#i think she studies a language. i'm thinking french and a little greek on the side | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wrongcaitlyn · 21 days

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I'm sure you've mentioned this before in previous chapters, and I just don't remember, but Will doesn't speak Greek, right?? So does that mean that Apollo never taught him, or was his greek just not good enough to teach him? 😭😭 (ignoring the fact that Apollo had neither the mentality nor the will to teach his son a foreign language at the time)

Orrr, I feel like it's very possible that Apollo just isn't very fluent in Greek anymore bc he doesn't have anyone to talk to. Also, bc he hasn't actually been in Greece in years but like idk

This is probably such a stupid question, but I was just thinking about how Nico's first language is Italian and how overtime he might lose one of the little things that connect him to Bianca 😭😭

Then ofc, my mind drifted to Apollo and about him being fluent in Greek- IDK MAN ANYWAYS I THINK I RAMBLED ENOUGH HAVE A GOOD DAY‼️🫶🫶

ahshhd omg i love this question!! i don’t think ive ever talked about it so the short answer is that no, will doesn’t know greek, he only knows a high school level spanish in this au😭

i actually imagine that apollo didn’t grow up in greece, but in the us (specifically la/hollywood)

his mom probably tried to teach it to him (bc leto is the literal best) but with everything else that he had going on, he just didn’t have the time to ever learn it - his dad always focused more on all of his other hobbies/jobs and his schedule was overloaded enough as it was

but i do imagine that in those years when raising will, he tried to learn it again, just to get in touch with his roots. this is also probably when he first read like the iliad and the odyssey bc i doubt that he read it when he was younger (once again, schedule overload) and generally just tried to learn more abt his heritage and stuff, bc his dad never really brought it up to him

he had been to greece a few times, once for the olympics and a few times for concerts, but he was never really around much to sight see (which, if you noticed, is why i had him going to tourist attractions with nico in athens, when most of the time he tends to stay in the venue or the hotel or tour bus to avoid attention/paparazzi)

but back to the main question - apollo didn’t try to teach will greek bc he was just barely learning it himself, but im sure he’d definitely want will to learn it one day - especially when he would see leo fluent in spanish and nico fluent in italian and thinking how it would be nice to connect will to his culture as well

as for nico, i promise he definitely holds on to italian as a connection to bianca - the last remaining one, too. i think that sometimes he gets scared that he’s abt to forget it, or sometimes his mind will blank on a word and he’ll be terrified (which, tbf, happens in all languages, im bilingual (or trilingual if u count my ap french class which i don’t😭) and forgetting words happens no matter how much u practice) - and so he’ll just talk to himself in italian a bit

i ALSO imagine that whenever he’s talking solely to chiara, they speak in italian. he probably was very excited to hire her for the tour when finding out she was also from italy, and they’re able to sort of keep that going even when traveling the world!

i think by this point, apollo is nearly fluent in greek, but like, the textbook sort of knowing a language. like, he’s memorized all the vocab and grammar and stuff but he’d be a bit clueless in an actual conversation. him attempting to practice his greek in athens would def be hilarious and now i’m sort of upset i didn’t write that💀💀

thank u for the askshkdjs i absolutely love rambling abt apollo and nico likeee ahdksj. so many things i hadn’t even thought abt!!

oh ALSO. ONE OF MY FAV HC’S ABT NICO is that he absolutely loves studying languages. despite being dyslexic, he picks the speaking and understanding part of languages up super easily

so i’m just imagining nico and apollo on the tour bus learning new languages together and nico picking up greek as well so they’ll sometimes try to have conversations in that as well just to practice

they both definitely have duolingo downloaded and are constantly trying to beat each other on the leaderboards

#wrongcaitlyn #talk ur talk asks

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liquidstar · 2 months

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🌙 you already told us bella's sleep schedule so please answer for the main 5 except bella! + 🗺️ for everyone you mentioned so far in the college AU ^_^

OMG YEAH! I ended up rambling a little so I'm putting it under a cut but tysmmm for the ask<3

🌙 - What’s their sleep schedule like?

OK! Like I said for Bella she's very early to bed early to rise but as for the others:

Polaris: She sleeps on the later side, and might sleep past breakfast, but she wakes up before noon at least. But please have breakfast anyway.

Saiph: sleeps early, wakes up early. Unsurprisingly the fire guy is a morning person. But unlike Bella he'll have the occasional "stay up until 3AM" night and won't even adjust when he wakes up

Al: He sleeps at like 5AM. You'll see him at noon. He might adjust this while on mission though. Unsurprisingly the shadow guy is a night owl

Mira: Goes to sleep early but she'll wake up on the later side with Polaris. Eepest girl in the world

🗺️ - What languages do they speak?

First off all the kids raised by Venus still know ASL on top of English, Saiph and Felis probably took it as their secondary language class in highschool for an easy A so that's it. Mira on the other hand would've taken Mandarin for herself on top of that.

Polaris probably only really speaks English, she would've still been raised by Thuban as a young kid so I'm not sure how much Inuktut she'd retained from her parents? Also she likely didn't do well in any language classes in school (dyslexia 😔), but I still think learning to speak in more languages is something she wants to do esp with her cartography interest overlapping w learning about the world.

