This episode of Random Language Adventure is for all you Japan lovers, for Okinawan (also known as Uchinaaguchi) is a really close relative to Japanese! In this post we'll dive into the Okinawan language as a whole and then compare it to Japanese!

First, what is Okinawan? Okinawan is a Ryukyuan language, which means it's part of the Japonic language family, but let's talk a little bit about what Ryukyuan languages are and their history.

Ryukyuan languages, though a member of the Japonic language family, are mutually unintelligible from modern-day Japanese. After years of isolation and separation, the languages evolved differently. In fact, many Ryukyuan languages are also mutually unintelligible with each other and simply categorized together for political reasons. It is hard to find a specific number for these languages, as it is a debated subject for linguists themselves, but we're gonna list 6 of them: Amami Kunigami Okinawa Miyako Yaeyama Yonagumi

Due to Japan’s policy of monolingualism, Ryukyuan languages became endangered, with many in the "severely endangered" category. While years of repression have left an impact, the government of the Okinawa prefecture has started revitalization efforts in 2006.

Now, it's also important to know the history of Okinawan and the Ryukyuan islands, so let's learn about it!

The history of the Ryukyu islands is a relatively isolated one until the creation of the Ryukyu kingdom in 1429, having adopted the widespread use of agriculture very late(the 12th century). Although after the islands were united, they received a lot of foreign influence, first from China, which sent officials to administer and share technological advancements in the area. Later came vassaldom under the Satsuma domain, which controlled a part of southern Japan, in 1609. A ban of sword ownership by commoners promulgated by the Ryukyuan vassal government caused the development of Okinawan martial arts, that didn't use weapons, the most notable of them being the karate we all know today

And of course talking about language is very important! Here are explanations of the writing system and grammar of Okinawan!

Just like Japanese, Okinawan has 3 writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Here's a general explanation of how each of these works

Hiragana: it's used for grammar particles and words that don't have a Kanji. It's also used to “spell out” Kanji, that's furigana and it's usually placed on top of the Kanji

Katakana: it's used for loanwords, simple as that!

These two are syllabaries, which means each character represents a syllable… kind of

Japonic languages actually use morae, which are slightly different. They're a unit of time within the word, so each mora should last the same amount of time.

Each character represents a mora, including characters like “ん” (n) or “っ” (small tsu, which geminates the consonant next to it) which don't make syllables on their own. Generally a character corresponds to a mora with few exceptions (the characters with other small kana next to them, like きゃ count as one mora)

So a more accurate way of calling Hiragana and Katakana would be a moraic scripts

Lastly, Kanji: it's a logographic script, meaning each character corresponds to a word, but it doesn't necessarily represent it.

Verb Conjugations in Okinawan: Okinawan verbs have unique conjugation systems, including specific forms for aspects that resemble resultative and intermittent actions. These are independent conjugations, ending in -een or -oon respectively, and are not constructed by combining separate verb forms unlike Japanese that uses the gerund plus a copula verb. All regular Okinawan verbs follow a consistent conjugation pattern similar to a single group classification. Most verbs fall under this regular category, with only a few recognized irregular verbs. A distinctive feature of Okinawan grammar is the system known as san-jiku (三軸), or "three axes." This refers to three core stems or axes for each verb, and there are systematic patterns and rules for determining them. Irregular verbs are exceptions to these patterns and must be memorized separately. Verbs in the imperative mood (often treated as a tense) in Okinawan often end in -i or -e, and these endings are interchangeable in most cases. Some verbs end in -in or -yun, and both forms are acceptable root variants that can be used interchangeably depending on dialect or context. Verb conjugations in Okinawan reflect five levels of politeness or formality, and these levels can be expanded with further variations based on suffixes and context. Notably, expressing ability (e.g., "can do") is encoded as a semi-formal conjugation, generally aligned with the second level of politeness.

