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Week 3 Discussion

Getting Started

Let’s start with the quiz!

Get out your device, use the access code on the board, and complete the quiz!

Access code is HISTORICAL

Quick Review

What’s with the “proto” stuff?

• A proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family
  • Attested = languages we have evidence for their existence (e.g., Latin)
  • Proto-languages are usually unattested , or partially attested at best
  • They are reconstructed by way of the comparative reconstruction
• Languages like “Proto-Indo-European” are reconstructed languages
  • That is, we have no direct record of it, but we use the daughter languages to attempt to understand what language would have been like! ::: {.notes}

Tell them Dr. Cramer didn’t get to this part in lecture on Friday, so you are going to briefly cover it. Not giving the reconstruction example though.

:::

Proto-Indo-European

• Proto-Indo-European is thought to be the common ancestor in the Indo-European language family, which includes branches like Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Celtic, and Italic
  • Family = largest (46% of the world’s population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language)
  • Cool story: everyone was on board to say Greek and Latin were related. In the 1700s, a guy named William Jones wanted to add Sanskrit, an Indian language, to the mix. He had a bunch of it wrong, but it still made the connection between European languages and others more apparent.
• For context, we believe Proto-Indo-European was spoken around 4500-2500 BCE somewhere in eastern Europe, near the Black Sea
  • Fun fact: they were nomadic and likely responsible for domesticating horses!
  • Speakers migrated away from the area and lost touch, therefore creating different groups then different dialects then different languages
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language

• On the next slide, I have a short excerpt from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales written in Middle English. You must do the following with a partner:
  • “Translate” the text into Modern English
    • First, try guessing what each word is
    • If you are struggling, you can Google the word
    • Don’t just leave it word-for-word! Make it sound like something you might say! It doesn’t have to rhyme!
  • Describe the kinds of things you had to change aside from spelling.
    • Did you have to get a newer word? Did you have to change word order, word endings, etc.? What pronunciation differences do you think there are, based on the spelling?
  • Finally, check your translation here: https://openl.io/translate/middle-english
    • How similar are they? How different?

Activity time!

Tell them NOT to go to a translator first!! Maybe print out some copies of the next slide? You can show them what happens when they google “nathelees”: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nathelees Have them try to say it out loud to get partners to guess what word it is (like mad gab!) To show them the translation, you can just do the checking part of the exercise up on the board. So open https://openl.io/translate/middle-English and copy the text of the passage after they’ve had a chance to do it themselves.

But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space,

Er that I ferther in this tale pace,

Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun

To telle yow al the condicioun

Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,

And whiche they weren and of what degree,

And eek in what array that they were inne;

And at a Knyght than wol I first bigynne.

Part of the Prologue. Full text of Prologue here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43926/the-canterbury-tales-general-prologue Remind them that we aren’t looking for right or wrong answers. Translation can be tricky!

Next week!

• Monday and Wednesday in Singletary
  • Our first SPOTLIGHT LECTURE!
  • What is a word?
• Observation notes #1 due TODAY!!
• Friday = Quiz 3
  • Be here!
  • Let me know if you have any questions or concerns