
Latin Speakers of West Virginia - jthnews
https://medium.com/eidolon/the-latin-speakers-of-west-virginia-8581835549d3
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cafard
Pedantic quibble (but why not be pedantic here?): "Mit Brennender Sorge" was
not in Latin. Whether it was the first encyclical not to be in Latin, I can't
say.

Also "Llewellyn is a professor at Wyoming Catholic College, and belongs to
that select group of professors who consider themselves first and foremost
teachers." It seems to me that such a field ought to make for that--there is
always something to be gained by reexamining older texts, but it's not as if
unknown books of Livy are flowing out of obscure libraries, as in Erasmus's
day.

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akuchling
Victor Davis Hanson made a similar point in the book "Who Killed Classical
Studies": every significant text has been analyzed in depth, and the remaining
texts still being found are minor. (Even if a new play by Aeschylus or book by
Livy turns up, it's not likely to change what we know very much.) The
historical picture is pretty complete; and the archaeological details being
found are mostly refining that picture, not overturning it.

Counterargument: the Antikythera mechanism. There could well be more
archaeological surprises, or analyses that open up an entirely new aspect.

~~~
jthnews
Yes, a lot of classical scholarship stands the test of time and, once done,
need not be redone. On the other hand, a classicist's job has always involved
more interpretation than discovery. A brief look at the classical scholarship
from 100 years will probably convince you that interpretation is the kind of
thing that needs to be updated from time to time.

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jfaucett
I think the sad part with latin is that although it has had such a massive
influence on every western european language it has essentially completely
died out (little usage in catholic church, no speakers, decline in educational
system, etc), and it does seem that no one cares. But its not only Latin where
this is the case, the majority (up to 90%) of the worlds languages will die
out over the next century, lost forever, many
undocumented.([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_language))
That is what I find most troubling.

The author states this, but for a language to live you have to use it "People
talking to people", but very few countries try to enpower their endangered
language speakers to actually use their language on a daily basis. They dont
seem to promote programs for radio/tv in those languages, etc.

However, it is great that people are actually using latin as it should be for
oral communication, if this were the case in classrooms it would certainly be
much easier on students to acquire the language (as attested to by foreign
language learning methods).

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coliveira
First of all, Latin can not really "die" as it happens to some languages. A
language dies when their last speakers die and nobody else knows how it
sounds. Latin is in some sense still alive because lots of people can read and
speak it, even if not fluently.

Consider the similar example of Hebrew. During centuries this was a language
that was not spoken natively by anyone, but remained alive through its
religious literature. With the creation of the state of Israel, hebrew is now
a spoken language again.

Second, latin is not a natively spoken language for more than a thousand years
already. The last people to speak latin natively were the educated people
living in the Roman empire. Everybody else was using so-called vulgar latin
that naturally evolved into some of the national languages of Europe. So, it
is not a secret that latin has been "dead" and "alive" at the same time for
several centuries, and this will probably not change for yet a few more
centuries.

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ars
Aramaic is in a similar situation. It's dead as in no native speakers, but yet
alive because it is still used (and spoken) daily in study by ordinary people
not just specialized academics.

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pessimizer
Assyrians speak Aramaic. There aren't a lot of them, but I've known a few.

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joe5150
Slightly off-topic gripe, but:

"It’s only sixty-five miles from here to the Capitol Building in D.C., and the
area resembles Virginia or Maryland more than Appalachia."

That may well be because Charles Town is a half hour in either direction from
Virginia and Maryland, and not really in Appalachia.

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ubernostrum
Yeah, the WV eastern panhandle is basically just commuter towns for people who
work in DC/Baltimore/NoVA, and more properly "belongs" to that area than to
the mountainous southern/western parts of the state.

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schoen
Wow, this article makes me miss these people intensely. I went to a Rusticatio
when it was in Petaluma, California, about a decade ago, and all the same
people were there!

Praestantissimi estis, socii.

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contingencies
An interesting gathering with some commentary that rings true to my own
experience: in the late 1990s I was a star Latin student in high school in
Australia, though it took me ten years to get to Europe by which time I had
forgotten all of it (despite or perhaps due to acquiring literacy in two
language families in the mean time, including Chinese). Today - after perhaps
a combined total of one year spent traveling on the European mainland - I
still haven't been to Italy (the closest I've been is perhaps Tunisia or
Nimes), and interest is at an all-time low.

How could this loss of interest have been prevented? It seems to me that there
should be some easier way for far-flung peoples with an interest in Latin to
get some support. Perhaps Italy could start an Alliance française or Goethe-
Institut style network of supporting institutions?

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schoen
It looks like Italy already does have such a network -- but they teach modern
Italian, not Latin.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istituto_Italiano_di_Cultura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istituto_Italiano_di_Cultura)

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zhemao
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was momentarily confused by the fact that
Charles Town, WV and Charleston, WV are two different municipalities.