Al speaks English and Japanese, though he's probably weaker in the latter, maybe speaking really formally? He'd never really committed to learning any specific language in highschool either, just no real motivation. I think he'd know some words or phrases in Cook Islands Maori from his mom but not enough to hold a conversation (might also highly depend on whether or not she's alive in this au idk 💀)

Bella speaks English and probably some French. Similar situation to Al, where she doesn't really speak much to the parent who knows it. Except she actually did commit to taking more classes for it in highschool so she can hold a conversation!

Bernard speaks English, and probably also picked up trace amounts of French from Vesta, he'd probably also take up Arabic for himself and still take Spanish in school, on top of classes for German and Latin. Mira thinks he used to be in one of her Mandarin classes too. Classic overachiever. Probably also speaks Klingon too if we're being honest.

Juno knows English and is actively studying Latin, maybe planning to take up Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, or Old Norse. Old languages pretty much.

Lacerta speaks English and Spanish, probably also took the latter in highschool despite already being fluid. Hilarious if she also speaks Klingon but keeps it a secret to protect her image.

And what's important to remember about Regulus is that, while he's annoying, all the things he thinks about himself are accurate. He IS that smart. He'd probably speak a bit of any language mentioned here and then some. (Except Klingon, he doesn't know what that is) But he's probably the most fluid in English, Farsi, and Latin.

Anyway if you noticed me saying probably and maybe a lot it's because the au still has a lot of concepts about it that are up in the air for rn so I'm not sticking to everything 100% concretely but this is what I think so far at least 👍 yay

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wolfsbane-archive · 5 months

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Book Reviews with Elvira!

As a part of my studies right now, I've been having to read a lot of books in our collection. Clement wants me to make a small exhibition for the archives on anything I want, so lots of reading has to be done to find out what I'm interested in. I know I've always enjoyed learning about vampiric magic, which is more heavily practiced among women than men. The first book I've read is a Greek translation of Die Macht, so I have decided to do a review of it for you all!

Die Macht / Ἠ Ισχύς

This book was written by Isolde Vanderwolven and Elsebeth Vanderwolven Lehmann. It was originally published in German in 1902. The book I read is a Greek translation by Agata Kouris, which was published in 1905. We have both the German and Greek translations, as well as English, French, and a couple other languages. It is a very popular book!

Ἠ Ισχύς is a summary of the history of vampiric magic practices in Northern Europe, especially among Frisian and Vanderwolvian vampires living in what is now Germany and Sweden. It, of course, focuses on magic in Schakal-Burg, and Katrinna Vanderwolven's magic teachings. Even before she was a vampire she was a witch, and a very powerful one. Her magic teachings are widely practiced in Eurasia, from my understanding. Jihei told me he has even seen Vanderwolvian witches as far away as Eastern Russia!

I did not like this book very much. It is very strict about the 'right' way to do magic, which is just how the Vanderwolvens are. There is a right way to do everything for them. However, I think that it is important to know as many ways to do one thing as possible, and, sadly, this is one of the ways to do magic. It also gives a very good look into why women vampires are more likely to do magic than the men. There is an entire chapter about Isolde and Elsebeth becoming witches and why they became witches. It is very interesting if you can get a copy in your hands. I have always felt a little bad for the both of them, and their stories of getting into magic were very empowering for someone who has lived in similar situations to them. Especially Isolde.

Anyways, I think I give this book 5 out of 10 teeth! I will be rating things out of teeth instead of out of stars, because I think it is very important to always be a little silly, no matter if you're human or vampire.

Thank you for reading my book review! I will try to share more as I read more books. I will also ask Clement to do some as well, because he has read a great many more books than I have!

Hugs,

Elvira

#unreality #wolfsbane house #vampires #elvira #magic #isolde vanderwolven #elsebeth vanderwolven lehmann #die macht

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marisshifting · 16 days

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Little Introduction!

•This account is mainly about reality shifting!

•My name is too long, and I prefer to be called Mari anyways, so yeah that's my name

•I'm a minor! but a teen (dw I'm not a kid, just in case...)

•I'm from Italy

•I study at a Linguistic High School (focus on three foreign languages' grammar, literature and culture)

•I am a certified ENFP

•I speak Italian and English fluently, I understand Spanish, I know the basics of French, Chinese and Korean and I can read Japanese

•I am straight and cis, but a proud ally!

•My pronouns are she/her/hers

•My favorite color is Lilac

•I am an agnostic Christian

•I have Greek origins

•I have a pretty good sense of humor and I guess I'm pretty fun to talk to?

•I am a Korea enthusiast

•My favorite group is Enhypen (they saved my life! I love them so much)

•I am mainly a Girl Group stan

•I LOVE reading

•My favorite books are (the Harry Potter saga) Little Women, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Pride and Prejudice and some other books

•My favorite and comfort show is Alice in Borderland, I literally can't stfu about it

•My favorite actors are Johnny Depp, Timothée Chalamet (my pookie), Emma Watson, Zendaya, Lee Dohyun, Go Minsi and last but definitely not least, Kento Yamazaki

•My favorite movies are Titanic, Call Me By Your Name, The Dreamers and Ghost

•My favorite musicals are The Greatest Showman and Mammamia

•I listen to EVERY music genre and I mean literally every one.

