#tamasheq:general

[guillemelgat]

Tamasheq Verbs - Pt. 1: Basic Aspects and Conjugations

Here's the first in a couple of posts based on some notes I took this winter break to try to understand Tamasheq verbs a bit better. This posts outlines the conjugations for regular Conjugation I verbs, and hopefully I'll make the second post going through all the conjugations afterwards. Verbs in Tamasheq, like those in Arabic, have roots, which in most Conjugation I verbs are triliteral (3 letters). These go where the [1], [2], and [3] are in the conjugation templates. Tamasheq verbs also don't have tenses (i.e. past, present, future), they only have aspect, which is basically whether or not the action is complete. I've put a better explanation of what each aspect means at the bottom. This isn't super definitive and I'm not a native speaker, so corrections are always welcome!

Basic conjugation pattern:

SIMPLE IMPERFECT:

ed-ə[1][2]ə[3]ăɣ ed-tə[1][2]ə[3]ăd ed-y[1][2]ə[3] ed-tə[1][2]ə[3] ed-nə[1][2]ə[3] ed-tə[1][2]ə[3]ăm ed-tə[1][2]ə[3]măt ed-ə[1][2]ə[3]ăn ed-ə[1][2]ə[3]năt

SIMPLE PERFECT:

ə[1][2]ă[3]ăɣ tə[1][2]ă[3]ăd y[1][2]ă[3] tə[1][2]ă[3] nə[1][2]ă[3] tə[1][2]ă[3]ăm tə[1][2]ă[3]măt ə[1][2]ă[3]ăn ə[1][2]ă[3]năt

INTENSIVE PERFECT:

(stress changed from vowel between roots 1 & 2 to vowel between roots 2 & 3, marked with â)

INTENSIVE IMPERFECT:

[1]a[2][2]ă[3]ăɣ [1]a[2][2]ă[3]ăd y[1]a[2][2]ă[3] [1]a[2][2]ă[3] nə[1]a[2][2]ă[3] [1]a[2][2]ă[3]ăm [1]a[2][2]ă[3]măt [1]a[2][2]ă[3]ăn [1]a[2][2]ă[3]năt

Meanings for verb aspects:

simple perfect - completed past tense / perfect tense

intensive perfect - perfect tense (as the result of a former action)

simple imperfect - future tense / habitual in present or past

intensive imperfect - progressive in all tenses / habitual in all tenses

[guillemelgat]

End of Month Reflection: May

So the month of May is basically over, which means it’s time to look over how well I did on my language goals! Despite the vagueness of both goals, I actually managed to get a decent amount of stuff done. To begin with, I finally caught up with currylangs and have now done all of the Malayalam lessons they have. I’d been wanting to do that since last October, so I’m glad I got through it. That being said, I still have lots of stuff that I’m unable to say, and my grammar and vocab knowledge is very basic, so hopefully I’ll be able to advance a bit more when I’m home and have my dad to ask things to. The goal is to be acceptable at Malayalam by the beginning of July for my cousin’s wedding.

Tamahaq went really well! I wasn’t sure I was actually getting things from taking notes, but yesterday I was looking at a bunch of songs and I could pick out words and structures that I couldn’t before, so I’ve definitely learned something. Of course, I’m far from fluent, or even from A1 for that matter, but I’m feeling really good about how far I’ve gotten. Maybe at some point I’ll have time to learn more, but for now I’m going to have to take a break. That being said, I definitely want to come back to learning it sometime soon. 

Overall, I’m feeling more content than ever with my languages, the only thing that matters now is that I keep up the level that I’ve been going at the past few months and I’ll actually be making significant progress.

Below is a short end-of-month summary in the languages themselves. Note that the translation sounds ridiculous mostly because I really can’t write in Malayalam or Tamahaq and some of the things I said were kind of strange sounding, to say the least.

രണ്ട് മാസംക്ക് മലയാളം പഠിച്ചു. ഇപോൾ വീടുക്ക് ഞാൻ പോവുന്നു. അവിടെ അച്ഛനുടെകൂടെ സംസാരിക്കുകയായിരിക്കും. അവന്രെകൂടെ പഠിക്കുകയായിരിക്കും.   മലയാളത്തിൽ വാക്കുകൾ അറിയുവല്ല. എളുപ്പമല്ല. പഠിക്കുകയായിരിക്കം. 