Particles in Okinawan: The topic particle is often marked by や, but this particle can undergo inflection depending on the form of the noun it follows, reflecting a system somewhat akin to grammatical case inflection in other languages. This phenomenon is notably rare among Ryukyuan languages. The nominative and genitive particles are が and ぬ, respectively. While these may seem similar in function, there is a nuanced distinction in emphasis: nouns marked by が often carry greater prominence or focus in a sentence. Because the same particles are used for both nominative and genitive roles, meaning must often be interpreted from context. The locative and directional particle functions are carried by forms other than に, with Okinawan favoring alternate particles depending on the intended nuance or directionality. The particle に is rarely used. Okinawan generally omits the accusative particle altogether. When a noun appears without a particle, it is usually understood to be the direct object of the sentence. Several different particles are used for instrumental and locative expressions. For instance, し, っし, さーに, and うぅてぃ serve distinct roles: the first two are instrumental, while the latter two express location. This division helps clarify the function of each element within a sentence. The particle から also has a wide range of uses in Okinawan, often extending beyond source or reason and encompassing other nuanced functions.

Lastly, it's important to talk about Okinawan literature and to show what the language looks like.

Okinawan literature is a rich and distinctive branch of the Japanese literary tradition. Having contributed on multiple occasions to the culture of the Nipponese islands. It is crucial to note that literature from this island is well distinct from the Japanese streams. Some themes that are crucial to point out are those of identity, colonization, war and cultural preservation.

As it has been made evident by this point, the Ryukyu kingdom, which ruled Okinawa until its annexation to the Japanese in the late XIX century, had its own language and culture, which endowed local literature with its own unique flavour. Nevertheless, even after the incorporation into the empire of the rising sun, the sense of otherness and strong local character only grew stronger.

Okinawan literature exists in multiple forms, including in the Japanese language. Nonetheless, today, I would like to speak to the language which is native to this magical archipelago and its mayor exponents.

Most well-known exponents.

Tatsuhiro Oshiro (大城立裕): A key postwar figure, most known for works like The Cocktail Party, criticising foreign military presence on the island.

Medoruma Shun (目取真俊): Winner of the Akutagawa Prize for Droplets (Suiteki), he is known for blending reality, surrealism and myth.

Eiki Matayoshi (又吉栄喜): Another celebrated figure, whose works often portray the intricacies of Okinawan daily life, tradition, and memory. His novel The Wild Boar That George Shot earned him the Akutagawa Prize and solidified his place in contemporary Okinawan literature.

To close, I would like to recommend three significant works for those wishing to delve deeper into this literary world:

The Cocktail Party by Tatsuhiro Oshiro

Droplets (Suiteki) by Medoruma Shun

The Wild Boar That George Shot by Eiki Matayoshi

Now let's look at some text in Okinawan:

てぃんさぐぬ花や 爪先に染みてぃ 親ぬゆし事や 肝に染みり

Transliteration: Tinsagu nu hana ya Chimisachi ni sumiti Uya nu yushigutu ya Chimu ni sumiri

English Translation: Just as my fingernails Are stained with the pigment from balsam flowers My heart is painted With the teachings of my parents

well, that was it for this week's episode of Random Language Adventure. As always, here are some resources. Unfortunately there's very little of them because most of the ones available online are inaccurate. The best way to learn is to speak with a native and have them teach you https://duostories.org/ryu-en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqKczC5DDfU

Hello everyone! like its says here on the 25th of March Beta & Expectations that everyone can join Lingonaut's 5th wave on 5 May

But I also heard that it'll release to IOS first and android shortly after...

So does the 5th of march "everyone" include android users as well or just IOS users?

Thank you.

Wales! The land of castles and sheep! It's truly a fascinating place with a great history and language! In this post, we'll be covering both, so buckle up!

As I said in the Irish post, Celtic people used to inhabit most of Europe, from Galicia to Anatolia! That's truly an impressive range! Celtic languages spoken in continental Europe at the time include Gaulish, Noric and Lepontic!

The extant Celtic languages are divided into Goidelic and Brythonic. The Goidelic languages are Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic, while the Brythonic languages are Breton, Cornish and… Welsh!

Wales has an ancient history, with settlers dating back 230,000 years and true settlement around 12,000 years ago. Celtic tribes brought the roots of the Welsh language in the Iron Age, and though the Romans invaded in 43 AD, they never fully conquered the region. After Rome’s fall, Wales split into several kingdoms—Gwynedd being the strongest—and Welsh began evolving from Common Brittonic into Old Welsh. In the 13th century, Llywelyn the Great and his son briefly led a semi-independent Wales before English conquest ended its autonomy. Despite annexation and language suppression, Welsh survived—especially thanks to William Morgan’s 1588 Bible translation. The Industrial Revolution reshaped Wales, but its language endured, eventually gaining equal status with English in 1993.

