Beginning Sanskrit I

Dermot Killingley
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

This course is designed for university students taking Sanskrit as a minor or subsidiary subject, or in preparation for research. It can be completed in a year by a student giving a third of his or her time to Sanskrit. No previous experience of formal language learning is presupposed, and the course can be followed with or without a teacher.

The aim of the course is to develop reading ability, together with a knowledge of the main feature of phonology, morphology and syntax. There are sixty-five lessons, published in 3volumes, which introduce the difficulties of the language gradually, and provide practice in them as they are introduced. Each lesson contains explanations, oral practice which enables the student to produce correct sentences by following the examples given, a passage for reading, and written exercises. At first, the reading passages use very limited vocabulary and grammar, but they gradually become more complex as more gammatical categories and forms are introduced. From lesson 11 onwards they are based on stories found in Sanskrit literature, usually the Pañcatantra and related texts. Each story has been adapted in order to avoid forms which have not yet been introduced, and to increase the frequency of forms which are currently being learnt. As the course progresses, the passages follow their originals more closely.

The first nine lessons introduce the phonological system, using phonetic descriptions which are comprehensible to users withouth previous phonetic knowledge. Sandhi is introduced gradually, starting from Lesson 3. The Devanagari script is introduced in Lessons 23-7, and is used from then on in all the reading passages; roman script is used throughout in the explanations, practice sentences and exercises. The main forms of the highly complex verb system, the eight cases and three numbers of the nouns, and most of the inflectional classes are introduced and exemplified in stages. The grammatical terminology of modern Sanskrit scholarship has been adapted to conform with linguistic theory, as in Sanskrit by Dermot Killingley and Siew-Yue Killingley (Languages of the World /Materials 18).

Beginning Sanskrit has been used for many years in draft form. This first published edition has been thoroughly revised in the light of the author's long teaching experience.

ISBN 9783895860621. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 01. 242pp. 1997.

Beginning Sanskrit II

Dermot Killingley
University of Newcastle–upon-Tyne

Volume II of Beginning Sanskrit, containing Lessons 23 to 47, continues building on the foundations of phonology, grammar and vocabulary that have been laid in Volume I. It begins with five lessons on the Devanagari script, starting with the consonant characters and gradually introducing additional features. From the fifth lesson onwards, each lesson contains a story in Devan~g~ri script, giving practice in the material that has been learnt in that and the earlier lessons. The study of grammar resumes with the inflection of adjectives and pronominal adjectives. Feminine nouns have hitherto been used only in the nominative, but the case forms of these nouns are introduced half-way through the volume, incidentally giving greater variety to the stories by allowing fuller roles to female characters. Once the inflection of the main class of adjectives has been mastered, the student is introduced to perfective participles, which are inflected in the same way. The consonant-stem noun inflection is then introduced, leading to the similarly inflected progressive (conventionally called 'present') participle. The dual forms, which have not been used in Volume I, are introduced in this volume. Various important syntactic features, including the passive construction which is very widely used in Sanskrit, are introduced in the course of the lessons.

The stories, which are an integral part of the graded method followed in this course, are longer than in Volume I, and become progressively closer to their originals. Each lesson ends with exercises designed to enable the student to produce correct Sanskrit sentences using the material that has been learnt. The volume ends with a cumulative vocabulary which includes all the words listed in Volume I.

ISBN 9783895862007. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 02. 242pp.1997.

Intermediate Bangla

Clinton Seely
University of Chicago

Intermediate Bengali is aimed at English-speaking students of the Bengali language who have completed An Introduction to Bengali: Part I, by Edward C. Dimock, Jr., Somdev Bhattacharji, and Suhas Chatterjee (2nd printing; New Delhi: Manohar, 1976) and An Introduction to Bengali: Part II, by Somdev Bhattacharji (reprinted; Chicago: Dept. of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, U. of Chicago, 1988). The present work takes for granted that the material presented in those two books has been learned already.

Intermediate Bengali could be use profitably during the second year of language study in conjunction with A Bengali Prose Reader (for Second-Year Students), by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Somdev Bhattacharji (reprinted; Chicago: Dept. of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, U. of Chicago, 1988). In the third year, most students would do well to read diverse selections of Bengali writing such as those presented in parts two and three of An Advanced Course in Bengali, by Ernest Bender and Theodore Riccardi, Jr. (Philadelphia: South Asia Regional Studies; University of Pennsylvania, 1978); knowledge of the grammar covered in Intermediate Bengali will enhance the student's comprehension of those readings and should increase his/her reading speed. The present work draws heavily upon material in An Advanced Course in Bengali for examples of grammatical points.

Each of the twenty lessons in Intermediate Bengali is divided into four sections: (1) a short selection of Bengali; (2-3) two grammar sections; and (4) useful information in or about the language. Lesson 1 is an exception to that pattern; it has been designed primarily as a review of features of pronunciation of what can be called standard modern Bengali and of the mid-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century form of written Bengali, known as sadhu bhasa (the perfected or pristine language).

ISBN 9783895865169. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 03. 440pp. 2002.

Rush to Russian

Olga I.Glazunova
St. Petersburg State University

Rush to Russian is an all inclusive textbook for those beginning to study the Russian language from the basic level. The main aim of the textbook is to introduce lexical, grammatical rules and conversational Russian construction in the most easy and enthralling manner. All the commentaries in the textbook are in English.

In the introductory course the students learn letters and corresponding sounds of the Russian language, vocabulary and grammar. The special order of representation makes the process of learning Russian easier, because students have an opportunity to get to know Russian letters step by step during the entire course carefully working out the pronunciation and spelling. «Rush to Russian» is a unique book which offers such kind of teaching material organization.

