (B1) Use of rules given in them while wandering about the corridors of the miniature language museum of Part IV. One example must suffice for the present. One difference between speech and writing is important to anyone who is trying to learn a foreign language, especially if it is closely related to a language already familiar.

The spoken language of a speech community is continually changing. Where uniformity exists, local dialects crop up. It is divided into four parts. Part I is a "natural history" of language. Part II covers the "hybrid heritage" of English as a language which straddles the Germanic and Romance branches of the Indo-European language tree. Part III covers language problems and planning movements. Part IV is a "language museum" of comparative vocabulary tables. LANGUAGE implies more than learning to signal like a firefly or to talk like a parrot. It means more than the unique combination which we call human speech. If we know something about the history of sound correspondence (Chapter V, p. 185). To make the best of our knowledge we should also know something about the evolution of writing itself.The book contains essays about the Latin and Greek origins of European words. He discusses Romance and Germanic languages. He describes trends in the syntax and semantics of the language families. As I said above, Part II is a treasure trove. Bodmer distills everything a student needs to know about sound correspondences, etc. to make connections across the outlined languages and accelerate learning. The only annoyance is that the huge tables in Part IV aren’t available online somewhere as spreadsheets (the book is almost a century old after all) so one could import them into a spaced repetition system like Anki for efficient learning. I typed these out as Google spreadsheets for my own use. I’ve made them available here: Romance Word List, Germanic Word List, and the Greek Roots List from the language museum. Importing into Anki or suchlike is pretty easy. Can't remember the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth ASIN: B0006DCJAU; B0006DHV4E; B0007DWF9O; B0007F22FY; B0007J194K; B0007J2GXI; B000J2R80O; B0018HVHDI; B0027653XO; B0028P2LIO; B003KD8VLO Coincidently, I was reading the part on Romance verbs this am and I have been reading this book since at least when I bought my current copy, 1980´s.

In less than a thousand years what was a local dialect may become the official speech of a nation that cannot communicate with its neighbors without the help of an interpreter or translator. There is so much great information in here that it requires repeat readings over several years, especially Part II. (I'm on my first pass.) Consider this book a meta-manual for learning how to learn languages. Of itself, no such change can bring the age-long calamity of war to an end; and it is a dangerous error to conceive that it can do so. We cannot hope to reach a remedy for the language obstacles to international co-operation on a democratic footing, while predatory finance capital, intrigues or armament manufacturers, and the vested interest of a rentier class in the misery of colonial peoples continue to stifle the impulse to a world-wide enterprise for the common wealth of mankind. No language reform can abolish war, while social agencies far more powerful than mere linguistic misunderstandings furnish fresh occasion for it. What intelligent language planning can do is to forge a new instrument for human collaboration on a planetary scale, when social institutions propitious to international strife no longer thwart the constructive task of planning health, leisure and plenty for all.” The wonderful thing about The Loom of Languageis how ahead of its time it was in terms of understanding the right approach to language learning. The problem is that seventy years later the same misunderstandings and misapprehensions exist, as if no progress was made at all!limey75 Yellow Belt Posts: 76 Joined: Wed May 25, 2016 11:30 am Location: UK Languages: English (N); intermediate: German, Norwegian, Old English.

People still tell me they cannot possibly learn a language because they took classes in school and failed to become fluent (although they usually also admit they passedthe classes, which should be evidence enough that something is wrong). Bodmer knew what was wrong seven decades ago, noting the drudgery of the so-called ‘direct method’ of language instruction, which bans the use of the native language. There is zero evidence that this approach works, while there isevidence that it actually inhibits learning. Yet here we are, still following the same approach. International YouTube Star Nuseir Yassin, Owner of Nas Daily, Grows Russian Language YouTube Channel 35% with BLEND Matt Strach What I also love about Bodmer’s work is the sense of joy he tries to convey, the idea that languages are a wonderful puzzle worth solving. When I first read the book many years ago I was inspired by it, driven to master languages the way Bodmer suggested, and I still use many of the ideas in the book as a guide towards my own continuing education in languages and cultures of the world. It’s exhilarating to read, even today, seven decades later, the thoughts of a brilliant mind on the necessity and joy of learning language, and how this goal can best be achieved. If you dream of learning more than one language from the following list, read/skim this book and use the tips. It will save you time and effort overall. The list: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, plus the languages in the above quote. The ideas will also work for languages like Catalan and Romanian, but you will have to find the relative shifts somewhere else, which won't be hard to do once you understand how they usually work. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of the infringing activity and that is to be removedLusty's Lloyd Loom. With Englis, German and French Language Tetxt. a History of 1930s Design & collectors' Price Guise The Loom of Language shares much information and spirit with The Seven Sieves. The latter is also very good, but Loom is more comprehensive and easier to find. There is even a scanned copy available on Archive.org. unreservedly accessible pdf archives on the Internet. We don't have any document on our server. In the event This book is a combination of a reference book, with parts meant to be consulted as needed, and some chapters meant to be read from beginning to end. The sections of interest to me right now were written for a very specific audience: native English speakers intent on learning Romance and Teutonic languages. There are sections devoted to learning other Romance languages once you know your first one, I hope to make use of this someday! That narrow focus allows a degree of specific insight missing from similar books.

Why learn linguistics? We learn how older languages like Old English forked into German and English, and that there are a few common changes to know. e.g. in Wasser and “water”, W in Old English has not changed over time and remains the same in English. In German it sounds like V. The Old English word wæter had a hard T consonant that survived to English, but evolved to “ss” and softened in German. The point of learning this is that there are a handful of these changes you can learn and then you will automatically know hundreds of words without effort.I’m looking forward to someday using the section about working within the Romance and Teutonic languages. e.g. if you know the German or Dutch word, you can deduce the meaning of Swedish or Danish words. Here's an example from the Lord's Prayer that many English speakers could probably read already. To be brief, this is an excellent over view of language, specifically the Germanic and Romance groups of the Indo European family. If you're interested in a broad overview of languages, not just in studying one of them, then you're going to come across this treasure trove of a book at some stage in your travels. There are examples like "I wash" (which means I'm bathing myself in that era) which are used to show how "English has evolved so much further than other European languages" by even being able to remove personal pronouns via the use of context. Given that I would never say "I wash" but instead, "I'm washing myself", I lost trust in a lot of what the book said about the "advanced evolution of Anglo-American". He wrote his PhD thesis in 1924 at University of Zurich on the topic Studies about a dialogue in Nathan by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing ( Studien zum Dialog in Lessings Nathan). After that he taught in Europe and at University of Cape Town. Later he held a position within the Department of Modern Languages at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was succeeded in his position at MIT by Noam Chomsky in 1955. [1] Bibliography [ edit ]