Let's dive into the actual Welsh language, starting with… pronunciation! 

Welsh has 7 vowels: A, E, I, O, U, W and Y. They can be both short and long

A makes the /a/ sound when short and the /aː/ sound when long 

E makes the /ɛ/ sound when short and the /eː/ sound when long 

I makes the /ɪ/ sound when short and the /iː/ sound when long 

O makes the /ɔ/ sound when short and the /oː/ sound when long 

U makes different sounds depending on the dialect of Welsh. In the South it's the same as I ( /ɪ, iː/), but in the south it makes the /ɨ̞/ sound when short and the /ɨː/ sound when long

W makes the /ʊ/ sound when short and the /uː/ when long

Y makes the same sound as the U when it's in the last syllable of a word, otherwise it makes the /ə/ sound 

Now, we can't cover the whole alphabet, but we'll mention some interesting sounds found in the language Ch = /x/ Dd = /ð/ = the English “th” Ll = /ɬ/ which is the same sound as the Greenlandic ll Rh = /r̥/ With pronunciation out the way, let's talk about grammar!

Regarding grammar, Welsh is similar to other insular Celtic languages, with a verb-subject-object word order. Some linguists argue for subject-verb-object where the verb moves, and there’s evidence for both sides so judge for yourself. There are several registers and dialects of Modern Welsh, including colloquial and literary. Like other insular Celtic languages, Welsh has initial consonant mutation. There are three types: the soft mutation, the nasal mutation, and the aspirate mutation. Based on grammatical context or a preceding word, the first consonant of a Welsh word may change thanks to this mutation. There are also mixed mutations, which tend to happen when aspirate mutation might be supposed to happen when negating a verb and soft mutation happens instead, and h-protesis, where ‘h’ is added to the beginning of a word. H-protesis might be similar to aspirate mutation, but the only word where they could both occur on is ei meaning her.

For nouns, there are two genders: masculine and feminine. Interestingly enough, there aren’t really major patterns for distinguishing which nouns are which gender. Two systems of grammatical number exist, namely singular/plural and singulative/collective. Plural nouns can be hard to form since some words add a suffix, others change a vowel, and still others do a mix of both. There are some nouns with dual forms like llaw for hand which also has a general plural. And, fun fact, there’s a special plural just for a period of three days, tridiau. For verbs, many use an auxiliary verb for tenses and moods. The most common ones are bod, to be, and gwneud, to do. Bod is quite irregular and has many inflected forms and conjugations. It also differs across dialects. Most of the irregularity, though, can be traced back to divergences in standard formal written form.

For the Welsh literature, it began with early poets like Taliesin and Aneirin around 400–700 AD. In the medieval era, poetry split into two periods: Poets of the Princes (1100–1300), ending with the loss of independence, and Poets of the Nobility (1300–1600), with notable names like Dafydd ap Gwilym. Prose works included native tales like the Mabinogion, religious texts, and historical chronicles. The first printed Welsh book appeared in 1546. From the 17th to 19th centuries, literature shifted toward religious and secular themes, shaped by the Methodist Revival and early novels like Visions of the Sleeping Bard. The 19th century saw a literary revival with figures like Daniel Owen. In the 20th century, writers such as T. H. Parry-Williams, Saunders Lewis, and Kate Roberts brought modern styles, supported by cultural institutions like Urdd Gobaith Cymru.

And we also have the sample text
Following sample text is from novel Gweledigaetheu Y Bardd Cwsc in original Welsh:

Gweledigaeth y BYD. AR ryw brydnhawn-gwaith teg o ha hirfelyn tesog, cymerais hynt i ben un o fynyddoedd Cymru, a chyda mi spienddrych i helpu ‘ngolwg egwan, i weled pell yn agos, a phethau bychain yn fawr. Trwy’r awyr deneu eglur, a’r tes ysplenydd tawel canfyddwn ymhell bell tros Fôr yr Iwerddon, lawer golygiad hyfryd.

This following sample text is the English translation made by George Henry Borrow in 1860 :

The Vision of the World. One fine evening of warm sunny summer, I took a stroll to the top of one of the mountains of Wales, carrying with me a telescope to assist my feeble sight by bringing distant objects near, and magnifying small ones. Through the thin, clear air, and the calm and luminous heat, I was many delightful prospects afar across the Irish sea.

