greenlandic
long story short i've started learning greenlandic in order to write a textbook for it that will get me money (i know, i know.... yet another textbook idea). the language is -easy-, except for the fact that ALL the lessons for it are for crazy linguists, or people who actually already know greenlandic, and/or are in danish or german (99% danish - no actual english textbooks exist for example) AND the dictionaries are utter shit. like, "-ssaa-" means future tense, but even if you see this in a billion words you can't look it up because dictionaries don't list it. it's like having "bookstorekeeper" in the dictionary but not "book, store, keep, -er" by themselvse. "-qar-" means "has, exists" but because its original form is "qaq" (q changes to r when before certain sounds) you can't find qar anywhere in the dictionary because you're only supposed to know the original form. oh and the dictionaries are just shit in general.
so while the entire "grammar" part of the book is only going to span like 10 pages, i'm having a hell of a time finding out stuff as simple and necessary as how do you say "i hit myself" versus "i hit him", among other things. the only actual good book meant for non-linguists is in german which i can't read but have to get my wife's help with (she knows some german at least), otherwise i'm just cobbling together tons of bad danish resources...
anyway the grammar's seriously almost done,i just have a few kinks to work out like if what they mean by "towards" is actually ONLY towards, or if it means "to" as well... it's surprising how unclear even linguists can be on this shit
so while the entire "grammar" part of the book is only going to span like 10 pages, i'm having a hell of a time finding out stuff as simple and necessary as how do you say "i hit myself" versus "i hit him", among other things. the only actual good book meant for non-linguists is in german which i can't read but have to get my wife's help with (she knows some german at least), otherwise i'm just cobbling together tons of bad danish resources...
anyway the grammar's seriously almost done,i just have a few kinks to work out like if what they mean by "towards" is actually ONLY towards, or if it means "to" as well... it's surprising how unclear even linguists can be on this shit