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Monday 13 July 2015

Learning a language by reading the dictionary

It was Malcolm X in his autobiography who described learning English from reading a dictionary. He was of course fluent in street-language.

I am not in prison but I am in the bonds of iron imposed by my God and I have decided to add to the mix in my project that I will occasionally write up the Latin glosses in my Hebrew Latin concordance as an exercise. I will do it by letter pair. There are about 400 to 500 letter pairs that will be manageable. אא has no stems. But אב is a good one to start.  I have noted that the concordnace skips all names - I had never looked one up in it so I hadn't realized it.

Here's the first installment. All the roots, the first 10 pages of the concordance, that have אב as their first two letters.

אבּ pater, genitor, avus, proavus primus, inventor, protector, dominus, megister, consiliator, artifex
אבּדּ errare, oberrare, amitti, evanscere, perire, vastari, perdere, delere, necare
אבּה velle, obtemperare, coniunctum, cum אל לא, nolle, appetitus, (capparis) pro voluptate
אבּוי vae, eheu
אבּי ah, quaeso
אבּיבּ arista, spica
אבּיוןּ egenus, indigens, pauper, miser, infelix
אבּיר fortis, validus, taurus, robustus potens, durus, obstinati animi, pl. tauri, equi
אבּךּ convolvere, sursum volvere, excitare
אבּל lugere, lamentari, profecto, certo, at, sed, tamen, lugens, maeore afflictus, plangor, lamentatio
אבּןּ lapis, l. aerosis, pretiosus, gemma, pondus, perpendiculum
אבּנּט balteus, cingulum
אבּס saginare
אבּק pulvis tenuis et subtilis; fulgio
אבּרךּ genua flectantur

Did I miss any (apart from proper names)? How does the English relate to the Latin? I often find that the Latin is suggestive of English glosses. Maybe I need an Anglo-Saxon concordance as well.

For אב, the first letter pair, the ancestor of all others, here are the places where it occurs and their English glosses as I have chosen them to date. One item stands out as different. So this becomes a way of visually checking that things are 'OK'. The anomaly belongs under the root אבִיב. This word in my data only occurs twice: in the song as noted below (and now corrected) and in Job 8:12.
אבּותּיו his ancestorsPsalms 49:20
אבּותּיכּםּ your ancestors1 Samuel 12:8
אבּותּיכּםּ your ancestors1 Samuel 12:7
אבּותּיכּםּ your ancestorsPsalms 95:9
אבּותּינּו our ancestorsPsalms 44:2
אבּותּינּו our ancestorsPsalms 78:5
אבּותּינּו our ancestorsPsalms 106:7
אבּותּינּו our ancestorsPsalms 106:6
אבּותּי my ancestorsPsalms 39:13
אבּותּםּ their ancestorsJob 8:8
אבּותּםּ their ancestorsPsalms 78:12
אבּיךּ your fatherRuth 2:11
אבּיךּ your father'sPsalms 45:11
אבּי a father ofPsalms 68:6
אבּי my fatherGenesis 24:38
אבּי my fatherPsalms 27:10
אבּי my fatherPsalms 89:27
אבּי the father ofRuth 4:17
אבּי the father ofRuth 4:17
אבּתּיו his fathersPsalms 109:14
אבּתּיךּ your fathersPsalms 45:17
אבּתּינּו our ancestorsPsalms 22:5
אבּתּינּו our ancestorsLamentations 5:7
אבּ a fatherPsalms 103:13
אבּ a fatherLamentations 5:3
אבּ a fatherJob 38:28
בּאבּי into the green shoots ofSong 6:11
ואבּותּינּו and our ancestorsPsalms 78:3
ואבּתּיךּ nor your ancestorsDeuteronomy 28:64
ואבּתּיךּ or your ancestorsDeuteronomy 28:36
כּאבּותּםּ like their ancestorsPsalms 78:8
כּאבּותּםּ like their ancestorsPsalms 78:57
לאבּיו of his father's1 Samuel 17:34
לאבּתּיךּ to your ancestorsDeuteronomy 28:11

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