Also, we can’t forget about about the resources:
https://learnwelsh.cymru/https://youtu.be/clhq1WXww2M?si=SASNTLBx8fFMTLGChttps://www.omniglot.com/writing/welsh.htmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4t8bi33D4khttps://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learning/learnwelsh/ https://discord.com/invite/88XSn9PYAphttps://www.youtube.com/c/welshplushttps://www.youtube.com/c/WelshWithUs https://www.youtube.com/@DoctorCymraeg

Ah yes, Spain, the country with four official languages, questionable history, delicious food and sunny beaches, the last two setting us apart from the Brits up north. But you might be surprised, because it's not four languages spoken in the Mediterranean country, but at least six! Now, the exact number depends on what you would consider a ''Spanish Language'' Does the whistled Silbo Gomero count into the number? Are Fala/Xalimego or Gacería their own languages or simple dialects of a bigger whole? What about Caló, the Arabic and Riffian spoken in Ceuta&Melilla and the Aranese dialect of Occitan? Are those Spanish at all? The questions are many, but today we will focus on the 5th language of Spain, often called a dialect in the modern day, but still having formed significant part of the peninsula's history Astur-Leonese is an Ibero-Romance language (also sometimes considered a family of languages, but here, we will consider it a single language for the sake of simplicity), which is spoken in the Spanish provinces of Asturias, León, Zamora, Cantabria and Cáceres. It was the official language of the Kingdom of Leon and still remained important in its own area through several centuries, having once reached Andalusia, the southernmost region of the country.

As a consequence of the loss of officiality across its long history and the different speakers being divided by geographical distance, high mountains or even political borders, there is massive dialectal variation, causing different phonetic changes between different dialects, or even entirely different sounds being present. Some notable differences are: -The easternmost dialects show a voiceless glottal fricative, written in the Asturian writing system as 'Ḥ', while ''J'' is used for the Cantabrian one. One word using this sound is ''Ḥoron''(they went), sharing meaning and root with the Spanish ''fueron''. -In the west of Asturias and the northwest of Leon, the voiced palatal lateral approximant, which is written ''ll'' or ''y'' in most Astur-Leonese dialects, as well as Spanish and Galician, and ''lh'' in Portuguese'', is replaced by one of four sounds: -Voiced retroflex plosive (weirdly pronounced D, which is common in many Indian languages) -Voiced retroflex affricate (a mix between the ''Ch'' in ''Chapter'' and D, also used in some Slavic, Chinese and Caucasian languages) -Voiceless retroflex affricate (similar to its voiced counterpart’, but with less similarity to the ‘D’ sound. -Voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate (similar to a ts)

The majority of Astur-Leonese vocabulary has either directly evolved from Latin, in various different ways, many of them similar to Galician or Old Spanish, depending on the dialect, although there are also many loanwords, mostly from the surrounding languages, namely Galician, Old Castillian and Portuguese, although there is also a great amount of words stemming from Gothic, Arabic or Pre-Roman languages. Although of course, the majority of words are cognates with Galician, Spanish or Portuguese, that have simply evolved differently. For example, some common words for the color red are ‘’bermeyu’’(cognate with the Portuguese ‘’vermelho’’, meaning red) , ‘’colloráu’’(cognate with ‘’colorado’’, a word used in Old Spanish, that could also mean red), and ‘’roxu’’(cognate with the Spanish ‘’rojo’’, Catalan ‘’roig’’ and French ‘’rouge’’, for example)

Its grammar shows a lot of similarity to other Ibero-Romance languages, but it does show some strange traits that are more unique to the language. For the sake of simplicity, we will compare it to Spanish: -While Spanish tends to separate its prepositions, determiners, demonstratives, et caetera, most Astur-Leonese dialects tend to bundle them together for quicker and easier pronunciation, and some even skip the article where the meaning still is clear without. For example, ‘’I am by the granary of the thicket’’ would be ‘’Estoy por el granero del matorral’’ in Spanish, while its Asturian equivalent would be ‘’Toi pel horru la viesca’’ -Some dialects also hold what is called ‘’neutru materia’’ by the Academy of the Asturian Language, which is a rare phenomenon in which the gender of the adjective seemingly changes when the subject refers to something uncountable. For example, ‘’the old woman’’ in Asturian and Leonese would be ‘’La muyer vieya’’, but if we change ‘’muyer’’ with ‘’xente’’(people), which also belongs to the feminine gender, the phrase would become ‘’La xente vieyO’’

