historical_linguistics epitome of incomprehensibility Class I'm taking at Concordia Fall 2020 (everything is online). Level: technically beginner for this topic, 2nd year, prerequisite was LING 200, which I did last year. Level for e_o_i: really hard when doing 20+ hrs work a week, plus Intro_to_German. I didn't know when I signed up for two classes that I'd still have admin work. Time management challenge. But the topic is fascinating. It's a bit more technical than I expected: more on sound changes and reconstructions than the various language families, at least so far. 201004 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I was having a hard time getting things done and I skipped the essay question of the exam. Which was worth 5 marks of the whole course. The exam was a take-home one, and long; I should have planned better but I was anxious and exhausted. But I don't need to feel like a failure over it. That's the weird part, that it makes me feel like a failure. If I weren't so anxious, I'd have gotten to it faster in the first place. There's this weird thing with me and essays. I seem to have a lot of trouble doing them on time. I did finish it, and handed it in 3 days late, writing that even if it can't be counted I would feel bad not finishing it. I sent the email yesterday and now I'm afraid to check my inbox in case the prof wrote something scathing. But it's unlikely, and, if he did, why be scathed? I don't know what's wrong with me. I have two many emotions about non-emotional things. 201218 ... e_o_i Too many emotions, of course. Maybe only two too many? I don't think I'm a failure for not being able to spell "to/too/two" when I'm writing fast. And maybe that's what the Heavenly Pass/Fail Commission looks at when judging. Or maybe you can't apply things like failure or success to broad and variegated areas of life. And it's not as if I'll fail the course (unless the prof for some obscure reason decides to give me zero in the exam for not finishing one part - it is something I can fear, but it doesn't seem likely). 201218 ... e_o_i Worry about marks aside, new knowledge can be...well, if not strictly useful, than interesting. It shattered my fanciful notion that Inuktitut and Finnish were somehow related because they both had a lot of Ts, Ks, and As. On the other hand, Bahasa Indonesian and Hawaiian are distantly related, both being in the general Polynesian family (phylum)? The Polynesians were excellent navigators and spread all over the Pacific, but it's still kind of amazing to think that these languages half a world apart are related - and this spread occurred in the pre-airplane, pre-large-ship days. 201222 ... e_o_i Neither Finnish nor Inuktitut have /b/ and /f/ sounds, for what it's worth. 201225 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Oh hey, I got an A+ in Historical Linguistics, miraculously (grade curved up and prof accepted late essay). Der Deutschkurs ist sehr schwierig, aber ich spreche nicht darüber, sondern über Historiche Sprachwissenschaft. 210410 ... e_o_i *historische Why not anything with "Geschichte"? Maybe because it doesn't deal with history as a story. No, that's being too fanciful. I'm tired. But Geschichte means history and story, like histoire in French. 210410 what's it to you? who go blather from