Benefits of Studying Latin
- Thread starter Akela
- Start date
I wrote an answer to this question: I think it is a pretty good answer! Curious to see what you make of it.
Why Study Latin?
by Evan der Millner
December 8 2009
"Today, every laptop or mobile phone with an internet connection contains more information than the Great Library of Alexandria. At its peak, that library contained 700,000 books, until the Christian Emperor Theodosius I ordered it burned down; today, Google Books has over seven million – and that's before you count everything else online. In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story imagining a "total library" containing all written information. Seventy years later, it exists." Johann Hari, The Guardian, 8 December 2009.
The implications of Google books, Europeana.eu and Archive.org , giving everyone access to the of the vast universe of literature written in Latin over the centuries, previously hidden - even, in many instances, to specialists, should be sending a shudder through your world. There are millions of these works: the task of cataloguing them has only just begun; they are unlikely to be translated out of Latin in the immediate future (although one can imagine a more distant future where machine learning is up to the task).
For once, you have an honest answer to give, an answer you can shout from the rooftops - to the perennial question, "Of what use is Latin?"
The answer lies behind your search box on google books. Type in 'haec est" and a torrent of literature will pour forth to assault you. The cultural production of two thousand years, written in Latin, unread, unknown, there for the picking and reading. Type in 'in usum' and a flood of student textbooks written in Latin on subjects as disparate as military education and chemistry.
What do we have? Novels - both Roman remains, and renaissance fiction - science fiction written in Latin, even! Poetry - more than you could possibly imagine:- dialogues, plays, stories and fables, philosophy, science, mathematics.....the vast bulk of the intellectual production of Europe, from Roman times, until the early 1700's, was written in Latin. The most renowned poets in renaissance Europe wrote in Latin to continental acclaim.
Due to an ever shrinking pool of readers over the course of the 20th Century, this material is nowadays largely unknown, a vast terra incognita - much of it is still largely uncatalogued. The Latin works of Milton and Addison, Buchanan and Locke, go unread. There is also, in addition to the printed texts, a vast, unread mountain of material in manuscript, some of it only now being published for the first time.
As one blogger online remarked recently, because of the wonderful thing that is Google, having thrown open the world's libraries - "we starve amidst a banquet". Never before in history, has anyone had access to the breadth and depth of Latin literature, that you personally have access to now, at the click of a mouse. The volume of material on Google increases by the day.
We see some signs of adjustment to this shift taking place in the teaching profession - "Latin for the New Millennium" - but old habits and old ideas persist. Teachers are reverting to renaissance teaching methods, that stressed an ability to read quickly, to speak and write Latin. Philological, pedantic methods of teaching, that will not equip our students to delve into this world, persist. For these books, there are no English translations. To read this material, you need fluency and command of the language - fluency to peruse quickly, and find the gold nuggets in the dross. Fluency to simply cover ground. Even if you pick a tiny area of knowledge, you could not hope to read all the texts written on the subject in Latin.
Some scholars claim they are only interested in reading 'Classical Latin', written by the very Romans themselves. These scholars cut themselves off from the 2000 years of literary criticism and commenting on Latin texts, written in Latin. The vast bulk of scholarship on Latin original texts, is only available in Latin. Most of this material is terra incognita, and professors of Latin have not yet adjusted to the paradigm shift that must necessarily take place. Most spend their time publishing in English, French and German, and reading the work of other scholars in English, French and German. Small surprise, then, that their skills in Latin remain stunted.
For a Classicist to ignore works written in Neo-Latin that discuss the poetics of Virgil, for instance, while happily reading modern critical material in Italian or German, is surpassing strange. Yet, that is our reality - as many of these pre-modern critical texts are unknown, and have sat on bookshelves, in vast repositories, unopened for centuries. Even their titles are often unrecorded in the literature, let alone discussion of their contents.