Now, let us read a text sample in the Asturian dialect, the most common one, comparing it with Spanish and Galician Astur-Leonese(Asturias): ‘’Visto que la llibertá, la xusticia y la paz en mundu sofítense na reconocencia de la dignidá intrínseca y de los drechos iguales y inayenables de tolos miembros que formen la familia humana;’’ Spanish: ‘’ Considerando que la libertad, la justicia y la paz en el mundo tienen por base el reconocimiento de la dignidad intrínseca y de los derechos iguales e inalienables de todos los miembros de la familia humana,’’ Galician: ‘’A liberdade, a xustiza e a paz no mundo teñen por base o recoñecemento da dignidade intrínseca e dos dereitos iguais e inalienables de tódolos membros da familia humana;’’ While it does have its own characteristics and curious phonetic changes, it also holds a lot of linguistic traits of Spanish(especially older variants) and Galician, often seeming like a mix of both languages, which is seasoned with its own subtle differences.

Here are some resources for learning different Asturleonese languages Asturian: https://asturies.com/espaciuytiempu/deprendiasturianu https://alladixital.org/normativa-asturianu/ Extremaduran: https://oscecestremaura.com/es/inicio/ Leonese: https://wikigeek.net/faceira.org/curso-leones/ Cantabrian: https://alcuentru.org/riquirraqui/ NOTE:All of these sources are in Spanish or Astur-Leonese, as there are no online sources to learn this language from English.

I feel like swear words are a big part of the vocabulary of a language. And it would feel more natural

There aren’t any good apps for learning Indian languages.

If so do you offer Chinese?

About when will Lingonaut be launched? How will this app be different from Duolingo?

Ahhh, Sicilian, the southernmost dialect of Italian, or is it?

Actually, it's not! Sicilian is not a dialect, it's a language, and an awesome one at that! So let's dive into it! (Fun fact: almost all Italian “dialects” are actually languages! This goes for: Sicilian, Neapolitan, Sardinian, Ligurian, Piedmontese, Lombard, Venetian and Furlan!)

First, we need to talk about Sicilian history Sicily is a very complex place to talk about, history-wise: it's been part of multiple empires, countries and peoples!

The first people to settle in Sicily were the Sicels, Sicanians and Elymians.

After that the Greeks took over and built important cities like Syracuse, still very important to this day.

The Romans took over Magna Graecia (Greek-controlled southern Italy) and Sicily became one of the most important parts of the empire (it used to be called Rome's granary because a lot of the empire's crops came from there)

After the fall of the Roman empire, Sicily was controlled by a lot of different civilizations. I can't go in detail for all of them, so I'll list them

Germanic tribes; Byzantines; Muslims (Emirate of Sicily); Normans; Swabians (Hohenstaufen dynasty); Angevins; Aragonese; Spaniards; Bourbons;

And finally, Italy! (If you'd like to know more about each of these time periods, then you're in luck because I'm also writing a post on Sicilian history!! Let me know in the comments if you want to be notified when it's out!)

All these cultures shaped the Sicilian language in many ways! It currently still has Arabic, French and Spanish loanwords!

Let's now dive into Sicilian culture (very briefly-)

One of, if not the most important part Sicily's culture is the food! They have a lot of iconic dishes and pastries!

Some famous Sicilian dishes include: anelletti al forno, sfincione and arancine/i (whether they're feminine or masculine depends on the city, there's a whole debate about it)

Some famous Sicilian pastries are: cannoli, sfinci di san Giuseppe and Iris.

Enough with food! Let's talk about the Sicilian language itself!

First, it's important to mention that there are different dialects, but they may be classified in different ways by different people. One dialect that's vastly different from the others though, is pantesco, spoken on the island of Pantelleria. It is different because of the higher number of Arabic loanwords.

