Proto-Indo-European Self-Study Course Book

Today is International Mother Language Day, a day as good as any other to start or continue learning Proto-Indo-European.

Fernando López-Menchero has just published the 3^rd version of his Proto-Indo-European self-study book, A Practical Guidebook for Modern Indo-European Explorers, updating the previously published 1^st version (2018). It includes:

Multiple corrections to the already published lessons 1-30, based on many comments from readers, received by email and through the Modern Indo-European Group.
The addition of previously announced Part II of the Guidebook, now published as lessons 31-42 and Appendices.
Corrections and updates to the supplementary materials,

… Read the rest

Interlinear Homer, Iliad 1:1-21 in Mycenaean & Indo-European

This is a Proto-Indo-European translation of the first lines of the first book I did some time ago. Fernando López-Menchero was kind enough to help with comments and corrections.

For relevant comments and alternative translations for each line, as well as other modern translations, see the Google Sheet.

NOTE. If you are interested in collaborating by editing the document, please contact me.

The structure of the interlinear texts below is as follows:

1. The Ancient Greek version is copied verbatim from Perseus Digital Library, including links to each word to facilitate immediate reference when necessary.
2. The … Read the rest “Interlinear Homer, Iliad 1:1-21 in Mycenaean & Indo-European”

Winds of change and our shared European past

The waves of disinformation are already here, putting the blame again on the European Union, as in the Financial Crisis of 2008. After years of negligent state policies promoted or tolerated by ruling political parties and social majorities of each country in the EU, which have led directly to yet another avoidable crisis. After years of state inactivity in the supranational political arena, hindering European social integration, and stripping EU institutions of any real power. The culprits are, again, not we, but they: evil and foreign hands pulling invisible strings from Brussels. The Age of Populism at its … Read the rest “Winds of change and our shared European past”

A Late Proto-Indo-European self-learning language course

Fernando López-Menchero has just published the first part of his A Practical Guidebook for Modern Indo-European Explorers (2018).

It is a great resource to learn Late Proto-Indo-European as a modern language, from the most basic level up to an intermediate level (estimated B1–B2, depending on one’s previous background in Indo-European and classical languages).

Instead of working on unending details and discussions of the language reconstruction, it takes Late Proto-Indo-European as a learned, modern language that can be used for communication, so that people not used to study with university manuals on comparative grammar can learn almost everything necessary about PIE … Read the rest “A Late Proto-Indo-European self-learning language course”

Prometheus Engineer language in updated alternative version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European

As we announced yesterday at Dnghu, our book A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, Third Edition has been revised, and the new version of the Proto-Indo-European lexicon has been added and it is available now online and printed at Amazon, without the Etymology section – it is therefore a cheaper, more handy manual.

But, more importantly, we have added a new section and published a parallel Prometheus Edition – Engineer language of the grammar, that includes unprecedented content with discussion of Prometheus’ recreated Late Proto-Indo-European dialect of the Prometheus/Alien/Predator fiction universe. There is also a printed version … Read the rest “Prometheus Engineer language in updated alternative version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European”

How ‘difficult’ (using Esperantist terms) is an inflected language like Proto-Indo-European for Europeans?

For native speakers of most modern Romance languages (apart from some reminiscence of the neuter case), Nordic (Germanic) languages, English, Dutch, or Bulgarian, it is usually considered “difficult” to learn an inflected language like Latin, German or Russian: cases are a priori felt as too strange, too “archaic”, too ‘foreign’ to the own system of expressing ideas. However, for a common German, Baltic, Slavic, Greek speaker, or for non-IE speakers of Basque or Uralic languages (Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian), cases are the only way to express common concepts and ideas, and it was also the common way of expression for speakers … Read the rest “How ‘difficult’ (using Esperantist terms) is an inflected language like Proto-Indo-European for Europeans?”

Rhetoric of debates, discussions and arguments: Useful destructive criticism for scientific & academic research, reasons and personal opinions; the example of Proto-Indo-European language revival

Rhetoric (Wikipedia) is the art of harnessing reason, emotions and authority, through language, with a view to persuade an audience and, by persuading, to convince this audience to act, to pass judgement or to identify with given values. The word derives from PIE root wer-, ‘speak’, as in MIE zero-grade wrdhom, ‘word’, or full-grade werdhom, ‘verb’; from wrētōr ρήτωρ (rhētōr), “orator” [built like e.g. wistōr (<*wid–tor), Gk. ἵστωρ (histōr), “a wise man, one who knows right, a judge” (from which ‘history’), from PIE root weid-, ‘see, know’]; from … Read the rest “Rhetoric of debates, discussions and arguments: Useful destructive criticism for scientific & academic research, reasons and personal opinions; the example of Proto-Indo-European language revival”

Esperanto & other invented languages vs. Indo-European for Europe (and IV): Universal Law of Persistence of Error

A recent comment on the post about the so-called Grin Report – which explained the benefits of having one common language for Europe -, gives (unintentionally, I guess) still more reasons to support a natural language like Proto-Indo-European over Esperanto and similar inventions:

Le meilleur est l’ennemi du bien, ‘The best is the enemy of the good’; Ever since Ido tried to ‘improve’ on Esperanto, many other constructed languages have come along, but none has achieved anything near to what Esperanto has accomplished

I agree. No artificial (‘constructed’) language has achieved what Esperanto has, and no conlang is “better” … Read the rest “Esperanto & other invented languages vs. Indo-European for Europe (and IV): Universal Law of Persistence of Error”

Wikipedia articles: accuracy, vandalism, spam and administrators

I have discovered (among tons of anti-spam spam) a mail from a Wikipedian asking for collaboration on the discussion about some controversy regarding an article on Dnghu’s project, about Indo-European language revival – as far as I’ve read, it seems to deal with the question “is Modern Indo-European as Modern Hebrew?” – Even if I wanted to participate, I don’t know what else could I say, that is not already written down in our grammar.

Some months ago I saw that some links were coming from the Wikipedia article “Europaio” – of course, I felt excited … Read the rest “Wikipedia articles: accuracy, vandalism, spam and administrators”