Now, more than ever, Latin teachers, and students of Latin, need to focus on fluency and an ability to read with fluidity - to give our students the tools to enter this sacrum sacrorum loaded with the wisdom of millennia. They need to show their students this vast depository, to demonstrate the usefulness of having a skill in reading this language.
If we do not transmit our wonder and amazement at this turn of events - then we will have failed to grasp an opportunity that no generation has ever had before.
The momentousness of this change is such, that it can be compared to the shift that took place in the world of letters after the invention of printing - leading to the wide dissemination of Classical texts, and to a burst of improved standards of Latin literacy. Once the preserve of a few monks in cloisters, anyone could now own Cicero, Virgil, and use these texts to improve their Latin. The result, the Neo-Latin Renaissance, that really only took off after the invention of printing.
Now, we face another paradigm shift - for us, as readers of Latin, we were more akin to the monks, with access to only a few valued tomes - the vast production of the renaissance was unavailable to us, even to the specialist - now, the floodgates have opened.
How will you respond?
Why Study Latin?
by Evan der Millner
December 8 2009
"Today, every laptop or mobile phone with an internet connection contains more information than the Great Library of Alexandria. At its peak, that library contained 700,000 books, until the Christian Emperor Theodosius I ordered it burned down; today, Google Books has over seven million – and that's before you count everything else online. In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story imagining a "total library" containing all written information. Seventy years later, it exists." Johann Hari, The Guardian, 8 December 2009.
The implications of Google books, Europeana.eu and Archive.org , giving everyone access to the of the vast universe of literature written in Latin over the centuries, previously hidden - even, in many instances, to specialists, should be sending a shudder through your world. There are millions of these works: the task of cataloguing them has only just begun; they are unlikely to be translated out of Latin in the immediate future (although one can imagine a more distant future where machine learning is up to the task).
For once, you have an honest answer to give, an answer you can shout from the rooftops - to the perennial question, "Of what use is Latin?"
The answer lies behind your search box on google books. Type in 'haec est" and a torrent of literature will pour forth to assault you. The cultural production of two thousand years, written in Latin, unread, unknown, there for the picking and reading. Type in 'in usum' and a flood of student textbooks written in Latin on subjects as disparate as military education and chemistry.
What do we have? Novels - both Roman remains, and renaissance fiction - science fiction written in Latin, even! Poetry - more than you could possibly imagine:- dialogues, plays, stories and fables, philosophy, science, mathematics.....the vast bulk of the intellectual production of Europe, from Roman times, until the early 1700's, was written in Latin. The most renowned poets in renaissance Europe wrote in Latin to continental acclaim.
Due to an ever shrinking pool of readers over the course of the 20th Century, this material is nowadays largely unknown, a vast terra incognita - much of it is still largely uncatalogued. The Latin works of Milton and Addison, Buchanan and Locke, go unread. There is also, in addition to the printed texts, a vast, unread mountain of material in manuscript, some of it only now being published for the first time.
As one blogger online remarked recently, because of the wonderful thing that is Google, having thrown open the world's libraries - "we starve amidst a banquet". Never before in history, has anyone had access to the breadth and depth of Latin literature, that you personally have access to now, at the click of a mouse. The volume of material on Google increases by the day.
We see some signs of adjustment to this shift taking place in the teaching profession - "Latin for the New Millennium" - but old habits and old ideas persist. Teachers are reverting to renaissance teaching methods, that stressed an ability to read quickly, to speak and write Latin. Philological, pedantic methods of teaching, that will not equip our students to delve into this world, persist. For these books, there are no English translations. To read this material, you need fluency and command of the language - fluency to peruse quickly, and find the gold nuggets in the dross. Fluency to simply cover ground. Even if you pick a tiny area of knowledge, you could not hope to read all the texts written on the subject in Latin.
Some scholars claim they are only interested in reading 'Classical Latin', written by the very Romans themselves. These scholars cut themselves off from the 2000 years of literary criticism and commenting on Latin texts, written in Latin. The vast bulk of scholarship on Latin original texts, is only available in Latin. Most of this material is terra incognita, and professors of Latin have not yet adjusted to the paradigm shift that must necessarily take place. Most spend their time publishing in English, French and German, and reading the work of other scholars in English, French and German. Small surprise, then, that their skills in Latin remain stunted.