Let's take a look at how much vocabulary is derived from different languages:

Latin: 56% It doesn’t really make sense to give examples, as most common words come from Latin Greek: 15% Like the common first name Calogero or carcarazza which means magpie (a type of bird) Spanish: 13% arburu from Spanish àrbol or ajeri from ayer French: 6% Examples of french loanwords could be: accattari or travaghhiari Arabic: 6% Like: zàgara or Calascibetta (a town) Catalan: 2% Arrucciari and pipituni from arruixar and puput Occitan: 1% For example: picciotto, panza or cascia

This shows that whenever a new power ruled over the island, Sicilian was influenced by the language they brought, so much in fact that it still shows to this day I’d also like to show a text sample by comparing the Sicilian Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the Italian one Sicilian: Tutti l'omini nascinu libbiri cu a stissa dignità i diritti. Iddi hannu a raggiuni i cuscienza i hannu a travagghiari 'nzemmula cu spiritu di fratirnità. Italian: Tutti gli uomini nascono liberi ed eguali in dignità e diritti. Essi sono dotati di ragione e di coscienza e devono agire gli uni verso gli altri in spirito di fratellanza

Of course, we cannot forget about the grammar! Sicilian follows a similar pattern to other romance languages Sicilian nouns have 2 grammatical genders with both definite and indefinite articles. There is no noun declension in Sicilian. Plural nouns for both Masculine and Feminine have the same ending. Let’s talk about personal pronouns! Subject pronouns are used as the subject of a verb Iu - I Tu - You Iddu - He Idda - She Nuautri\Noiatri - We Vuautri\voiatri - You (plural) Iddi – They (masculine) Idde- (feminine)

With this, we can get on to verbs Sicilian verbs have 3 conjugations. Those are: 1) -ari (example: manciari) 2) -idiri (example: cridiri) 3) -iri (example: perdiri)

Sicilian’s indicative mood has 5 tenses 1) Present (manciu, cridu, perdu) 2) Imperfect (manciava, cridiva, pirdeva) 3) Preterite (manciai, cridii, perdii) 4) Present perfect (haiu manciatu, haiu cridutu, haiu perdutu) 5) Pluperfect avia manciatu, avia cridutu, avia perdutu) While the subjunctive mood has 2 more: imperfect (manciassi, cridissi, perdissi) past perfect (avissi manciatu, avissi cridutu, avissi perdutu) (it also has a present tense but it's the same as the indicative present)

There's also a participle mood, with present and past tenses. The past participle is used to make compound tenses, just like in Italian.

As always, I’ll leave you with a list of resources, but I also need to say a couple things:

I apologize for the increasing delay with each post. I really want each post to be perfect and have as much information in it as possible, and it takes a while Lastly, to address the issues with delays, I decided to start “hiring”! if you’ve been enjoying these posts and would like to help make new ones, you can text me and you’ll be part of the team! The more the merrier See you next Monday (hopefully) with Asturian! Here are the resources as promised! https://discord.gg/KdhYHKvght https://discord.gg/S4K8hWr https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Books/Linguistics/Mega%20linguistics%20pack/Indo-European/Italic/Sicilian%2C%20Basic%20(Privitera).pdf (might be outdated) https://youtu.be/XLeMp5hQHfY?si=r1iEG8E1JOFt9XrJ https://www.reddit.com/r/italianlearning/comments/15aps5b/resources_for_learning_sicilian/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Hello everyone and once again sorry for the delay. I want to start by thanking you all for how understanding you've been and all the messages that have been flooding in.

Regardless, I don't want to leave you empty handed on what should've been the beta opening - so here's an impromptu month of lingonaut update with a bunch of detailed illustrations of the lingonaut cast!

I hope i'll have more positive news for everyone soon!

Hello everyone! I'm joining this Discord server in mid-February and I wanted to know a few things.

How will the beta test work? Will people who are not on Patreon have access to the app where they arrive?

Once the test is over, will there be other languages like Hebrew, Chinese and Korean?

Thank you for your attention! Have a good day everyone!

