Historical research on your language

[primalclaws1974]

Does anyone do historical research on the language they are attempting to learn? Do you try to understand how that language developed, and what the parent language was? I think this is important to get a greater grasp on the relevance of the language.

[Baburra]

I think learning about it before or after could prove to be beneficial, if not, at the very least it should feel fulfilling, in my opinion, because it would at least provide for extra information that is interesting. I don't think it's entirely necessary for learning a new language, nor do I really think it helps all that much but you could certainly appreciate the language a whole lot more when you find out the history behind it.

[AureliaeLacrimae]

Well, this certainly helps, but not in a great deal. For example, I'm reading about the Latin language and its development for some of my classes at the university. The history mostly tells me why some vowels are long or short, how they came to be such or the common root a certain word had with Proto-Indo-European (or rather, a possible common root, as, of course, no one can accurately reconstruct the P.I.E., no matter how hard they try - it's still a mystery). It isn't really useful when you're trying to learn the language, but does help you understand its structural and phonetic tendencies. The historical research of Latin won't show you anything unusual, which wouldn't be, for example, the case with English. If you do the research on Old English, you'll see a structurally more complex version of it - imagine having various cases with different endings and several conjugations of verbs working on the same pattern... that was English in its beginning. Complex and Germanic in its core and certainly without Latin words.

[Rosa]

Knowing the history of the language you are learning is really a wise idea but one that I have never thought of doing. I think researching the language history could prove beneficial and even make the student appreciate the language more and boost learning too.

[primalclaws1974]

This was basically my point. I imagine people that want to learn a language quickly (because it is necessary for work, for example) are going to take a crash course, and skip anything that will take more time to learn it. This is a little disrespectful of the people and culture it comes from, in my view, but I can understand why they would not do it.