I studied Malayalam for two months. Now I am going home. I will talk with my father there. I will learn with him. I do not know words in Malayalam. It is not easy. I will learn it.

Ģer-i d-tinăttawt n-əlmud ən-tămahăq əyyăt tallit. Dimar, ăddôbeɣ əktəbăɣ hărăt-ənnet. Rêɣ tămahăq. Rêɣ ed-əddubuɣ eģărri-nnet innin ed-ăkkăɣ e tazzăɣăn Imuhăɣ. Wi yăģģên hărăt rêɣ ed-əlmədăɣ. Išwar rêɣ ed-əlmədăɣ tămahăq animer. Dimar, wăr-ăddôbeɣ almud-ənnet. 

It is one month since I started learning Tuareg. Now, I can write a bit of it. I love Tuareg. I want to be able to understand it so that I can go to where the Tuareg live. There are many things that I must learn. Soon I want to learn more Tuareg. Now, I cannot learn it.

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 20

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 18

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 14

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 2

I’m doing more of these because I want to take better notes and actually figure out what’s going on with Tamahaq, and I decided to post them here in case anyone wanted them. I can also post non-image versions if people would like those, the only thing is that I have no idea how I would organize the tables. Also if things don’t make sense I may or may not be able to give you an answer - keep in mind that these are my notes from my studies, not me teaching something I know about.

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 19

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 16

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 11

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 9

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

February Language Goals!

I made a lot of progress with my languages in January but I don’t think I’ll have as much time in February, so I’m cutting back a bit (only a bit) on the goals for this month. Here is what I want to accomplish:

Tamasheq - First and foremost, I’m going to be adding yet another language to my list, Tamasheq! I’m very excited to be starting it, since I have been casually dabbling in it since about this time last year. I’ll be going through some basic grammar and vocab 3 days a week from a simple website that I found. On here you should expect at least some (if not a lot of) Tinariwen. 

Romani - Continuing with my progress from last month, I checked out Ian Hancock’s Handbook of Vlax Romani from the library as well as several books in some Romani dialect (??) to try reading (I will probably understand nothing and it will be great). Basically I want to get better at understanding the language and differentiating dialects and just generally expanding my knowledge of it, so that’s what I’ll be doing.

Catalan - I’m going to be doing an unofficial “independent study” with my professor and reading Calaveres atònites by Jesús Montcada, so I’ll be doing that twice a week and hopefully improving my Catalan along the way!

This is a mess, but hopefully gives y’all a basic idea of what I’m trying to get done in the next 28 days (or 24 now, I guess). I hope it all works out, we’ll see how it goes.

[guillemelgat]

So I’m going to try to post some lessons from my Tamahaq course, starting with this poor attempt to be a good linguistician. I don’t know how half of the French words are pronounced so I can’t really be of much help, but here you go I guess?

Also, the consonant list is not complete. This is the full list of letters in the Tamahaq alphabet:

a e o i u ă ə b d g ᶃ t k q ḍ ṭ l r m n ñ ŋ f ɣ x s z š ž ṣ ẓ h w y

This is a very condensed version, so please ask if you have questions and I will see if Karl-G. Prasse can offer any answers (on my own, unfortunately, I cannot).

I might be making some more of these for next week if people want them/if my life permits it.

[guillemelgat]

THE INTERNET NEEDS MORE FREE READILY AVAILABLE RESOURCES IN MINORITY LANGUAGES

I want to learn Tamasheq. It’s a language spoken by around 200,000 Tuareg people in northern Mali, and I think it’s super cool. Unfortunately, there are almost no resources for it on the Internet. Think about how amazing the world would be if someone decided to make resources for minority languages easily available on the Internet. Think about how many more learners they would gain. The only thing stopping people from learning a language like Tamasheq is the lack of resources. Let’s make resources for minority languages more accessible and maybe the world will be a better place.

[guillemelgat]

When Tinariwen release a new song with the lyrics and a translation, you know it’s a sign from above that you need to learn Tuareg.

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 21

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]

[guillemelgat]

Tamahaq Lesson 8

[FULL SERIES OF POSTS AVAILABLE HERE] [BOOK I AM USING]