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In Defense of Latin

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Re: In Defense of Latin

#11

Post by bryanrasmussen »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #4
vearwhershuh wrote: post #3

Hillaire Belloc made the interesting claim that it was thanks to Latin that the various European languages were able to develop so freely: you could always communicate in Latin when you traveled. He also noted that the various lingua francas since Latin was lost have tended to suffer from becoming the world language. Looking at English today one is hard pressed to disagree.

How has English suffered from becoming the world language? I don't see it.

I suppose one could argue that the people who come to English as a world language are not that great at the language, and thus they are not capable of helping it improve. (this is however belied by evidence that often those authors who have most helped English develop have been at the periphery of the culture)

I often see something that could inspire this argument when I travel, people have made a native and English version of a sign or some sort of text. The English is riddled with laughable errors - why? Because everyone knows English and why would you ever hire a translator, just get Jules down in accounting to do it, he's great! (only it turns out Jules is not great)

I will now, at the end of my explanation of how I think someone might want to make the argument, explain that I myself am not a supporter of the argument (nor do I know if this is indeed what Belloc supposed) and hope not to get one of those responses telling me how wrong I am in believing what I do not have a particular belief in.

Re: In Defense of Latin

#12

Post by hackyhacky »

triska wrote: post #2

Latin is the most powerful natural language I know. The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary, and that, together with other grammatical features, gives rise to a method I have not seen so fully realized in any other language: It allows you to express the content in such a way that the way you express it matches the content. For example, consider the verses: Daedalus…

The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary

Lots of languages are like this. Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, etc. And those are just the ones that I know.

  Janu miluje Petr. -- PETR loves Jana.
  Petr miluje Janu. -- Petr loves JANA.
  Petr Janu miluje. -- Petr LOVES Jana.
  etc etc
The only people who say that Latin is uniquely flexible are those people with no experience in other languages. If expressive inflection and flexible word-order are your thing, you have lots of languages with millions of living speakers that fulfill that requirement.

Latin is not magical. It's just another language. I'm happy that the author enjoys it (language, any language, makes a great hobby!), but I wish we could skip the hyperbole around Latin's alleged virtues just because the Romans happened to use it.

Re: In Defense of Latin

#13

Post by pdonis »

triska wrote: post #10
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we can shuffle the order in other languages too, we just rely on explicit punctuation, right? Daedalus, meanwhile, on Crete's long detested exile, longing for his birthplace

Yes, and it is a key characteristic of a skillful translator that such features are kept in the translation. This translation is very nice, but notice for example that the word "long" is itself now no longer long in the translation ("longumque" is longer, both syntactically and also when spoken, and that is made possible in Latin by the suffix "-que" that can be attached to words to mean "and"). Also, many passages c…

> too erratic the word order would in English become

But perhaps helped with that Yoda has. :-)

Re: In Defense of Latin

#14

Post by jetrink »

triska wrote: post #2

Latin is the most powerful natural language I know. The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary, and that, together with other grammatical features, gives rise to a method I have not seen so fully realized in any other language: It allows you to express the content in such a way that the way you express it matches the content. For example, consider the verses: Daedalus…

I don't remember enough Latin to find the passage, but I recall reading the Aeneid in college and being amazed by the scene where Laocoön is killed by the serpents. Virgil weaves the description of the serpents and the struggling man together, so the words pertaining to the snakes are constricting those pertaining to the man.

Re: In Defense of Latin

#15

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

triska wrote: post #10
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we can shuffle the order in other languages too, we just rely on explicit punctuation, right? Daedalus, meanwhile, on Crete's long detested exile, longing for his birthplace

Yes, and it is a key characteristic of a skillful translator that such features are kept in the translation. This translation is very nice, but notice for example that the word "long" is itself now no longer long in the translation ("longumque" is longer, both syntactically and also when spoken, and that is made possible in Latin by the suffix "-que" that can be attached to words to mean "and"). Also, many passages c…

I just tried a quick translation now looking up the latin dictionary. My native tongue is Portuguese so maybe I'm more used to uncommonly ordered sentences.

My English vocabulary is limited, I had to lookup a better synonym for "long":

    Daedalus, meanwhile, on Crete's lingering detested
    exile, longing for his birthplace

Re: In Defense of Latin

#16

Post by Koshkin »

triska wrote: post #2

Latin is the most powerful natural language I know. The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary, and that, together with other grammatical features, gives rise to a method I have not seen so fully realized in any other language: It allows you to express the content in such a way that the way you express it matches the content. For example, consider the verses: Daedalus…

Classical Greek is arguably more powerful. In fact, many Romans looked at Greek as the language of the educated and left Latin to soldiers.

Re: In Defense of Latin

#17

Post by greydius »

hackyhacky wrote: post #12
triska wrote: post #2

Latin is the most powerful natural language I know. The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary, and that, together with other grammatical features, gives rise to a method I have not seen so fully realized in any other language: It allows you to express the content in such a way that the way you express it matches the content. For example, consider the verses: Daedalus…

The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary Lots of languages are like this. Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, etc. And those are just the ones that I know. Janu miluje Petr. -- PETR loves Jana. Petr miluje Janu. -- Petr loves JANA. Petr Janu miluje. -- Petr LOVES Jana. etc etc The only people who say that Latin is uniquely flexible are those people with no experience i…

Can you explain how your first two examples mean the same thing?

Re: In Defense of Latin

#18

Post by schoen »

triska wrote: post #2

Latin is the most powerful natural language I know. The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary, and that, together with other grammatical features, gives rise to a method I have not seen so fully realized in any other language: It allows you to express the content in such a way that the way you express it matches the content. For example, consider the verses: Daedalus…

The flexible word order is shared with some other highly inflected languages, including Russian and ancient Greek. (I haven't studied Russian, so I don't know exactly how flexible the word order is.)

In Latin the arbitrariness of the word order doesn't usually extend to prepositions (that's why they're called prae-positiones), which should usually immediately precede, and almost never follow, the words they govern. There are interesting exceptions to this (for example ADJ PREP NOUN, like "magna cum laude", or somewhat or completely fixed forms involving personal pronouns, like "te propter" or "nobiscum"), but it's generally a pretty strong restriction.

You might also find flexible word order in any ancient Indo-European language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection#Indo-European_langu...

I think Sanskrit is another example.

Re: In Defense of Latin

#19

Post by notahacker »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #11
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has English suffered from becoming the world language? I don't see it.

I suppose one could argue that the people who come to English as a world language are not that great at the language, and thus they are not capable of helping it improve. (this is however belied by evidence that often those authors who have most helped English develop have been at the periphery of the culture) I often see something that could inspire this argument when I travel, people have made a native and English…

I'm inclined to suggest the blame lies the other way around: some of the more stupid, ugly and arbitrary grammatical quirks which ought to be dropped from the English language or made optional and context sensitive persist only because they act as a means to identify the writer is a native speaker and/or sufficiently highly educated.

Re: In Defense of Latin

#20

Post by schoen »

greydius wrote: post #17
hackyhacky wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is that the grammar is so developed that the word order is essentially arbitrary Lots of languages are like this. Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, etc. And those are just the ones that I know. Janu miluje Petr. -- PETR loves Jana. Petr miluje Janu. -- Petr loves JANA. Petr Janu miluje. -- Petr LOVES Jana. etc etc The only people who say that Latin is uniquely flexible are those people with no experience i…

Can you explain how your first two examples mean the same thing?

I assume "Janu" is the accusative form of "Jana", indicating that Jana is the recipient rather than the source of the love in each sentence.
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