Every lesson includes the most frequent conversational phrases reflect the peculiarities of Modern Russian and special rubrics introducing various aspects of life in Russia. At the end of this course students obtain the knowledge of the middle level in Russian.

The main course is extremely practical for students who are going to study at Russian educational institutions because it is composed around the everyday situations they will face in Russia. At the end of the textbook grammar tables and clues to the exercises can be found. The manual is supplied with Russian-English vocabulary.

ISBN 9783895863363. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 07. 240pp. 2003.

An Introduction to Welsh

Phylip Brake
University of Wales, Aberystwyth

The course is envisaged being used in the classroom or by individual students in their own time.

The course will begin with an explanation of Welsh pronunciation, for students working without a tutor. For those whose first language isn't English, the IPA alphabet will be employed throughout the course.

The course will be divided into 12 units. Each unit will contain: a communicative objective; grammatical explanations; exercises to practise the grammatical points covered; vocabulary; a dialogue which will put the language covered in the unit in a more meaningful context.

Unit 1 will deal with: meeting someone for the first time; mutations, the definite article, gender, forming noun-plurals, identification sentences. Unit 2 will deal with: exchanging personal details; the present tense of the verb 'bod' (to be); adjectives; the weather; indefinite nouns. Unit 3 will deal with: giving directions; locative adverbs; the present relative form of 'bod'; prefixed pronouns; the nominative clause; the emphatic nominative clause; numerals; particles of speech followed by 'bod'. Unit 4 will deal with: going shopping; independent and affixed pronouns; conjugated prepositions; genitive noun phrases; denoting possession. Unit 5 will deal with: talking about what one used to do; the past and imperfect tenses of 'bod'; the pluperfect; relative forms of 'bod'; demonstrative expressions; days of the week. Unit 6 will deal with: describing past events; the past tense of regular verbs; the immediate perfect of the present tense; comparison of adjectives; telling time. Unit 7 will deal with: enquiring about past events; the past tense of irregular verbs, expressing obligation, prepositional clauses, ordinals, seasons and months of the year. Unit 8 will deal with: planning for the future; the future tense of 'bod', the passive voice, the preposition 'ar', idioms with 'ar'. Unit 9 will deal with the future tense of regular verbs, the imperative, relative clauses. Unit 10 will deal with: asking permission, the future tense of irregular verbs, 'gwneud' as an auxiliary verb. Unit 11 will deal with: saying what one would do, the subjunctive mood, the conditional subjunctive of 'bod', conditional clauses. Unit 12 will deal with: news bulletin, defective verbs, impersonal forms of the verb.

ISBN 9783895865862. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 08. 160 pp. 2005.

An Innovative Methodology for Learning Polish Inflection

Marjorie J. McShane
University of Maryland Baltimore County

This book introduces an innovative, practically oriented methodology for describing the inflectional patterns of Polish nouns, adjectives and adverbs. It then employs this methodology for describing the full inventory of inflectional paradigms for the selected parts of speech, and richly supplements each paradigm with illustrative examples. This book takes up where typical descriptive grammars leave off, supplementing their valid but often difficult to apply rules with a more direct, less abstract presentation of the material. Formally, the book is divided into two parts. Part I provides background about the morphology of Polish, as well as introducing and motivating the methodology of description. Part II instantiates that methodology, presenting the inflectional paradigms and lists of sample members in the general style of a reference manual. One aim of the work is to demystify the difficult, often idiosyncratic aspects of Polish inflection by stating plainly what factors affect the choice of inflectional endings for every class of word. Another aim is to provide students and teachers with sufficient practice material to drill each pattern to the point where producing correct word forms becomes automatic.

The author, Marjorie McShane, received her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Princeton University and currently works as a computational linguist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. This book developed from work on a natural language processing project carried out between 1998 and 2001 at the Computing Research Laboratory of New Mexico State University. Apart from computational and practical morphology, Dr. McShane’s research interests include ellipsis and reference (theoretically, descriptively and computationally), machine translation, knowledge elicitation, ontological semantic text processing, and Slavic morphosyntax.

ISBN 9783895864483. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 11. 130pp. 2003.

Speaking Sitimaxa (3 Vol.)

A Learner's Grammar and Reader

Vol. I: Grammar

Julian Granberry
Native American Language Services

The Sitimaxa (Chitimacha) language of southern Louisiana has not been spoken since the death of its last native speakers, Chief Benjamin Paul and Delphine Decloux, in 1934 and 1940 respectively. We are fortunate, however, to have both excellent written grammar and vocabulary materials on the language gathered by the professional linguists Morris Swadesh and Mary Haas in the 1930’s as well as recordings of many stories and tribal folk-tales made for them by Chief Paul and Mrs. Decloux.

These resources provide the materials for the present volume, which is designed to be used for beginning learners of this unusually beautiful and expressive language.

Vol. I: Grammar: ISBN 9783929075823. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 12/1. 91pp. 2009.

Speaking Sitimaxa (3 Vol.)

A Learner's Grammar and Reader

Vol. 2: Reader (plus audio CD)

Julian Granberry
Native American Language Services

The Sitimaxa (Chitimacha) language of southern Louisiana has not been spoken since the death of its last native speakers, Chief Benjamin Paul and Delphine Decloux, in 1934 and 1940 respectively. We are fortunate, however, to have both excellent written grammar and vocabulary materials on the language gathered by the professional linguists Morris Swadesh and Mary Haas in the 1930’s as well as recordings of many stories and tribal folk-tales made for them by Chief Paul and Mrs. Decloux.

These resources provide the materials for the present volume, which is designed to be used for beginning learners of this unusually beautiful and expressive language.

Vol. 2: Reader (plus audio CD): ISBN 9783929075878. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 12/2. 52pp. 2009.