Elemental's Excitingly Excellent Random Banter: No.CLXXVII (177)

[CurlyKitGirl]

\Yes, most Hindu-Arabic languages write from right to left, instead of left to right.

Actually, does anyone know where that comes from?
I've never seen anything on the subject.

Took a while of flipping through Wikipedia, and while I couldn't find anything concrete on it, I have a rough theory based upon about two dozen languages and my knowledge of PIE (Proto-Indo-European) I can say this:
with the exception of Ancient Egyptians hieroglyphs (which read left-to-right) the earliest alphabets as opposed to logoglyphs and so on, were written right-to-left.
The earliest of these being the Proto-Sinaitic language which is thought by scholars to be the ancestor to the Phoenician alphabet. And as you can see from the article, nearly all modern languages are descended from it.
In fact, as far as I could tell, we have Ancient Greek (at least in the West with languages using the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets) to thank for both having vowels in the alphabet and for writing left-to-right; even though the latter only became common in the C5^th - C4[sup]th[sup] BC.

Yes, it's pretty fun. I'm thankfull that my eye is better than my hand, which is better than my ear, which is better than my mouth.

Same for me. I can read most things as long as you give me time to learn at least the basics of the language and a dictionary, but speak it? Eh.

This whole course has been a lesson in frustration. First my book doesn't let me into the online course, then the online course doesn't let me into the online book (and is absolutely useless), then the teacher pops tests on us with no rhyme or reason, then she doesn't even get the questions right.
Hopefully I pass, since I only took it to boost my GPA while I'm out of school.

Well that's . . . messed up. You tried contacting the publisher's or telling the teacher? Well, at least it won't negatively affect you GPA right?

Online latin courses, I think I saw one on TV that promised a native speaker as a teacher by videoconference lessons.

Wait what.
What.
IT'S A DEAD LANGUAGE!
Nobody is a native speaker of Latin any more! Not unless their parents are either really weird or really awesome or both.

Nothing prevents you from doing a mixed approach. I'm a science person, still going to take all the psychology, theology and semiotics courses I can because... Rennaisance man FTW!

*boogies on down with the Renaissance man!*

I don't even know what that means. :D
I know next to nothing about theology. However, board-rules and all...

It's fun even if you don't believe in that sort of thing or can even talk about it here. Or with many friends.

I would just give up.

Shame. Some of the most interesting conversations exist in quotestorms. Not that I read all of them myself.

I'm familiar with the story, but I've never read more than a kid's abbreviated version. It's on my list of "Things I Must Read At Some Point Eventually".
... it's a ridiculously long list.
It sounds like a scream to read!

It must be read! (And my list is very long too)
It's a scream although, as you may expect with a poem in the oral tradition, there are several set forumulae and the battle sequences can get a bit repetitive.
Also Roland is a doorknob.
I actually found myself enjoying the political side more. All the intrigue.

I'm somewhat familiar with IPA, but I pick up things like that fast, so I'm not worrying too much about it. The Head of Linguistics has an awesome German accent that makes even basic syntax somewhat fun to listen to. Yeah, the early stuff doesn't seem that hard, or even all that boring to slog through. I'll survive it, for sure!

Cool.
Our faculty had really boring lectures on Intro the Literary Theory that pretty much killed off my (and most of my 'class'mates) interest in that field, except in a very few specific areas.
Areas which we were already interested in and studying beforehand because they were our go-to areas for critics and ways of analysing texts.

I've already done 2 Math exams and 2 English exams, each one 2 hours long (I just got back from the second English exam). I also have 2 French exams, but they're short and together are 2 and a half hours, and also there's a week in between my last History exam and my French exams, so that's TONS of time to study.

That sounds like the most horrendous thing in the world.
I haven't had exams in two years. And then I only had four. I don't I sat that many exams in one go since . . . GCSEs.
Speaking of, my sister has about twenty-six of those. Although some of those are coursework - or as they call them now 'class assessed and monitored portfolios'. Which is basically coursework under controlled conditions.

Oh, I am NOWHERE NEAR the level of proficiency in French necessary to be taught in it. Though if I want to, just for kicks, I can request to take ANY given exam or hand in ANY given assignment in French.

That . . . could be fun. If hard. I had a hard time writing a 1000 word piece of coursework in appropriate academic French three years ago. I couldn't imagine what it would be like now.

Aye, the benefits of not-having-to-read-every-single-thing-in-front-of-me :D

Stop being mean and teasing my about this compulsion.

Also, Arabic script is just so. gosh. darn. pretty.
Arabic script is the most gorgeous form of writing EVER. Also, the things you can do with Arabic script...
*snip*
That's complete and beautiful art, made out of actual words.
I'm in love with that.
Like, legitimately in love with that.

Okay, that's just beautiful. Puts a whole new spin on 'word art' doesn't it?

Yeah, IB was haaard, and it kinda suuuucked, but on the other hand, I'm totally gonna MURDER university. I've already written a 4000-word paper while at the same time writing another 3000-word project, I've taken 12 (mock-)exams in 10 days (not including weekends), I am SET. Even if I did have to take math and a science that I would not have otherwise taken.

You're going to rock socks off your university studies.

Awwww man, that's a shame. It would have been quite cool if you were in Cambridge.

I am not ashamed that my immediate thought was "But I'm at Oxford. Isn't that cool enough for you?"
Then I remembered that a lot of ex-colonies stole all the names of our towns and cities and counties. I'm looking at you Cornwall, Canada!

