Polyglots unite!

What languages have you studied and how does it help you in your collecting?

Me:
Ancient Greek -- helps with Roman provincial coin inscriptions, that's for sure.
Latin -- helps with Roman imperial coin inscriptions, obviously.
German -- helps with reading certain catalogs, like AMNG (Pick) and Ruzicka.
French -- helps with reading the Cohen catalog.
English -- of course, being a native Anglophone.

 

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I had to do spanish, french and latin at school, but I really just did it to get the grade and I don't really know it anymore

 

Native English plus Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Russian.

It helps in a lot of ways besides numismatically--especially when traveling!

 

I forgot english up there

 

I don't speak Russian, but I learnt the Russian ABC when I was a boy, to read Russian coins. Now that still is very useful for me, because many standard works about Central Asian coins are in Russian. Besides, being a bookseller, I can buy and sell Russian books.

At that same time in the late sixties I collected world coins according the book Modern World Coins by R.S. Yeoman. It had a lot of tables showing all the different numbers: Arabic numbers, Persian, Chinese, Thai, Ethiopian a.o. Those I learnt by heart, which is still very useful, only second to the type course I followed at an early age. All tools, very convenient tools.

 

unworldly monoglot here

 

American English, Hoosier Twang and Southern drawl.

Learned Spanish in school, then later coursework in my career. This has helped me a lot in understanding and pronouncing Latin words and names.

Some conversational Chinese (Guangdonghua and Pudonghua)

Greek Alphabet

Pleasantries in about 15 different Asian and European languages for business travel.

Not using them on a daily basis as I used to, I am down to only American English as dialects above...

 

Ancient Greek (koine) - helps to read inscriptions, especially for roman provincial,
less for quotes of ancient writers.
Latin (useful in reading comments from ancient writers)
German (allows access to some modern scholarship)
English (native tongue, useful for syntactic matters)

These help me when confronted with Punic and Aramaic inscriptions:
Aramaic
Ancient Hebrew
Ugaritic - not strong anymore
Akkadian - very weak now

Modern Hebrew (don't use it anymore)

 

You mean the Russian АБВ. If any of you want to brush up your language skills, there are numerous free websites, of which I personally like Duolingo.com and busuu.com the best. There are some others like Mondly that is good for Chinese and a lot of other languages, but they dun you every 10 minutes trying to get you to subscribe.

It is amazing what you can learn for free online nowadays, unlike back when I was an undergrad and you had to go to the language lab and ask for 8-track tapes to be put on ...

Kind regards,

George

 

Surprised by how many people here have studied Latin. Even among ancients collectors, I figured that was more unusual, not to mention all of the other ancient languages listed here - Akkadian?!

I'm almost through with my second semester of Latin.

I've also studied Japanese before, but only to a limited extent (very basic conversation, reading signs and labels), which I haven't used to any great extent. I guess it also helps with understanding the way other Asian writing systems work, even if they aren't linguistically related.

And I've picked up the Greek alphabet at least, just from coins.

 

Not the only one here ma'am. It seems I was the last class needing foreign language credits at every level of school I attended, so I never took classes I could later forget.

I am paying for it now, wishing I knew many languages that could help my collecting.

 

I am fluent in Korean and Somali. I use them for work. Korean has helped with collecting a bit when I lived over there but not much.

 

I took a little Greek a long time ago, but I'm pretty much a uniglot or monoglot, not even sure which.

 

I've formally studied French, German, Spanish, and Classical Chinese. I have informally studied Sanskrit (though guided by a knowledgeable professor) and am currently studying Greek (mostly Homeric). French, German, and Greek certainly help with the study of ancient coinage. With enough time I could translate Italian so it is intelligible.

No Latin

 

spanish, portuguese, english. helps with numbers.

 

Latin - both classical and medieval. Latin Paleography has also been incredibly useful for medieval coins
French - has helped with some catalogs and articles in my Collecting area
Italian - ditto above, but my Italian is weak. The Latin helps

I’ve informally delved into Greek and Arabic, but nothing significant. More a familiarity with the writing styles and lettering

English - native language. Have also a familiarity with middle and old English which helps with Anglo-Saxon coins (of which I have none, but enjoy perusing and will eventually buy some...)

 

A long time ago I had introductory courses in ancient Greek. Latin, Italian and Spanish. As others have said, being familiar with the Greek alphabet helps with inscriptions.

I find Italian the most useful for reading -- my favorite Roman Republican reference book is Banti's Corpvs Nvmmorvm Romanorvm.

 

I studied Latin and French at school, to a fairly basic level. But the syllabi were very different. Public exam for French had a picture of a van with the word ‘meubles’ on the side, which we had to translate. Latin at the same level included set texts by Pliny and Virgil! I also have basic German and beginner Ancient Greek, but nothing to any reasonable standard of competence.

 

English is my native language, and the only other language I've learned at all well is Spanish. I can also more-or-less stumble through written Italian or French, if the vocabulary and grammar is simple and I have a lot of time. I can also recognize a lot of Latin words, usually through their cognates in modern Romance languages or English, but never studied Latin grammar. In order to read coin legends, I've learned the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, and Chinese and Arabic numbers (the forms used in Arabic-speaking countries, which are different from the Western "Arabic" numerals). Recently I've been learning the Pahlavi alphabet to read Sasanian coins, and trying to get the rudiments of Arabic to read at least the simpler Islamic coins like Umayyad and Abbasid dirhams. I am still not really comfortable in any language other than English, and I have nothing but respect for anyone who is able to speak multiple languages fluently.