--- Simon Huxtable <jetfromgladiators at yahoo.com>
wrote:
>
> Like Icelandic nouns? You'll love Finnish nouns!
> They
> appear to have fifteen cases in five different
> categories. It's the sort of language that I'd like
> to
> learn for the sake of it, if I had time to learn
> things for the sake of it. From my ill-fated attempt
> to learn Swedish, I think they have noun suffixes
> too.
I've thought about learning Estonian, which is similar to Finnish, and I go to Estonia often enough...
Icelandic is a really cool language. Hell, Icelanders are a really cool people. Who else could have pulled off colonizing North America in the 11th century using longboats? I've allways wondered what the Scandinavian reaction was to Colombus: "Big deal, you found Vinland." Did Colombus know about Vinland? I love the part in the Greenland Saga where the Vikings are duking it out with the American Indians.
> However, my Greek - which I started at roughly the
> same time - is coming on leaps and bounds, mainly
> thanks to the fact that my partner is Greek. I think
> learning the language has put me in her mother's
> good
> books, too. Eimai kalos foititis!
>
I studied Attic Greek, and no way would I be able to speak it -- although I did manage to give a Greek cabdriver directions in Washington DC once. He thought it was pretty cool I was addressing him in the broken Plato-era Greek, which I guess they all study there in school. :) I wonder why it is that Ancient and Modern Greek are still relatively similar, while Ancient and Modern Latin (i.e., Italian) have totally different grammars.
FWIW Greek really helped me with Russian, since the languages have similar verb-aspect systems.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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