For a Classicist to ignore works written in Neo-Latin that discuss the poetics of Virgil, for instance, while happily reading modern critical material in Italian or German, is surpassing strange. Yet, that is our reality - as many of these pre-modern critical texts are unknown, and have sat on bookshelves, in vast repositories, unopened for centuries. Even their titles are often unrecorded in the literature, let alone discussion of their contents.
Now, more than ever, Latin teachers, and students of Latin, need to focus on fluency and an ability to read with fluidity - to give our students the tools to enter this sacrum sacrorum loaded with the wisdom of millennia. They need to show their students this vast depository, to demonstrate the usefulness of having a skill in reading this language.
If we do not transmit our wonder and amazement at this turn of events - then we will have failed to grasp an opportunity that no generation has ever had before.
The momentousness of this change is such, that it can be compared to the shift that took place in the world of letters after the invention of printing - leading to the wide dissemination of Classical texts, and to a burst of improved standards of Latin literacy. Once the preserve of a few monks in cloisters, anyone could now own Cicero, Virgil, and use these texts to improve their Latin. The result, the Neo-Latin Renaissance, that really only took off after the invention of printing.
Now, we face another paradigm shift - for us, as readers of Latin, we were more akin to the monks, with access to only a few valued tomes - the vast production of the renaissance was unavailable to us, even to the specialist - now, the floodgates have opened.
How will you respond?
> Curious to see what you make of it.
I’ve always liked this rationale. I wonder, however, what the real value of all those writings may be. Of course, there’s no way to know for sure unless it is catalogued. But surely, it’s outdated, be it mathematics, science and even, I’d guess (not being a philologist), criticism. As for forgotten fiction―perhaps, it was forgotten for a reason.
In short, the nuggets/dross ratio may not be that high. Yet that’s not altogether bad, as there’s a lot of modern dross, too...
I’ve always liked this rationale. I wonder, however, what the real value of all those writings may be. Of course, there’s no way to know for sure unless it is catalogued. But surely, it’s outdated, be it mathematics, science and even, I’d guess (not being a philologist), criticism. As for forgotten fiction―perhaps, it was forgotten for a reason.
In short, the nuggets/dross ratio may not be that high. Yet that’s not altogether bad, as there’s a lot of modern dross, too...
Any idea where these could be found? I haven't come across any articles or books published in Latin more recent than the early part of the twentieth century. Is there an index or bibliography somewhere?
Actually I've just seen the bibliography you posted on the other thread, pró quó grátiás tibi agó.
There is ongoing work in several countries to compile bibliographies: Here is the main one (which you have seen already, I am posting it for others to see) : http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/bibliography/index.htm
Why was all this material forgotten? Not because it was badly written, that is for certain. My take on it is that Latin stopped being taught as a workhorse language after the 1700's. The universities stopped teaching in it across Europe; the rise of nationalism killed Latin. As examples, Buchanan's Latin, and Milton's Latin were hailed as superb in their time; who reads their Latin works now? Indeed, who can read them, and appreciate them as art? So, so few of us.
I’d suppose that Milton’s Latin works have been translated at least into English, in which case they are still accessible (not in original, but that’s all right, one can’t read everything in original) and certainly not forgotten. (I don’t know who Buchanan is.) Likewise, today we know The Praise of Folly and Utopia. I think influential books tend to persist. Influential ideas persist, too, an not necessarily in the form of books at that. For instance, mathematical texts in Latin may only have historical interest.
Ecce Buchanan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Buchanan
Scotsman, Latinist, humanist, genius, nutcase.
Scotsman, Latinist, humanist, genius, nutcase.
Tell someone you know french and they will say "that's good".
Tell someone you know latin and they will have a heart attack.
Tell someone you know latin and they will have a heart attack.