•My favorite song is (literally enhypen's whole discography) "Given-Taken" by Enhypen. I also love "Do I Wanna Know?" by Arctic Monkeys and some other songs.

DNI!!

•ANTI-SHIFTERS!

•Racists

•Homophobics

•Transphobics

•People who hate on other religions

•25+ adults (I just wouldn't be comfortable)

•Narcissists

•In general people who criticize others

I think that's it for now?

I would love to have some shifters friends, so if someone wants to write to me (as long as they have I would say 13-20 years and are not problematic) they can!

XOXO -Mari🦋🪐

#shifting blog #shifting antis dni #intro post #introduction #pinned intro #introductory post #blog intro

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firespirited · 1 year

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Weird day today. Had a very nice but subtly unnerving surprise meeting with an old friend of the family. She brought up dad which was expected but the religious language and contextualising everything was tough: "you and us are doing ok because we're children of gd" "gd brings us together" "gd protect us from evil" type stuff along with usual gd willing, thank gd, gd is good language.

I handle references to faith just fine culturally in Arabic, it's a little less culturally comfortable in French (or even English) but it's also not something I can reply to except with a polite nod that doesn't say yes but "I hear you".

It brought up a lot of complex emotions about half a dozen things as these things do when you've been rejected or hurt by people with gd as a reason. Also a painful reminder that I need to establish religious boundaries again with family again because I do take words seriously and don't want to be praying or agreeing to prayer because its uncomfortable to say that I'd rather not - after all it is as a matter of respect, if gd is real I refuse to treat communication with Them as trivial.

It was lovely to see she and her family are well. She speaks very fast so I wasn't able to say that I'm very happy for her lesbian daughter even as I could see her skirt around it like she thinks I might be biased against it (Honey no! Even as a tween when I was still christian, I thought any couple willing to commit for life and actually take those 'all circumstances' vows was to be celebrated. Of the dozens of red flags to not approve a marriage, being gay seemed totally illogical to me. Besides the passages about mlm and wlw were clearly in context about getting it on outside of marriage for social or ceremonial reasons and saying it's not real sex because it's not P in V and like A) we'd covered ancien greeks getting freaky in school and B) this was the Monica Lewinski era: everyone in the western world debated whether only P in V/hetero constitutes cheating. As a kid I didn't see it but after Lewinski? Those passages are clearly about what counts as cheating).

And I'll be totally honest, I was so relieved: the first two daughters married macho abusive dirtbags and are now married to new nicer if not exactly groundbreakingly feminist blokes but M's got her stable girlfriend turned wife, and while wlw relationships aren't without heartbreak and high drama, she has a lot better odds of an equal relationship.

I came home and crashed, napped for a while, then had to go do something... anything... because I wasn't in a great headspace so bad news from a friend via sis sent me and her spiralling about medical malpractice/neglect, I went for a second walk - it helped a little. I damaged a doll I was fixing up because I was tired,

Watched Wakanda Forever: excellent potential, same vast talent but obviously made in a rush (bits are clearly missing or chopped to be used in a different way), the underwater world was a blurry dark mess (and that would have been so cool if we could see it!) and I couldn't bear to see them fighting (over what seemed so trivial compared to the real threats), finally we get to see Shuri process 1 thing in between... she's got a whole lot more but hey she's got 1 down. I mean you don't get character study films in the MCU, you get a 3 minutes for Gamora or Rocket to address their lifelong traumas so not bad at all for a Marvel. I just can't with a blockbuster attempting to handle grief while still making a hero action movie, it expects you to imagine a lot of offscreen growth and processing. I don't like seeing characters with potential done dirty like that. I'd rather read whatever tie-in books expand the universe because they *had* to put 45 minutes of fight and explosion scenes.

The costumes were incredible as always but yeah not in the mood to see Wakanda attacked while the CIA rub their hands in glee.

Then there's an unfortunate subtext of a skeptic finding faith after doing all the rituals right which was just the wrong day for me to take it charitably. I'm happy for her. Really. I'm also jealous.

Science tells us little gay boys grieve when they realise, even on a subconcious level, that they're not getting the happy ending of the wife and two kids, it leaves a void and they have to reshape themselves as adults to fill that wife shaped hole society told them would be filled.

I hope that changes now that gay marriage is normalised and seen more. I hope more and more folks can find completeness without needing one special person to complete them.

Now when you're a religious kid, you're given an extra void to shape yourself around, one that will be filled by the divine. It will give you confidence purpose and love, and reshaping yourself is difficult because this isn't just the missing piece of your soulmate but your entire existence and reason for being. Being single from the spiritual is felt like a permanent failure at being human.

Among many things today, I was reminded today of what it felt like to be looked at as 'soulless', a 'lost' soul at best and how that's legit how I saw myself and on some level still sort of do.

I'll rewatch Wakanda forever on a better day and skip the fights. Hopefully by then someone has fixed the colour and brightness on the underwater scenes.

#saf #Rambles #wakanda forever #Rant #tw: religious trauma #Movie reviews

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vangoghingtoyou · 2 years

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so hi!

