Lexicon Valley from Booksmart Studios Family Ties
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Jun 10, 2024 Explore the origins of Proto-Indo-European language through the Yamnaya people, the complexities of ancient languages like the Hittite language, and the unique sound changes in language development. Delve into the intriguing Hindi number system with unexpected changes and challenges in numerical naming conventions.
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Indo-European Case Marking
- Indo-European languages feature case marking on nouns, changing form based on grammatical function.
- John McWhorter illustrates this with Russian examples like "stol" (table) becoming "stola" (of the table).
Indo-European Verb Tenses
- Indo-European languages distinguish between imperfect and preterite verb tenses.
- This differentiates ongoing actions from those completed at a specific time, like Spanish "estudiaban" (were studying) versus "sono" (rang).
Subjunctive and Imperative Moods
- Indo-European languages employ subjunctive and imperative moods, marked by specific endings.
- The subjunctive expresses hypothetical situations, as in Spanish "espero que el vaya" (I hope that he goes).