TL;DR — Talk. Learn. Discover. Repeat. #21
Hey yall, I hope you’ve been well!
I’ve now been going to a language exchange meetup for about a month and I’m loving it. Last Wednesday, I also went to a Japanese bar where Korean is pretty much forbidden so, despite everybody being Korean, we were all speaking Japanese together. A whole lot of fun!
Apart from this, nothing much to report so let’s dive right in!
🗣️Talk languages
I’ve been using ChatGPT to practice my languages ever since it came out late last year but I didn’t realize how much more useful it could get until I began using GPT-4 late last month.
So when I fell upon this article about the importance of equality in teaching AI to all students, I was suddenly reminded of how privileged I was to be able to afford the 20 bucks per month for it.
Teaching to use AI while making sure students don’t rely on it exclusively is a tough situation. One without a clear solution but there are good ideas out there.
One of them is what my good friend and writer of Learned,
, is doing with his English students: using Midjourney to create funny images and practicing describing them.Children of today will enter the working force in a world relying heavily on AI. There’s no doubt about this. Not fearing AI and learning to use it well is not a bonus today. It’s a requirement.
Have you been learning or teaching with AI? If yes, let me know how you’ve been using it!
✍️Learn from my experiences
After learning languages for more than 15 years, learning languages daily feels obvious to me. It’s just part of what I do.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s not about the “big” things I do. It’s about the small modifications I’ve added to my life and how I approach languages.
Doing these, I’m 99% sure anybody can become a polyglot with ease. And time, of course. But isn’t not struggling the most important part?
Well, that’s what this week’s piece is all about: the 7 effective micro habits that helped me turn into a polyglot and I’m pretty sure anybody would too.
🌎Discover new cultures
Negative mythological creatures in Europe
This week we’re keeping it short and starting, like last month, with a Scottish creature: the Kelpie.
This water horse spirit capable of turning into a human to lure its victims is said to enjoy drowning them. Some stories also mention its love for the human liver too. An Icelandic and Scandinavian version known as Nykur also exists.
Still in Scotland, the Nuckelavee is a creature from Orcadian folklore (from the Orkney Archipelago). It is considered the most malevolent demon in Scottish mythology. Kept in the ocean depths by the deity known as “The Mither O'the Sea”, it possesses evil powers and can harm crops, cause droughts, and spread disease. The Nuckelavee has a horse-like body with fish-like legs, a humanoid head on its back, and no skin, revealing pulsating muscles and black blood.
What a treat.
Finally, you may have already heard of Medusa, a beauty with hair consisting of snakes capable of turning people into stones. Well, I didn’t know it but it turns out she was one of three monsters known in Greek mythology as Gorgons.
Contrary to Medusa, the only two other Gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal. They were all sisters and were turned into Gorgons by Athena.
Interesting how only Medusa’s the only one well-known.
There’s a lot more in Europe and other regions of the world but that’s it for this year. Maybe we’ll turn back to this next year with other regions!
Next month, we’re turning to how people stay cool during summer. Yup, because that’s culture too.
🗺️Repeat with me
Tok Pisin - An English-based Creole thriving in the middle of 800 languauges
Tok Pisin is one of the languages I’ve been most curious about for years. I refrained to write about it because I considered it a “well-known” language but I recently discovered it’s not that well-known so I figured I’d dig into it a bit.
And yes, I dove deeper than predicted because it’s that interesting.😅
Tok Pisin is an English-based creole spoken primarily in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It is spoken by about 122,000 people as a first language and by 4 million people as a second language.
As you can see most of its speakers speak it as a second language. This is because it is the most common lingua franca to exchange with other people in PNG because there are at least 820 languages in PNG.
The grammar of Tok Pisin is similar to that of Bislama. It’s an SVO language with no inflections. Reduplication is very common and yes-no questions only differ from affirmative sentences with a rising intonation.
One special feature of Tok Pisin is its use of the suffix -im
to indicate transitivity for verbs like givim
(from the English to give).
Each tense is by a marker:
No market = present tense
Mi katim frut.
→ I cut fruit.
stap
for the present progressiveYu stap singsing.
→ You (singular) are singing.
bin
(from been) for the past tenseEm bin go long wanpela pati.
→ She went to a party. [She - Past - go - Preposition - one - party]
bai
(from by and by) for the future tense:Ating em bai helpim mi
. → It will probably help me. [Probably - it - Future - help - I]
One of the most interesting parts of Tok Pisin is its reliance on only 4 prepositions:
bilong
(from belong) to mean “of”, “for” or “from”mama bilong dok
→ The dog’s mother [mother - bilong - dog]bilong wanem
→ Why [bilong - what]
long
to mean “to”, “at”, or “in”antap long
→ On top oflong taim
→ When
wantaim
to mean “with”Ol ami ol pait wantaim ol man.
→ The soldiers fight with the men. [Plural - soldier - plural - fight - wantaim - plural - man]
olsem
to mean “like” or “that” (probably from “all the same” I guess)Em tok olsem “mi mas pasim egsem bilong mi”.
→ He said, “I must pass my exam.” [He - say - olsem - I - must - pass - exam - bilong - I]
What makes Tok Pisin especially interesting is that despite it being an English-based creole, its location also means it’s been impacted by countless other languages. As a result, its vocabulary is quite varied with words coming from other colonial languages and local indigenous languages.
Even English words have a much wider range of meanings. Such as gras
which can mean both “grass” but also “hair”, “fur” or “feathers.”
If you want to learn Tok Pisin, you’ll find tons of resources online. Another good introduction is this video but if you really want a good overview of all its grammar, the Apics Online will have you covered in no time.
Tenkyu! Lukim yu behain!
(Thank you! See you later!)
Thanks for reading!
Mathias,
An average polyglot