I guess you can know my real name, it's not like scary people on the internet will be able to ruin my life by knowing my name, and if they can, I am fucked anyway

I'm Sarah. I'm from Belgium. I use she/her pronouns and I am a raging bisexual.

My native language is Dutch but I speak English and French. I'm working on my German but it is going very slowly.

I love languages. I study Latin and Ancient Greek. It's pretty much useless since both languages aren't used anymore but it's fun. I hate math, science or anything left-brain related. I read a lot too. Here are some of my favourite books:

nocturnes by kazuo ishiguro

the romantic movement by alain de botton

the song of achilles by madeline miller

the bell jar by sylvia plath

This will probably change like two days from now but the point is that I love reading. I love annotating, writing in books, breaking book spines (sue me) but mostly I love my cat: his name is Bowie. He is very cute and a little shit but I can only appreciate his way of life.

I love music too. I play the violin and a bit of piano. I took years of music classes and I love about all the genre. I can even appreciate country...sometimes. I love music, my spotify is my main used app and I collect vinyls. My favourite genres are soft rock, alt rock, alternative, jazz and classical. I like the "classics' of pop too though. Huge Taylor Swift and Harry Styles fan. Also the Strokes, the Last Shadow Puppets, David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, the Fratellis, Childish Gambino, Peach Pit and Gorillaz.

My favourite movies are dead poets society, little women, a ghost story, booksmart, bo burnhams inside, everything monthy python has ever made and I can rant on for much longer. You'll have to socialise with me for that to happen.

Tbh I think I will spend most of my time here ranting and that sounds more like your problem than mine.

#my bullshit while speaking for vincent

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simgerale · 2 years

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everybody meet jayne air

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spanishskulduggery · 3 years

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Hi! I'm very curious about something regarding the Spanish language. I'm currently studying A2 Spanish but I had this question and my teacher did not seem too willing to discuss it. Here it goes:

I know that Spanish has, something my Spanish teacher says, linguistic gender. I was wondering how do the people who don't align themselves with the gender binary (masculine and feminine) speak/write in it? I have read this article about Spanish speaking people from US adding "x" Or "@" and people from Argentina using "e" to make the words gender neutral.

Thank you so much for responding, whenever you get to it. Also love your blog. ❤

Short answer, in general speaking terms people are tending towards the -e now because the other two are very hard to actually speak, and because Spanish-speakers feel the -e is more authentic

What you're most likely to see in Spanish is masculine plural as the default, or in written things you might see todos y todas or like un/una alumno/a "a student", or like se busca empleado/a "employees wanted" / "looking for an employee"

If it's something official or academic you typically include both [todas y todas] or you go masculine plural [todos] unless it's specifically feminine plural

Related, linguistic gender applies to all things, not just people. Why is la mesa "table" feminine, but el libro "book" masculine? Just linguistic gender. I can tell you that most loanwords (that aren't people) in Spanish are masculine, and that there are certain words that come from Greek are masculine, and that -ista words are unisex most of the time... And I can tell you there are some words like testigo or modelo that are unisex and don't change for gender. Aside from that, speaking about nouns and grammatical gender... those particular things are harder to parse for regular people, but if you go into the field of linguistics you can explore that more deeply. Some of it is source language (i.e. "it came from Latin this way") or things like that. And in general when talking about nouns it's unimportant and not considered sexist, that's just how it is.

There is such a thing where it gets a little too far the other way and people will say "history? what about herstory" which is a nice thought but the etymology has nothing to do with gender there

When it comes to people - and when it comes to gendered attitudes - that's where it gets more confusing and more complicated.

I believe there was an experiment where people had French and Spanish speakers [I believe it was Spanish] try to identify how a "fork" would sound. French people gave it a more feminine voice because "fork" is feminine in French, while Spanish speakers gave it a more masculine voice because it's masculine in Spanish.

Whether we like it or not, certain gendered things do influence our thoughts and feelings and reactions. A similar thing in English exists where the old joke was something like "There was a car accident; a boy is rushed to the ER and the surgeon but the father was killed. When they got to the ER the doctor said 'I can't operate on him, he's my son!'" and it's like "well who could the doctor be?" ...and the doctor is his mother. We associate "doctor" as masculine and "nurse" as feminine.

There's a gender bias in our language thought patterns, even though the language changes. And that does exist in Spanish too, to different extents.

There are certain cultural and gendered stereotypes or connotations attached to certain words, many tend to be more despective or pejorative when it's women.

For example - and I know this has changed in many places or it isn't as prevalent - el jinete "horseman/rider", while the female form is la amazona "horsewoman/rider". Because la jinete or la jineta was sometimes "promiscuous woman".

There were also debates about things like la presidente vs. la presidenta or what the female version of juez should be, whether it should be la juez or la jueza

Most languages with gendered language have varying degrees of this, and all languages I'm aware of have gendered stereotypes related to professions or cultural attitudes in some way, and not just for women, and not all in the same way with some of them being very culturally based

The longer answer involves a bit of history, and I'll be honest, some of it is contested or considered a little controversial in Spanish-speaking countries particularly in the conservative parts (which honestly should come as no surprise)

The first symbol that I know of that came about was the X

First piece of contested history: As far as I know, it was the trans/queer and drag communities in Latin America who started the trend of X. When there were signs or bulletins that had the gendered endings - specifically masculine plural as the default plural - people would write a big X through the O. This was a way of being inclusive and also a very smash the patriarchy move.