[QUOTE=Dragonprime;13202379]I napped for most of today, because I slept so little last night. I've actually managed to sleep right past evening prayer and into the middle of dinner here at the seminary, but no one's checking on me so I assume I've gotten away with it.

>_>[quote]

Lucky.
I'd have thought those things were kind of compulsory. Here I can do that. If I don't mind missing lectures (which are optional) and classes and tutorials (which aren't).

Post-Enlightenment thought sadly just kind of ignores medieval philosophy. St. Thomas Aquinas occasionally shows up, but mostly because people want to argue against him. St. Anselm's ontological argument for God, which took me a solid hour of thinking to really comprehend, also gets used by Descartes, and then everyone else proceeds to yell at Descartes for using it. It's not surprising that medieval thought really doesn't help with understanding any later philosophy, because rather than being a continuation of past schools of thought like the medieval was, the modern era has branched out in a million ways.

That's actually what I like about a lot of medieval thought. It's a nice continuum that builds on top of and further develops past philosophy. There are disputes (John Scotus Eriugena got stabbed to death by his students because they disagreed with him) and different schools, but overall there's a sense that they take what was good before them, and then try to improve upon it. The Enlightenment and later schools of thought do borrow from the past, but they often try too hard to do their own thing and reject past thought. Also, the late medieval period was probably the last great explosion of Aristotelian philosophy, and as far as I'm concerned Aristotle is pretty much the best of the ancient philosophers.

Well that's a bit thick.
Bernard of Chartres said that we are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. How can you just discard several hundred years of thought just because it was founded on or based around principles that were later proven wrong or incorrect?
Yes, some suppositions were wrong, but the conclusions they reached are still worth merit and understanding even if based off of faulty ideas. Hell, some of the most interesting medieval dialogues were based off a direct interaction with previous ideas and the dynamism created was used to prove and disprove equally!

Also, I know need to read The Cloud of Unknowing. It looks so very interesting. It's a shame that currently I'm reading The Ladder of Divine Ascent, although that's a solid book in it's own right. It's a guide for monks written by the abbot of a monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Yes, the Mt. Sinai. It's interesting stuff.

Yet another book added to your Things I'd Like To Read List?
I'd actually recommend the entire website. The TEAMS editions of medieval works is very thorough and they all come with comprehensive notes and introductions for the budding scholar or fan of context.
The Cloud is more of a mystic book than outright theology or spiritualism, but mysticism is a tricky genre anyway.
*adds The Ladder of Divine Ascent to her list*

When I need happy cheese I listen to MANOWAR! They're quite ridiculous, but they're so enthusiastic about what they do that I can't not enjoy their music.

So ridiculous!

I tried self teaching myself, but I found that I just didn't have the time to learn Latin on my own. I will eventually have to do a little bit of self teaching, just because the course I'm taking teaches classical Latin, while I want to know ecclesiastical Latin instead. Still, the switch shouldn't be too hard.

Shouldn't be. Some new vocabulary, probably pinched from Ancient Greek or newly coined, slightly different syntax and pronunciation.

A pity that Lady Philosophy doesn't show up more. She was an interesting character. Interestingly enough, Boethius is actually a canonized saint, though it took forever for that happened. He was for a long time confused with another saint named Severinus, but eventually the distinction was made, and Boethius got canonized in the 19th century.

I actually think Lady Philosophy is very sweet really. A bit like your first teacher (is supposed to be so as not to terrify you for life), which is appropriate given the context.

Yeah, some of the more brilliant philosophers occasionally get branded as dumb, hence the dunce cap. St. Thomas Aquinas was called "dumb ox" by some of his fellow classmates because they thought he was stupid. It only became clear that he was brilliant a little bit later. I think there's a certain level of intelligence that makes you look incomprehensibly stupid to others.

Allow me to paraphrase Bede again: the poet Caedmon would think on the Biblical works read to him like a cow chewing the cud and he would compose the most beautiful verse imaginable, like the very angels had whispered it in his ears.
And Caedmon was an illiterate cowherd. Dumb and intelligent aren't mutually exclusive.

Well, I will actually have to learn more about the contemporary and modern philosophers. I just haven't yet touched on them yet. I have had the occasional exposure to them, but only indirectly. For example, last semester I had a course called Philosophy of the Human Person which went from the pre-socratic philosophers up to post-modernism, so while I haven't ever taken course directly on those such as Descartes or David Hume, I've still had courses that do talk about them. So there are some of the modern era such as Hume, Descartes, and Kant that I'm actually somewhat familiar with.

I just get confused because post-modernism and modernism is very much not my thing.
I have a question I want to ask my tutor later today, and it's kind of an involved question, so I was planning it out in my head so it would sound . . . sane. And I realised I used the phrase "latent medievalism" in a positive context.

YES. So very much. I hate it almost as much as not being able to take a course because I lack the right prerequisites. We have a theology course next semester called "Friars in Renaissance Florence" that I wanted to take, especially since we're taught by Dominican friars who would know something about this. However, I lacked a second tier theology course as a prerequisite, so I'm taking Reformation theology instead.

If it helps, Reformation theology is still very interesting.

*pumps fist in the air*

Expeditio sacra!

I know! So fun to read about too.
I'm even chuffed I knew what that was, and then remembered there was a Latin wikipedia too.

This, is why I'm glad I don't live in a normal college dorm.

He gave in about five minutes after I posted because we'd all called the Porters on him. As had the people the next staircase over.

Currently doing this physics essay on Space Science due to be handed in in 5 and a half hours.

My current mind.

Awwww.
That's adorable.
I demand Cassie makes herself an avvie of her in space acting like that.