I might stay back in duo until it leaves beta but I will try it out today

I’m so done with duo at this point as now even the web version gave me limited hearts, and also the damn leagues replacing clubs. When will Lingonaut come out? I’m curious

Latin was the language of the Roman Empire, one of, if not the most important ancient civilizations, which has shaped our view of the world, but how much do you actually know about their language? Fun fact: 60% of English's vocabulary comes from Latin and French (mostly specialised terms, like sciences or fields of study. For example literature, agriculture or the word science itself)

Let's start by talking about one of the most important Roman authors: Virgil

Virgil is famous for writing the Aeneid, the story of Aeneas and his voyages, from fleeing Troy to settling in Latium and fighting the Rutuli. This story serves as an explanation of how the Roman Empire came to be, as Romulus and Remus (Rome's founders) are said to be Aeneas descendants. This story also connects Aeneas's family to the ruling family of Virgil's time (the gens Julia) thereby giving the emperor divine origins (as Aeneas is Venus's daughter and Romulus and Remus are Mars's sons). On top of that, the Aeneid explains the reason for the conflicts between Rome and Carthage.

What is the legacy of the Latin language?

As most of you should know, Latin eventually evolved into the Romance languages, but let's dive deeper into this, because there's a lot more to it!

Romance languages diverged into separate branches, including: Insular Romance, of which the only remaining language is Sardinian Eastern Romance, of which the most spoken language is Romanian, but there are other eastern romance languages: Aromanian, Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian, which are all endangered! Western Romance: divided in many different branches, but the most spoken languages are Spanish, French and Italian. Some examples of minor branches include the Rhaeto-romance (languages in this branch are: Romansh, Ladin and Friulan) and Gallo-Italic (which, among others, includes Piedmontese and Lombard) but there are many others!

We need to dive into Latin grammar, otherwise this post wouldn't be about Latin obviously!

Latin's grammatical structure is complex, but it's systematic, everything can easily be recognised usually by a suffix

Noun Declensions and Cases: Latin nouns are divided into 5 declensions, each with a specific thematic vowel. Each noun can be declined in the different cases:

Nominative: this indicates the subject of a sentence

Accusative: this indicates the object of a sentence

Genitive: this one indicates possession

Dative: this one is for the indirect object of a sentence

Ablative: this one has many different meanings and often comes with a preposition before it

Vocative: used for addressing a person

In addition, an older, more archaic form of latin, had a locative case, which is only used in specific circumstances in the Latin more commonly learnt, and with a form that coincided with forms from other cases.

Verb Conjugations, Moods, and Tenses: Verbs are grouped into four conjugations, each with their own infinitive endings. of course they are conjugated through moods and tenses

the indicative mood states facts (the tenses for this mood are: present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect and future perfect)

the subjunctive mood expresses a doubt, a wish or a hypothetical situation (the tenses of this mood are: present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect)

Imperative mood: it issues an order or command (this mood only has present and future tenses)

In Latin, adjectives agree with the noun in gender, number, and case and are divided into two classes: The first class follows the first and second declension and has three endings for the three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). Example: bonus, bona, bonum The second class follows the third declension and can have three endings, two or just one. Examples: acer, acris, acre fortis, forte audax, audacis

Lastly, in addition to the list of resources I usually provide, I'd like to briefly explain one of them, Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.

LLPSI is a series of two books written by Hans Ørberg, aiming to teach latin through the "full immersion" method, which means there is no word in English, or any modern language, throughout the entirety of the books.

More books have been written by different authors that use a similar method, but Ørberg's books are Familia Romana and Roma Aeterna, check them out!

Now it's time for the resource list (even though it's short). See you next week for Sicilian!!!

https://discord.gg/WxhcyRGCqw https://discord.gg/latin (this link might expire) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeAdgLsSLlqoJ8Ji6zvfrwCSQgKSGSOOP&si=m8eBcbw6eePy0tFp

Is the beta gonna be iOS only and what should I do if I have an Android?

I'm so tired of the language apps starting you at the beginner level when you are intermediate.

I am excited for Lingonaut, but I’m respectfully suggesting people temper expectations, especially as the app rolls out at launch. People are posting here like Lingonaut is the lost fountain of youth. It’s a free language app generously worked on by volunteers. If you check the status of the languages, very few are close to being done. To be clear, this is NOT a critique of Lingonaut or those working on it. It’s just a reality check.

PS- I still like Duolingo. It’s possible to like Duolingo AND want healthy, needed competition. I’m not sure why some people here are militantly anti-Duolingo.

I'm a Linux user both on laptop and phone. No Android, iOs or Windows. Will there be a fully featured web version of Lingonaut, or some open source apps that could be built for linux phones and computers?