Some people attribute this to women's rights activists which may also be true, but a good portion of the things I read from people say it was the trans/queer/drag communities in Latin America doing this.

I've also read it originated in Brazil with Portuguese; still Latin America, but not a Spanish-speaking country.

Where it's most contested is that some people will say that this trend started in the Hispanic communities of the United States. And - not without reason - people are upset that this is perceived as a very gringo movement.

That's why Latinx is considered a very American-Hispanic experience

The arroba (@) is relatively new. I remember seeing it in the 2000s. I don't know if it existed earlier for gender inclusivity.

People used it because it looks like a combination of O and A, so it was meant to be cut down on saying things like todos y todas or niños y niñas in informal written speech

I remember quite a few (informal) emails starting like hola tod@s or muy buenas a tod@s or things like that

I think of it more as convenience especially in the information age where you never knew who you were talking to and it's easier than including both words, especially when masculine plural might be clumsy or insensitive

Still, it's practically impossible to use the @ in spoken Spanish, so it's better for writing casually. You also likely won't be allowed to use the @ in anything academic, but in chatrooms, blogs, or forums it's an option

I love the E ending. And the gender neutral form in singular is elle... so it's él "he", ella "she", and elle "they (singular)"

The -e ending is I think became more common within the past 10 years though it might have existed longer than that. These sorts of changes tend to come from the queer or trans communities and tend to be more insular before becoming more of an outside thing that then the general population finds out about

It came about because there are some adjectives in Spanish that end in -e that are unisex. It's not an A, it's not an O, but it's something grammatically neutral for Spanish

It's not as awkward as X, and E exists very firmly in Spanish so it's not perceived as some outside (typically gringo) influence

The good news is, it's pretty widespread on the internet. Not so much in person (yet), but especially in Spain and Argentina at least from what I've seen, particularly in the queer communities and online culture.

The only issues with it are that for non-native speakers, you have to get used to any spelling changes. Like amigo and amiga, but to use the E ending you have to add a U... so it's amigue.

That's because there are certain words where you have to do spelling changes to preserve the sound; gue has a hard G sound like -go does [like guerra]... but ge has the equivalent of an English H sound [gelatina for example]. Another one is cómico/a "funny" which would go to cómique. Again, because co has a hard C/K sound, while ce is a soft sound more like an S or in some contexts TH/Z sound; like centro is a soft sound, while cola is a hard sound

Unless you make it to the preterite forms where you come across like pagué, alcancé, practiqué with those types of endings... or subjunctive forms, pague, alcance, practique ... Basically you'd have to be exposed to those spelling rules or you'd be really confused if you were a total beginner.

It all makes sense when you speak it, but spelling might be harder before you learn those rules

The other drawback is that the E endings are sometimes not applicable. Like in damas y caballeros "ladies and gentlemen" there's not really a gender neutral variation on that, it's all binary there. And while la caballero "female knight" does exist, you'd never see a male variation on dama; the closest I've ever seen is calling a guy a damisela en apuros "damsel in distress" in some contexts where the man needs rescuing, and it's feminine una/la damisela, and it's very tongue-in-cheek

There are also some contexts like jefe vs jefa where I guess you would say jefe for "boss" if you were going the neutral route, but it's a bit weird because it's also the masculine option.

I can't speak for how people might feel about those if they're non-binary or agender because every so often you kind of get forced into the binary whether you like it or not

I totally support the E, I just recognize there are some limitations there and it's quirks of the Spanish language itself

Important Note: Just to reiterate, E endings are the ones most Spanish-speakers prefer because it's easiest to speak and doesn't have the American connotation that X does in some circles

Where it gets very "Facebook comment section" is that you'll see many Latin Americans traditionalists and conservatives claim that "this is just the gringos colonizing our language" and "grammatical gender doesn't matter in Spanish". They'll say that the "gender movement" is an American feminist movement and that it's a gringo thing and doesn't reflect actual Latin Americans or Spanish-speakers

Which on the one hand, yes, English does have a lot of undue influence on other languages because of colonization, and American influence and meddling in Latin American politics is a big important issue

But as far as I'm aware of the X (and especially the E) were created by Latin Americans

The other issue I personally have is that any time this conversation comes up, someone will say something like somos latinOs and claim that masculine plural is gender neutral

To that I say, first of all, "masculine plural" is inherently gendered. Additionally, there is a gender neutral in Spanish but it's lo or ello and it's only used with "it" so it sounds very unfriendly to use on an actual person... and in plural it looks like masculine plural and everything applies like masculine plural

Second, the reason masculine plural is default is because of machismo. It's more important that we don't possibly misgender a man, so it has to be masculine plural. It's changed in some places, but growing up when I was learning Spanish, if it was 99 women and 1 man you still had to put masculine plural

I'm not opposed to there being a default, and I understand why it's easier to use masculine plural, but some people get very upset at the idea of inclusive language

...

