When we visited Tryst Press last week, Rob Buchert (the guy who runs the press) mentioned the old German Book of Mormon as a beautiful book, and I of course thought of my copy (which is one of the older editions and is lovely). So yesterday morning I pulled it out and spent ten minutes reading 3 Nephi 11, comparing it to the English when I got stuck. Did it again this morning, and by the time I got to verse 27, I was able to understand every word without looking:
Und auf diese Weise sollt ihr in meinem Namen taufen; denn siehe, wahrlich, ich sage euch, der Vater und der Sohn und der Heilige Geist sind eins; und ich bin im Vater, und der Vater ist in mir, und der Vater und ich sind eins.
Granted, I already knew what the English said, but I’m mainly talking about the little words (”auf,” “diese,” “sollt,” “ihr,” “euch,” etc.). This is fun. What I do is try to figure out the grammar of the language by seeing how it’s used (and so I was able to figure out that “ihr” is probably the nominative/subjective form, and “ihn” is probably the accusative/objective, for example). I think I’ve found my new hobby. :)
I did something similar when I was in the mission office back in Thailand, actually. We had a Tamil Book of Mormon and so I tried to decipher the script by analyzing the names of the three and eight witnesses and the names of the books (1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, etc.). Figured out about half of the alphabet that way. Then I took a Chinese Book of Mormon and tried to piece together the grammar by comparing it. Much harder. :) But I did figure out the name marker and the classifier for people.
(Oh, I guess I blogged about this before, last May: Kitabu cha who?)
[tags]Tryst Press, Book of Mormon, German, Thailand, Tamil, Chinese[/tags]
Comments
I think you’ve just learned more German Grammer in one sitting, than I learned the whole time while I was in 202. Congradulations.
LOL, thanks. :)
Throw in your two cents