
Global Latinists - throwaway7645
https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/2/global-latinists
======
mhd
I've always wanted to get into Latin, and my current plan is getting through
"Lingua Latina"[1], a book written _in Latin_ and heavily recommended by
others.

I do wonder about a "global Latin community", though. My personal experience
with Latin "speakers" has been tinged by an atmosphere of Elitism. Not just
about knowing the language, but the whole curriculum of literature. A bit like
when you're thrown into a club of people quoting Star Wars all the time, just
a bit more high-falutin'. Comes with centuries of "classical education" being
a hallmark of upper class schooling. Compare that with the basic concept of
languages like Esperanto...

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Lingua-Latina-Illustrata-Pars-
Familia...](https://www.amazon.com/Lingua-Latina-Illustrata-Pars-
Familia/dp/1585104205/)

~~~
aestetix
I'm on chapter 20 of Lingua Latina. I think it is very well done. I did study
latin in school formally for four years, so it's more of a refresher, but it
teaches some concepts I hadn't encountered before.

That said, it can be difficult at times, especially around Chapter 16. I would
recommend picking up a copy of Wheelock's* as well, which is much more focused
on grammar and structure. You might want to either go through Wheelock's and
LL together, or tackle Wheelock's first and then LL second.

* [https://www.amazon.de/Wheelocks-Latin-7th/dp/0061997226/](https://www.amazon.de/Wheelocks-Latin-7th/dp/0061997226/)

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Jun8
Fascinating article! I wish a similar change had come over Ancient Greek
studies, too. My experience was that intro classes was an impatient way to
half-read Platon. I once asked our instructor, a TA who was wrapping up his
PhD in Classics, how to say “It’s raining” in A. Greek and he didn’t have a
clue, such a question never occurred to him. And studying later texts, such as
the _Souda_ was not even considered.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> such a question never occurred to him

This question is basically just "what's the verb for 'rain'?". The syntax is
exactly what you'd expect.

As it happens, the word is very well documented (
[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Du\(%2Fw&highlight=rain)
), but it's not obvious that your TA should have been reading about rain. You
know the words you use frequently.

If you asked someone who specialized in the Eleusinian mysteries, which
involved the command "rain!" given to the sky by the participants, they would
have had no trouble telling you how to say "it's raining". If you asked
someone who had been reading the Iliad, they'd be able to tell you all kinds
of words for spears, fighting, armor, walls, and viscera, but rain might not
come up as frequently.

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dghf
The mention of the Catholic Church's use of Latin made we wonder: if you're
going to resurrect Latin as an international language, which pronunciation are
you going to use -- the reconstructed classical pronunciation of Cicero et
al., or the Italian-influenced pronunciation of Church Latin? For example,
Caesar's _veni, vidi, vici_ would be pronounced something like "wainey, weedy,
weeky" in the former but "vainy, veedy, veechy" in the latter.

And then there's the traditional English pronunciation, which assumes that
Latin is pronounced more or less the same as English: e.g., _mater_ is made to
rhyme with "later".

~~~
cafard
Church Latin is curiously silent. There are a lot of Tridentine Masses out
there: but one doesn't really hear a lot of the prayers in them, does one? In
the Novus Ordo Masses, the prayers are audible, and the congregation takes
part, but there aren't many such celebrated, that I know of.

~~~
gumby
That is due to a shift in 1962 (although some irredentists, primarily in
Europe, do still perform services in Latin).

Church latin was the working language of the catholic church. Services
switched to Latin (from Greek) around 200, but as the church spread through
Europe and the middle east, services were often in vernacular. Since this led
to a lot of local interpretation and variance (many -- perhaps most? --
priests were illiterate at the time) by 1000, I believe, the popes started
insisting that the priests use Latin and turn their back on the audience.

~~~
zeveb
> the popes started insisting that the priests … turn their back on the
> audience.

I don't think that's true: priests' backs aren't turned _towards_ the
congregation, but rather priests' and the congregation's faces are turned
_together_ towards the sanctuary.

~~~
gumby
Indeed that is how it is framed. But IIRC (it's been years since I learned
these things) the real "problem" addressed was that, particularly in the
christianization of the scandinavians and goths, if you defeated them in
battle they were happy to add Jesus to their stable of gods to call upon, as
that one had been handy for the other side. In addition, as I mentioned, local
priests were relying on faulty memory and taking local custom into account
when discussing matters ecclesiastical. i'd think that wouldn't be at all bad
in a religion, but I can see how it is destructive to corporate structure. It
appears that the point was to infuse additional magic into the ritual _and_
remove a large chunk of autonomy from the local providers.

~~~
zeveb
That still wouldn't make sense, since the exact same set-up was common in the
Eastern Roman Empire, which had been thoroughly Christian for almost half a
millennium by that point in time.

Honestly, it sounds a bit like a just-so story. Wikipedia indicates at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_orientem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_orientem)
indicates that pre-Christian sects like the Essenes practised it, and that
Origen (second & third centuries) & Clement of Alexandria (second century)
both mention it.

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tempodox
For those wondering, the missing ALF web site URL:
[http://www.academialatinitatifovendae.org](http://www.academialatinitatifovendae.org)

I didn't know this exists. Funny how reading all this Latin instills a feeling
of home. Have I been a Roman in a previous life? But then, I'm not a believer
in reincarnation.

~~~
ky738
Maybe because your native language has roots in Latin? I know Spanish and
Portuguese, and reading Latin gives me a familiar feeling.

~~~
scardine
Even English is considered rooted in Latin because it borrows like 70% the
vocabulary from French - although the original Germanic structure was kept.

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senorsmile
I'm probably a little late in posting here. If any of you are in the Seattle
area and interested, come check out the Latin meetup:
[https://www.meetup.com/eastside-latin/](https://www.meetup.com/eastside-
latin/).

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gumby
> As soon as the nineteenth-century method of analyzing the languages without
> ever using them started to take over, Classics immediately started to die.

This sounds absurd. At my high school‡ Latin and Greek were living languages,
and we studied them, as we studied French, as a way of reading literature and
understanding a culture distant yet related to ours. Unless you were an actual
linguist, what would be the point of studying a language without using it?

‡ which was, I admit, a "Latin School"

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ggm
Surely cicero was capable of speaking demotic, and writing Katharevousa?

The implication that Shakspear spoke in meter feels false. Poets rhyme for
amusement, but can also just "say" _pass the salt_ and mean it non-ironically.

You can ask for the nearest coffee shop in Latin without using ciceronian
style, and its good latin. Spending the mental energy to think it may be going
beyond the pale.

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cafard
A couple of resources:
[http://frcoulter.com/latin/](http://frcoulter.com/latin/) ;
[https://areena.yle.fi/1-1931339](https://areena.yle.fi/1-1931339). Also, I
thought _Latin: History of a World Language_ by Juergen Leonhardt, an most
interesting book.

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osullivj
Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant :)