In general, my biggest issues with these comments come when people act like non-binary/queer/trans people don't exist in Spanish-speaking countries, like English invented them somehow. So it's nice to see linguistic self-determination and seeing native speakers using the E endings.

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theancientgeekoroman · 5 years

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hi! i'm a high-schooler who wants to pursue a career in classics and ancient history and you're a massive inspiration to me, I was wondering if you have any advice for an aspiring classicist

Hey! I’m glad to be an inspiration :3

So, the first thing I would suggest is to read, read, read. I know it’s expensive to get a lot of books, but remember that public libraries (and check your high school library, too!) might have many of the books you might want to read before you head into a Classics program.

If you would prefer to have these things online so you can access a lot of different things, here are my favorite websites to refer to:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

https://www.gutenberg.org/

http://www.sacred-texts.com/search.htm

The next thing to remember is that if you’re an undergraduate student, you’re not going to know everything in every class. Be open to exploring - take courses that have a focus on the ancient world, but don’t be afraid to stray into other courses (I took enough Medieval courses (history, literature, art history) that I was one course away from a minor). One of the things that I would recommend is searching for schools that have a program you think you’ll enjoy and e-mail the professors! I e-mailed the director of the Classical Studies department at Villanova University back and forth for a long time before I applied to the graduate program and she was quite supportive and explained things well to me. This was a big reason I decided that I decided that Villanova was right for me. The professors and how they interact with potential students will tell you a lot about the faculty as well as the program. Look through the potential courses at the universities you’re interested in, and whether they have all the courses, you would be interested in, including courses for other aspects of the field.

Classics courses can be under Anthropology or Archaeology, Art History, English/Literature, Greek/Latin, Library Sciences, Law, Museum Studies, Theatre, etc. If you’re interested in exploring any of these areas of Classics, I would suggest exploring these courses if the university offers them as well. This would also help you hone in on what area of the field you might be most interested in pursuing - a lot of people who go into Classics either end up teaching or working in a museum, from my experience. However, those aren’t your only choices, and we’ll get back to that more towards the end :3

If you’re not sure if you’d like archaeology, if you can afford an archaeological field school, I would say try to participate in one when you’re an undergraduate student, or if you can’t, see if your local state parks have any need for archaeological volunteers. That’s something that I’ve been investigating in Las Vegas (where I live); this isn’t Classics specifically, but much of the work will be similar so you can gauge whether you like digging enough to do it for a living. This past summer I did my first archaeological field school (three years after I completed my B.A. in History/Classics), so if you wait a little longer, that’s okay, too. But, I loved it, and I definitely want to dig again, so I think that it’s important to find a way to pursue those opportunities when you can (I was lucky to get a full-time job a year before I went and was able to save up - I didn’t take any vacation time in the year and a half from when I was hired until after the field school). There are field school scholarships that you can apply to, like the Jane C. Waldbaum Archaeological Field School Scholarship (https://www.archaeological.org/grants/708), that are for students pursuing their first field school, amongst other funding, so make sure you look everywhere and ask your university if they have a database for field school funding. A lot of your anthropology and archaeology professors will be helpful in asking about this. Your university might also have archaeology opportunities on campus as well; my alma mater, the University of Delaware, had an Archaeology Laboratory that I volunteered in for extra credit and continued to do so once my course was over because I enjoyed it so much. See what’s around and how you can help out!

In the same vein, if you’re interested in museum work, look to see if you can volunteer over the summer, or once you’re a university student, see if you can enroll in an internship for credit. Sometimes your university galleries and museums might have a program, so look into that, too! I did a Curatorial Apprenticeship Program at the University of Delaware and was able to conduct an Independent Study for credit through the museum program (now the University of Delaware has a Museum Studies minor). I’ve always known that my end goal was to be a curator, but there’s plenty of other aspects of museums you can explore: education, administration, museum libraries, and a lot of other departments, depending on the size of the institution. If you’re in the U.S., you can check my museum post to see if your state has ancient art (https://theancientgeekoroman.tumblr.com/post/179105816745/master-list-of-museums-with-greek-roman), and if you’re in another country, don’t worry, I’m working on master lists for other countries, too.

Many courses may be taught in translation (especially if you’re taking it as an English Literature or Foreign Language in Translation course), so see if you can find the best or most highly recommended translations by professors. See what the book lists are for the courses at the universities you’re looking at and try to find your favorite translation. I just bought the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey, which I have a feeling will be my favorite translation. This is The Iliad translation I have (http://www.librarything.com/work/3426497/book/161094444), The Aeneid (http://www.librarything.com/work/11862/book/161072440), Metamorphoses (http://www.librarything.com/work/3439/book/161072432), and The Love Songs of Sappho (http://www.librarything.com/work/237534/book/161093187). All of these were assigned textbooks for my Biblical and Classical Literature and Mythology courses at the University of Delaware between 2007-2015 (those links take you to my LibraryThing, which will tell you most of the books that I own or I have on my wishlist, if you want to check them out; I haven’t finished organizing their categories yet, though, so it’s a WIP).

