Language worth learning ranking?

[saepe]

Hello,

I created this new post after asking about sanskrit and researching a bit.

During the research I realized how many languages are in India and how they compete for attention.

This made it worst to choose sanskrit a language to learn. Tamil claim they have an older language and don't care about Sanskrit dilemma. Kannada is another old language but mainly derived from old Pakrit.

In other words, I wasn't able to find a straight answer. Furthermore there are at least three types of Sanskrit: vedic, panini and modern.

So some questions arose from that little research.

Why learn an ancient language? What to consider about a language before making the plunge?

Therefore I'd like to ask here considering it's litterary corpus and ancientness, which languages would be nice to learn?

Sanskrit - because vedas, yoga, bagada vita, etc.
Arabic - great literary corpus
Latin - well, a given
Ancient Greek - just a logical step after latin
Russian - hard language, good literature perhaps (but not ancient)
The official language of buddism
Anything worth in japan?
(fill in another)

So what are peoples ranking? Considering a few things, litterary corpus, ancientness, language paradigms, etc.

Please provide a list and the reasons.

Thank you.

 

[Pacifica]

Just follow your heart - lol.

 

[Ater Gladius]

Klingon and Quenya are two most important language to you, fortune teller told.

 

[saepe]

I'd love a bit more elaborated answers.

 

[Nooj]

well klingon is the language that shakespeare was written in, and quenya is the language you must learn if you want to be a true tolkein fan. is that what you wanted?

 

[Fernandus O.]

I agree with the ones originally proposed, yet before I suggest more languages, I would like to speak further about Ancient Greek's importance. It is greater than one would think, since the greeks were pioneers in several fields. For Studies in Humanities and Philosphy (mostly, since it can also be applied to Science and Engineering studies), I highly recommend Ancient Greek. In Ancient Greek we can find Philosophy and the earliest forms of dramatic literature: Aristophanes' comedies and Sophocles' tragedies should serve as an acceptable example for this. Not to mention that surviving documents from the Library of Alexandria are mostly in Ancient Greek.

Now, since Latin is the language discussed here and this website is in English, I would like to suggest Celtic and Proto-Germanic languages. The reason is simple: Great Britain was inhabited by Celts, then invaded by Romans, then Angles and Saxons (germanic tribes), and it also suffered invasions from the Normands. Thus, the origins of English are to be found in those laguages in addition to Latin. Besides, the cultural offerings of each language block are massive and rich. Which Celtic and Germanic lanaguges in particular? Brittonic Celtic and Western Germanic. Still why limit oneself to specific languages and not seek more?

There is a lot of wisdom and knowledge to be found in Ancient Eastern Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, and their several branches have a lot to share with us. I do not really know much about them and I would like to, that's why I propose them here.

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

Don't forget that Chinese is not a language, but a group of many similar languages. Mandarin and Cantonese are as different from each other as French and Spanish are different.

 

[alexios]

Also note that many of the languages you've listed here are of diverse linguistic classifications. Latin, Sanskrit, Russian, and Greek might be a reasonable undertaking but the others are both significantly different from one another and from the four Indo-European ones mentioned. Of course this isn't to say that you can't learn whatever language you want whenever you want, but learning several within a short time frame will need some more organization.

 

[interprete]

Something I find a bit annoying and which should be borne in mind when embarking on the study of an ancient language is how much said language has evolved over the time span it is associated with, meaning that even if you learn the 'standard' version of that ancient language you might still have difficulty reading most of the texts written in that language when they were written earlier or later than the version of the language you know. This might be obvious for latinists though since Latin has the same issue. I've encountered it with Arabic, where even the best Arabic scholars agree that you can't just take any Arabic text written in any period and read it as you would a magazine, because a word used in a certain way in the 6th century can mean something completely different in the 7th and may even take on the opposite meaning in the 8th and so on. That's definitely an argument that stops me from trying to learn Greek for example, but I am pretty sure it holds true for any major ancient language.

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

Something I find a bit annoying and which should be borne in mind when embarking on the study of an ancient language is how much said language has evolved over the time span it is associated with, meaning that even if you learn the 'standard' version of that ancient language you might still have difficulty reading most of the texts written in that language when they were written earlier or later than the version of the language you know. This might be obvious for latinists though since Latin has the same issue. I've encountered it with Arabic, where even the best Arabic scholars agree that you can't just take any Arabic text written in any period and read it as you would a magazine, because a word used in a certain way in the 6th century can mean something completely different in the 7th and may even take on the opposite meaning in the 8th and so on. That's definitely an argument that stops me from trying to learn Greek for example, but I am pretty sure it holds true for any major ancient language.

Even the English language can undergo such drastic semantic change. For example, the word "gay" changed its meaning from "joyful" to "lame" within a span of one generation (and "gay" as in "homosexual" is used since the 1930s as well and retains this meaning to this day).

The word "sick" still retains its primary meaning of "ill," but is acquiring its meaning of "amazing" among young people.

What can be considered slang in one time can evolve into a standard term in a few decades.

 

[Pacifica]

"Weird" in Old English was a noun (wyrd) meaning "fate".

 

[alexios]

That's definitely an argument that stops me from trying to learn Greek for example, but I am pretty sure it holds true for any major ancient language.

