Language is a complicated thing, no? I'm sure that after several courses in tagmemics, proto-Indo-European syntax and morphology, and the ever-popular "Overview of Sanskrit and Hittite", you too will be taking Tylenol every 4 hours as I did!
God bless your studies, Elizabeth-Maria. Hang in there. (It WILL end!!)
Dr John
Thanks. I am doing my culminating experience this Fall 2008. Please do pray for me.
Slightly off topic, or is this?
If there is one truth about language, it is in perpetual change. On the one hand, when we think we have mastered a language or completed a project, the vowels shift. On the other hand, it keeps us in business, because we have to redo everything.
First, we had the Great Vowel Shift in English between 1200 to 1600 A.D., and now we have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift in the U.S.A. and a dialectic shift in Britain where the Received Pronunciation (R.P.) or King's English is becoming outdated. Furthermore, the World's Englishes (Near East English, Singapore English, Hong Kong English, etc.) appear to be experiencing shifts which might lead to their become unintelligible to the American and British speakers of English, who are now in the minority.
This means when we attend an English Divine Liturgy in India or Singapore, we may not understand it, unless we have taken a linguistics class or two.