If you haven’t been exposed to Ancient Greek or Latin at the high school level and university will be the first time you encounter these languages (as was true for me), you don’t necessarily have to know anything by the first day of class. However, if you would like a head start, here are some lessons on Ancient Greek in YouTube format (http://www.openculture.com/2016/08/learn-ancient-greek-in-64-free-lessons-from-brandeis-harvard.html) and in text format (https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/grkol). Latin, unsurprisingly, has a lot more resources for free online learning (I even bought a Udemy course to review my Latin): The University of Texas at Austin: https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/latol, http://learn101.org/latin.php, and this list is good to consult: https://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/latinapps.htm. I haven’t used all of these myself, so explore and see which ones would be best for you and works best for how you learn.

If you decide to continue with Classics into the graduate level, keep in mind that you’ll need German AND French or Italian. I took both French and Italian as an undergraduate and I can read French pretty well because I took it for four years in high school and studied abroad in Caen for five weeks as an undergraduate. Italian I can kind of read alright, but I know no German, which I need to work on. So, if you have a language requirement and your Latin or Greek does not count, keep those languages in mind. (Sometimes you have to take a certain amount of Latin or Ancient Greek for it to count, and your program may not require as many ancient language courses for your major as the language requirement for the university, etc. I only needed to take Ancient Greek or Latin, but I decided I wanted to do both.)

Classics is an extremely interdisciplinary field, so you have a lot of options, both as an undergraduate and a graduate student. You don’t necessarily need to go straight into graduate school, either. You can teach at the high school level, you can go into archaeology fieldwork or museum work, or do a variety of other things. It’s up to you. I took a year off, got a different Master of Arts degree before I applied to my M.A. in Classical Studies. It’s different for everyone. I’ll be 30 when I get my M.A. in Classical Studies, so take your time and explore things that call to you. Don’t rush things and have fun!

Of course, I’m sure you want to know “What can I do with a Classics degree?” Luckily, many places have already made lists like this! Here they are:

https://www.angelo.edu/services/career/majors/classics.php

https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/careers/subjects/classics/

https://classicalstudies.org/education/careers-for-classicists/an-undergraduate-degree-in-the-classics

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/careersandemployability/subjectfactsheets/subjectfacsheets/2016ese030_Classics_st1.pdf

http://loveofhistory.com/what-jobs-can-you-get-with-an-ancient-history-and-classics-degree/

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/what-can-i-do-with-my-degree/classics

And I made a post with different places that post Classics positions as well, for when you’re ready to look for those (I check them regularly to see the requirements people want for these positions to either match up or if I need further training or credentials): https://theancientgeekoroman.tumblr.com/post/178955792555/since-im-still-in-my-ma-program-for-classical

TLDR & recap:

Read, read, read

Research your potential schools

Volunteer

Explore aspects of the field

Have fun!

Additionally, I found this list of people that have Classics degrees :3

https://rogueclassicism.com/folks-you-didnt-know-maybe-had-classics-degrees/

I hope you found this helpful and I apologize for the length, but feel free to drop me a line whenever you like if you need more advice or would like me to expand on any of my experiences!

All the best,

The Ancient Geeko-Roman

P.S. Folklore Fiancé wanted to make sure I didn’t overwhelm you and wanted to encourage you to make sure you take your time and take breaks when studying. Don’t overwhelm yourself with your research; take your time to explore different areas and don’t tackle too many things at once. *takes off parent hat*

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heartshaped-lou · 2 years

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Where is this fascination with Sicilian coming from? 😅 I'm from Sicily and can of course speak the dialect from my home town, which is different from the one spoken in the town 10km away. Everything comes from French, Spanish and Arabic. I'm still shamed by my friends because I would sometimes call the hand towel a tovaglia, which is tuvagghia in Sicilian coming trom the Spanish toalla - but in Italian it's asciugamano, and tovaglia is the table cloth. Sorry for the rant!

i found that article on my dash and it was just so interesting! I study my fair share of linguistics in uni and i'm very fascinated by this stuff, especially etymology and seeing how a language evolves! "accattari" (mentioned in the article) made me 🤯 cause my nonna is from campania (i was born in rome) and she too uses "accattare": it's a term I literally hear daily from her but I never thought about that connection with french! i generally have sooo much fun thinking about possible connections between words from my nonna's vocabulary and french and spanish (which I can speak a little; I unfortunately can't speak arabic nor greek but I'm sure there's loads of connections there as well). it's small stupid stuff but woooooo I love that!!

yes, tovaglia was something i had noticed thanks to nonna as well, so cool!!! and the dialect discourse in italy is such a wide topic: italian dialects are actual languages, especially since they all have different influences and origins (especially the ones from north and south italy). its it's just that they don't have the same legislative authority the italian language has :/ im sorry if they ever made you feel ashamed about your language, they should never have!

anyways! definitely don't be sorry, I really enjoy talking about this stuff and if you ever feel like sharing something else about your language on or off anon i'll be here! it's me that should be sorry for the rant now xjsjsj

#language tag #nonnie #inbox #just read another article about greko and griko dialects in calabria and puglia i had no idea about those!!#sorry about the abuse of exclamation points help

