http://www.acceity.org/2009/07/the-genetics-of-language/ A Southwest Wisconsin Blog Mon, 10 Oct 2011 04:00:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.acceity.org/2009/07/the-genetics-of-language/comment-page-1/#comment-72 Joshua Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:57:13 +0000 http://www.acceity.org/?p=522#comment-72 Knowing common roots and cognates certainly helps in learning other languages. In fact, a generation or so ago, high school students in this area who wanted to learn a foreign language had to begin with Latin. The idea was that by learning the common ancestor of so many other tongues, students would get a better foundation in English vocabulary, and be prepared to jump right in to Latin's daughter languages, like French, Spanish, Italian, etc, by recognizing the Latin roots. Frankly, I wish language was still taught that way. But it wouldn't help you as much with German. Knowing common roots and cognates certainly helps in learning other languages. In fact, a generation or so ago, high school students in this area who wanted to learn a foreign language had to begin with Latin. The idea was that by learning the common ancestor of so many other tongues, students would get a better foundation in English vocabulary, and be prepared to jump right in to Latin’s daughter languages, like French, Spanish, Italian, etc, by recognizing the Latin roots. Frankly, I wish language was still taught that way. But it wouldn’t help you as much with German.

]]> http://www.acceity.org/2009/07/the-genetics-of-language/comment-page-1/#comment-71 Eric Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:28:35 +0000 http://www.acceity.org/?p=522#comment-71 This was a very nice lesson. I like linguistics. I just don't like researching it. Would this also help us learn other languages by finding their similarities to help us discover meaning in words we don't understand? This was a very nice lesson. I like linguistics. I just don’t like researching it. Would this also help us learn other languages by finding their similarities to help us discover meaning in words we don’t understand?

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