Hi Everyone,

This course will allow us to learn ON from a
native speaker of a closely related modern
language, and we will be learning some really
important things that need to be *internalised* -
that is, we will learn not only to use "different
words" but to actually /think differently/. By
that I don't mean out attitudes will change, but
that once you really internalise the rules of a
language, your thoughts start to take on a flow
dictated in part by the rules you are using.

People who speak only one living language tend to
hold the opinion that thought leads to speech,
and not the other way around. Now, speech leading
entirely to thought would of course mean that no
free thought really exists, and that's not what
I'm getting at - rather, speakers of several
living languages can tell you that speech has
"feed-back" to your thoughts. On some deeper
level you thoughts are still your own, but the
way they arrange themselves when you are
"thinking in a language" is different.

It's like a printer - you PC sends data to your
printer to print, but your printer can also send
driver information back to your PC which tells
your PC what *options* are available for
printing. In the same way, when you are thinking
in a foreign language, the rules give you
different options for expressing yourself -
options that may just lead you to having
different ideas than you otherwise would
have(printers don't do this to PC's, but people
are much more complex systems than PC's).

I pick up here out of interest and bid Antharik
excuse me if he is well aware of the issues I am
about to bring up:

--- Anthanarik <howat60@...> wrote:
(answering Susan Grandquist)

>> I didn't realize that the syntax was provided
>> by the
>> declensions, and the page seems to reinforce
>> the idea that we can plug the
>> words into an English syntax.
> You have to know ON grammar and syntax . Once
> you know this, you can create sentences.

The statement "you have to know ON grammar" on
the heals of the declension statement seems to
indicate that grammar is something that can make
up for declension, but an absolute *key* part of
older Germanic grammar *is* declension. Through
declension one's entire approach to saying
something changes - it's like suddenly having a
printer that can print from the bottom of the
page up or on the back of the page if you want
(you may understand what that means later). And
not understanding declension when trying to
understand the speech of someone who "thought"
with declension is like trying to appreciate an
impressionist painting when you're color blind.

So let's be open-minded and pay particular
attention to concepts such as declension (and
probably other concepts I don't know about that
apply to ON), which don't involve just "learning
rules", but really internalising a different way
of putting your thoughts together in your head.



=====
Kindest Regards,
- DeepStream
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