Even if one does know all noun declensions and verb conjugations and was a grammar expert he still will not be able to read latin. Children do not learn languages through grammar exercises. They imitate stock phrases that they hear thousands of times a day and these grammatical patterns are learned by the mind naturally.
That is how you learn a language. It is about learning to decode phrases in latin, hundreds upon hundreds of them in simpler texts. You must have a vocabulary but you must be able to use the words in context.
Reading, speaking and writing in the language and making mistakes is more important than grammar exercises (although they are important as well). Knowing every single verb conjugation (which is not that difficult and contrary to popular belief the latin grammar can be learned quite quickly if you use the proper methods), would not allow you to read latin.
But then I again you said "people who study latin" which is a completely different thing to "people who can read latin".
I am suspicious of arguments for teaching latin that claim it is the major language that trains the mind. Yes it does, I am not doubting that. But all languages can do that: Japanese, Arabic, Polish et cetera.
A better reason to learn latin is to be able to read the masterpieces in the original. After all, Mr Fumbles, or Fagles rather, cannot even write and all translations are pale shadows of the original classics. We yearn for Virgil and Ovid in the original. We have been exposed to paragraphs of this musical nectar that flowed from their pens and we think "I want to read more of that".
That is how you learn a language. It is about learning to decode phrases in latin, hundreds upon hundreds of them in simpler texts. You must have a vocabulary but you must be able to use the words in context.
Reading, speaking and writing in the language and making mistakes is more important than grammar exercises (although they are important as well). Knowing every single verb conjugation (which is not that difficult and contrary to popular belief the latin grammar can be learned quite quickly if you use the proper methods), would not allow you to read latin.
But then I again you said "people who study latin" which is a completely different thing to "people who can read latin".
I am suspicious of arguments for teaching latin that claim it is the major language that trains the mind. Yes it does, I am not doubting that. But all languages can do that: Japanese, Arabic, Polish et cetera.
A better reason to learn latin is to be able to read the masterpieces in the original. After all, Mr Fumbles, or Fagles rather, cannot even write and all translations are pale shadows of the original classics. We yearn for Virgil and Ovid in the original. We have been exposed to paragraphs of this musical nectar that flowed from their pens and we think "I want to read more of that".
Learning latin gives me the key to some of the greatest geniuses of the past.
Such as?
maybe the rectum rules/regulates the body?Well, I must have said not what I’d intended to.
rego, ere, rexi, rectum;
rego = I rule.
I think it is the usage rectus, a, um as in straight. The rectum is a straight portion of the colon.
English speakers have a hard time choosing a second language because we already speak the only essential world language. Most second languages we learn in a classroom are therefore irrelevant. Many schools in my area teach only Japanese as a compulsory second language, but if you won’t work in Japan there’s no benefit from it, and gaijin (alienii) can’t ever gain citizenship there anyway. At least with Latin everyone gains some benefit by understanding English better, regardless of where their future lies (in China, France, UK etc.).
It also puts everyone on an equal footing for exams. It’s quite unfair that a child who speaks Chinese at home daily can do the same Chinese language exam for their International Baccheloreat as an non-Chinese Australian who learns the language through study from scratch. Sure the non-Chinese Australian can do a Chinese beginners course for IB but it won’t be scaled highly, and some kids who know Chinese can unfairly claim no prior knowledge and score perfect marks without effort. Latin obviates these injustices.
It also puts everyone on an equal footing for exams. It’s quite unfair that a child who speaks Chinese at home daily can do the same Chinese language exam for their International Baccheloreat as an non-Chinese Australian who learns the language through study from scratch. Sure the non-Chinese Australian can do a Chinese beginners course for IB but it won’t be scaled highly, and some kids who know Chinese can unfairly claim no prior knowledge and score perfect marks without effort. Latin obviates these injustices.
agree... we talk with friend in latin instead of privately at crowded places
Marcus Aurelius' "To Himself" (that is, the Meditations) is originally written in Greek. Another great language to know.