What makes you say that? Almost all the Greek literature we have right up to 1453 is written in the Classical style or some form imitating it. The Byzantines are notorious for relying solely on Classical vocabulary (calling Turks Persai and Franks Keltoi, for instance).

 

[interprete]

Even the Englis.h language can undergo such drastic semantic change. For example, the word "gay" changed its meaning from "joyful" to "lame" within a span of one generation (and "gay" as in "homosexual" is used since the 1930s as well and retains this meaning to this day).

The word "sick" still retains its primary meaning of "ill," but is acquiring its meaning of "amazing" among young people.

What can be considered slang in one time can evolve into a standard term in a few decades

Of course, but when someone decides to learn a 'current' language, they usually aim at mastering the language as it is spoken right now, so they won't really care if they can't read older texts or understand older forms of the language.
Most people who gain an interest in latin (or any other ancient language) however, usually have the idea that they will be able to read everything that was ever written in what is identified as 'the latin language', or 'the sanskrit language' or Greek etc. and after a bit of research (or maybe, much later on in their endeavour, as was my case) find out that it's not the case.

What makes you say that? Almost all the Greek literature we have right up to 1453 is written in the Classical style or some form imitating it.

Really ? I've always read and been told that the Bible for example was written in some later form of Greek very different from Classical Greek, and that early Greek was even harder than the Greek which people are taught at school. I'd be glad to learn that I'm wrong though... that's really the main issue that makes me reluctant to start Greek.

 

[Pacifica]

It seems to me that when you know classical Latin, you can read any kind of Latin, the differences being small enough not to be much of a barrier — barring perhaps very archaic Latin like the Carmen Arvale.

 

[interprete]

It seems to me that when you know classical Latin, you can read any kind of Latin, the differences being small enough not to be much of a barrier — barring perhaps very archaic Latin like the Carmen Arvale.

Are you sure you don't need at least some sort of training/guidance to be able to read Middle Age texts with ease and without being puzzled by the meaning of words and the sometimes strange grammar? I wouldn't know, I'm not fluent in Latin, but again those are things I have heard.
What I can say confidently is that it is definitely a problem in Arabic and in Chinese. In those two languages the vocabulary and even some syntax can turn around from one century to the next. So if you want to learn Arabic to read the Qur'an or Chinese to read the Tao Te King, you will have to focus on the state of the language that prevailed at those specific time periods. And then you won't find it easy to read a text from the 13th century, let alone a modern text.

 

[Pacifica]

If you're used only to classical vocabulary, you'll certainly need to use a medieval Latin dictionary at some point, but differences in grammar are few enough and easy to get as you go.

 

[alexios]

Really ? I've always read and been told that the Bible for example was written in some later form of Greek very different from Classical Greek, and that early Greek was even harder than the Greek which people are taught at school. I'd be glad to learn that I'm wrong though... that's really the main issue that makes me reluctant to start Greek.

Biblical Greek (aka Koine) does have some different vocabulary, but it's essentially a simplified version of Classical Greek (i.e. Attic or Ionic). But if you want to read the classics, like Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, etc., then you're dealing with a largely uniform language. Some authors write in their local dialects but that's nothing a short review of the forms can't solve. Now Homeric Greek is weird in both its forms and its vocabulary, to the point that you need a specialized dictionary for it, so you might be right to feel some hesitation in that regard. Still, Homeric is definitely worth delving into; some people even recommend starting with it instead of with Attic.

I think most universities that teach Greek teach Attic exclusively and then follow up with courses in Homer and non-Attic authors. I imagine seminaries teach only Koine.

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

"Weird" in Old English was a noun (wyrd) meaning "fate".

A short time before Shakespeare, that word disappeared from the English language, only for Shakespeare to reintroduce that word as the "Weird Sisters" in a certain Scottish play he wrote and from numerous performances of that play, the sense of "strange, unusual, peculiar" developed.

 

[Ater Gladius]

Are you sure you don't need at least some sort of training/guidance to be able to read Middle Age texts with ease and without being puzzled by the meaning of words and the sometimes strange grammar? I wouldn't know, I'm not fluent in Latin, but again those are things I have heard.
What I can say confidently is that it is definitely a problem in Arabic and in Chinese. In those two languages the vocabulary and even some syntax can turn around from one century to the next. So if you want to learn Arabic to read the Qur'an or Chinese to read the Tao Te King, you will have to focus on the state of the language that prevailed at those specific time periods. And then you won't find it easy to read a text from the 13th century, let alone a modern text.

This is because people often think that Quranic Arabic is the same as modern Arabic, and Old Chinese is the same as modern Chinese. It is ridiculous! It is like comparing Italian with Latin, or Hindi with Sanskrit.

Especially for Old Chinese, people often forget that it is written in Seal script (zhuanshu) or Bronze script (jinwen), which is a different system from the current system; the phonology is also drastically different. But that aside, the lexicon, semantics, syntax and grammar are also different enough to say that they are distinct languages. To read Old Chinese, even with the help of a modern gloss, needs special training.

 

[Aurifex]

To read Old Chinese, even with the help of a modern gloss, needs special training.

I'd agree with that.
By the way, what is the Chinese equivalent of the English expression "It's like Greek to me", used when you want to say how mystifying a language is to you? Is it 跟天书一样 (It's like Heaven Script), by any chance?