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its-caesar-bitch · 7 years

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how did you decide you wanted to be a classics major? I'm super interested in it and also linguistics but idk what I would do with it

ti’ve studied latin since i was like 12 because i was a stubborn little shit who didn’t want to do spanish or french like normal kids and my mom said i wouldn’t be able to do it. latin clicks in my brain the way that math or science does for some people where it’s like a puzzle or a game, y’know? the best way i can describe it is how they show it in the episode about the hound of the baskervilles in sherlock where he’s thinking and manipulating words and concepts to put them in the right order.

that being said, i picked up an affinity for the language and everything you could do with it. think close reading of literature, historical studies, archaeology, linguistics, &c. my dad is a professor so i’ve always been a part of academia so for me it was just putting two parts of my life together, like my love for latin and my desire to keep learning until the day i die because then i never have to leave school. (just kidding) (not really)

i also got some really good advice from my high school’s college counselor because she was basically like “if you don’t enjoy what you’re studying in college, you won’t enjoy what you do with it afterwards.” yes, classics is not an up and coming field like corporate law but it’s not a death sentence either like there’s so much you can do with it. classics can lead into philosophy and law, or teaching, whether at the middle/high school level or collegiate, but also more than that like you can be a curator at a museum or work for an auction company like Christies’ evaluating artifacts and things like that. you could be an archaeologist or a doctor or an activist who uses classics as a way to start necessary discourse (such as using the play antigone to start a discussion about sexism and internalized patriarchal values). you could be an artist! you could be a writer! j.k. rowling majored in classics! so did sigmund freud! so did tom hiddleston! toni morrison! oscar wilde!

classics isn’t just teaching you a subject. it’s also a way of thinking, of looking at the world and processing it and making sense of the information you receive. think about how much latin grammar helps with your english (which is surprising because english is largely germanic). the father of one of my closest friends is now a pediatric anesthesiologist and he majored in classics before going on to med school.

basically, i’d say if you love the subject, keep doing it. doors will open for you during your studies that will lead you into new and exciting directions. i didn’t expect to get to work with the ancient artifacts with my advisor in the bowdoin museum when i matriculated. i didn’t expect to go to oxford for my junior year or to learn how to compose ancient greek in a proper attic style (which apparently is something they only do at oxford bc other schools have phased it out). you can do anything you want with it. just be bold, be assertive, follow your interests & you’ll find new adventures and opportunities every time you look for them.

#icb #anon #anonymous #studying classics #thalia dicet #because hey who doesn't want a little bit of rambling about classics from thalia #Anonymous #ancient rome #ancient greece #lingua latina #latin #tagamemnon #classics

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phoenix-before-the-flame · 6 years

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Aaaaaaah nonny I love you forever for this ask! This is something that's always on my mind but I've never actually done so please excuse me if this gets a little bit long!

Before I even get into the thick of it, ill get this self indulgent one out of the way. Gajeel's jamaican. You can fight me on this. I just fucking love jamaican gajeel. I could literally write a book on how much details I've given jamaican gajeel.

I have it down to the parish he was born in (Kingston if you were curious) and that he worked in Metallicana's welding and autoshop at the back of their house since he was 7 and has a difficult time speaking standard English without concentrating because he always slips back into patois and a hh h hh, I'm rambling. Let's carry on.

To continue with more self indulgent shit? Natsu is irish-jamaican. And don't tell me that combo can't work because there was a wave of irish immigrants in like the 17 or 1800s to jamaica.

Anyways, born in St. Elizabeth, but moved to Ireland at the age of 10 when his parents died in a car accident to live with Igneel, a distant relative who won custody of him over his half brother Zeref (irish American, related through same mother) but details.

Basically speaks 3 languages : irish gaelic (gotta do more research on this because I'm pretty sure there's multiple dialects and stuff), English and patois and can switch between the 3 flawlessly while changing his accent. It confuses people.

Wendy!is! Indian jamaican! Or coolie as we call them (but don't go slinging that word around, it's ok in jamaica but I've heard in other caribbean countries it's a slur). Probs would've grown up in Portland at the base of Blue Mountains but here I am rambling again. ILL STOP WITH THE SELF INDULGENCE HERE.

Lucy’s dad is English and her mum was french so she bounced around a lot between those 2 countries before when she was old enough and moved to the states. She has a very, very slight french accent but she doesn't believe people when they tell her.

All the dreyars. All of them are russian, I cannot see them any other way. Juvia too for some reason.

All the strausses are swedish. Elfman though is swedish-moroccan ( half brother, related through father.)

Gray I think would Korean - Portuguese?? I dunno why but I just really like that for him. But also Canadian Gray is a good contender for reasons.

I literally have no idea why I even thought of this but Australian Erza.

Jellal's cuban and only recently came to the states at like 23, 24. People tell him he doesn't look cuban and he's like ???? What the Fuck do you think a cuban looks like????

Cana is brazilian and when she was about 8 and her mum passed and she was on her own she wandered about Brazil and a few other countries in South America before she eventually settled in Guyana when foster care grabbed her and a family adopted her.

Freed's Italian. Bickslow is Greek. Evergreen is American.

Fuck I almost forgot Levy, she's Indian, came to America to study.

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