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The Vatican's Latinist (2017)

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Re: The Vatican's Latinist (2017)

#41

Post by throw0101c »

philsnow wrote: post #10
mmooss wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Striking contrast with the most well known classicist in the UK being unable, by their own admission, to comfortably read Latin text basically at all. That's hard to believe. A friend was a Latin teacher; high school students read actual Roman Latin in their second year. I've heard that few can speak Latin 'correctly', because the skill is almost useless - you can't talk to Romans or almost anyone else; it's all wr…

> I've heard that few can speak Latin 'correctly', because the skill is almost useless - you can't talk to Romans or almost anyone else; it's all written. Because Latin has died out as a spoken language, it doesn't really change over time like modern languages do. If you find a sentence written 2000 years ago and another elsewhere written 1500 years ago, it's likely they mean the exact same thing. "Latin is a dead la…

> Because Latin has died out as a spoken language

It evolved into Italian, Spanish, etc:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

Re: The Vatican's Latinist (2017)

#42

Post by sandbach »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #21
spudlyo wrote: post #6

If you find this article fascinating, and are intrigued by the possibility of learning to speak a dead language like Latin, I'm here to tell you that it's probably a lot easier than you think. To start off, there is a textbook that I think really resonates with hackers. It's called "Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata" (The Latin Language Illustrated through itself) and it teaches Latin in a fun and mind-altering way. Th…

Alas, Latin is probably third on my list of other languages to learn (Spanish and Japanese, in that order). I doubt very much if I ever make it to #2, let alone #3. Life is too short, we don't get to do all the cool stuff one might want!

If you wait until you're fluent in Spanish to get started with Japanese, you'll be waiting a long time.

I recommend learning them concurrently. It'll be easier than you might think!

Re: The Vatican's Latinist (2017)

#44

Post by lolinder »

mmooss wrote: post #9
coolsunglasses wrote: post #4

Foster was basically the rallying point for people opposed to the grammarian methods of teaching languages that started in Classics but ended up taking over how foreign language is taught in most schools and contexts. Virtually everyone actually fluent in Latin today (reading, listening, or speaking) either learned directly from his a tutor using Ossa Latinitatis Sola or was downstream of that. Striking contrast with…

> Striking contrast with the most well known classicist in the UK being unable, by their own admission, to comfortably read Latin text basically at all. That's hard to believe. A friend was a Latin teacher; high school students read actual Roman Latin in their second year. I've heard that few can speak Latin 'correctly', because the skill is almost useless - you can't talk to Romans or almost anyone else; it's all wr…

They're referring to this story from a few years back:

Latin as She is Spoke: How Classicists Tricked Themselves Jan 2022 (171 points, 191 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30124101

Re: The Vatican's Latinist (2017)

#47

Post by BitwiseFool »

Symbiote wrote: post #30
akshayshah wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second-year high school students do read actual Roman texts, but they typically do so very slowly and laboriously - a day’s homework might be translating a single paragraph. I studied Latin from 7th grade through my early undergraduate years (1990s to early 00s), and that dynamic didn’t change as much as you might expect - the focus remains on deeply reading a few texts, rather than building the fluency required to q…

The Latin teacher at my school and my French teacher would discuss private matters in Latin, confident that us 13 year olds wouldn't understand. I've no proof, but my assumption is there are students of Latin casually speaking the language to show off at places like Cambridge University.

Did the Latin students have a rivalry with the goth kids and the vandals?

Re: The Vatican's Latinist (2017)

#48

Post by cafard »

mmooss wrote: post #9
coolsunglasses wrote: post #4

Foster was basically the rallying point for people opposed to the grammarian methods of teaching languages that started in Classics but ended up taking over how foreign language is taught in most schools and contexts. Virtually everyone actually fluent in Latin today (reading, listening, or speaking) either learned directly from his a tutor using Ossa Latinitatis Sola or was downstream of that. Striking contrast with…

> Striking contrast with the most well known classicist in the UK being unable, by their own admission, to comfortably read Latin text basically at all. That's hard to believe. A friend was a Latin teacher; high school students read actual Roman Latin in their second year. I've heard that few can speak Latin 'correctly', because the skill is almost useless - you can't talk to Romans or almost anyone else; it's all wr…

I guess that one would have to know what "comfortably" means and what sort of texts. At the speed of English? Caesar or Tacitus?

The essayist Sydney Smith, himself an Anglican clergyman, said something teasing about "false quantities" in Roman Catholic services. I can tell you that the pronunciation varies in church Latin: c and g can be "softened" when followed by e or i; v is v, not w.

You don't hear a great deal of Latin in Catholic services these days: in the Tridentine rite the congregation doesn't get much to say. The Novus Ordo Latin Mass is awfully rare.

Re: The Vatican's Latinist (2017)

#49

Post by ptsneves »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #47
Symbiote wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Latin teacher at my school and my French teacher would discuss private matters in Latin, confident that us 13 year olds wouldn't understand. I've no proof, but my assumption is there are students of Latin casually speaking the language to show off at places like Cambridge University.

Did the Latin students have a rivalry with the goth kids and the vandals?

So good!
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