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

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AlexTG Green Belt Posts: 299 Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:14 pm Location: Tasmania, Australia Languages: Easy to Read: English(N), French, Spanish

But this book is more than a guide to foreign languages; it goes deep into the roots of all knowledge as it explores the history of speech. It lights up the dim pathways of prehistory and unfolds the story of the slow growth of human expression from the most primitive signs and sounds to the elaborate variations of the highest cultures. Without language no knowledge would be possible; here we see how language is at once the source and the reservoir of all we know. Rewarding and delightful . . . for everyone who has the slightest curiosity or ambition in self expression, this is a book that contains months or years of pleasurable profit.--Christopher Morley Montmorency Brown Belt Posts: 1035 Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 3:01 pm Location: Oxfordshire, UK Languages: English (Native)

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It is often easy to guess the meaning of written words in one of them if we know the meaning of corresponding words in the other. Indeed we can go far beyond guesswork. Finally, he provides a vocabulary of 500 words for the major Romance languages and for the major Germanic languages. His argument is that if a person learned the Latin and Greek vocabulary lists and all of the 500 word vocabulary lists of all of the languages he provides that a person could understand and make himself understood anywhere in Europe. 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. 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. The spoken language of a speech community is continually changing. Where uniformity exists, local dialects crop up.

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.” 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.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. 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. It also includes how a man can communicate across continents and down the ages through the impersonal and permanent record which we call writing.

Can't remember the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth Solid state physics Quantum theory Chemical bonds SCIENCE Physics Condensed Matter Física do estado sólido Mecânica quântica urn:lcp:loomoflanguage0000bodm:epub:f6693c7e-f0b5-451f-8b6c-9630f8ff5de2 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier loomoflanguage0000bodm Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0tr8m03r Invoice 1652 Isbn 039330034X Lccn 85015222 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-beta-20210815 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9575 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-0000197 Openlibrary_edition The Loom of Language. A guide to foreign languages for the home student . Edited and arranged by Lancelot Hogben. With plates (Primers for the Age of Plenty. no. 3.) Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom: Discover the Full Potential of the Rigid-Heddle Loom, for Beginners and BeyondThis 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. Forgotten 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 Other similar books teach you to learn any language, including those outside the Indo-European language family that share literally nothing with your native tongue, English. The Loom of Language starts with multiple chapters about linguistics. (contra Benny the Polyglot, Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World who counsels speaking on Day 1, and Kaufmann, The Way of the Linguist: A Language Learning Odyssey who would have me reading text with native speaker audio on Day 1).