I personally have only studied Latin but come here to geek out over the wonder that is old af languages :D
Okay, so fun fact about my high school Latin club: every year our club shirts were printed with a different iteration of the same terrible joke. The idea was that someone would ask what it said, and you would say (for example) "This is my Latin shirt" and then they would say "I know, but what does it say?" There was also "It's all Greek to me" and my personal favorite, the one I still have one of: "if I told you, I'd have to kill you."
*breaks down the door* DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR HIGH KING THE LONG-HANDED LUGH? Took up an oath with a friend of mine to study Old Irish till next Samhain. Done some brief looking at the grammar and looking up words. I've begun my fucking with the names and titles of things I like into the language too to some degree. For example Darksun Gwyndolin has ended up as Donngrían Findáinne mac Finn. My plot is to learn enough of the language to be able to make a dedication to the gods in it by next Samhain. I also study Pali, which is the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism. I can read bits of it now and was able to come up with an homage chant for Guanyin in the language. Namely "Namo sayya bodhisatti mahamati avaloketayaya" or "Homage to her, the bodhisatta, the great mother, the Lady who Watches over the World". My knowledge of Latin is pretty much entirely based off what I know of the romance languages. I also know snippets of Sanskrit, Gaulish, and Old Welsh for similar reasons. Old Irish is fun because part of the texts typically used for translation when learning are from the Táin. So lots of dick jokes, shit jokes, and so on. Pali meanwhile all the textbooks are basically full of the abuse of dogs, slaves, and women and it's honestly very depressing but after a point it becomes ridiculous and you laugh about it. Or at least I do.
So I do HEMA, which you may or may not know. It is Historical European Martial Arts and we simulate historically accurate murder on eachother. We do this by reconstructing techniques from fightbooks. I do longsword so I want to learn medieval german so that I can read our manuals.
I want to be involved in HEMA but never had the chance as of yet. Being who I am I've most interest in things from the Gaelic islands where that is concerned. I guess other countries are neat and what not but it would partly be a devotional act for me.
