Live Latin Chat / Latin IRC channel

 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
I must confess: Six years ago, when I registered here on this forum, I did it originally for one and only purpose. I wanted to contribute to this forum so much that I wouldn't be considered later on an intruder while potentially advertising a place of my own, even though not another Latin forum(!). In 6 years I never got to that or never felt confident enough. I even think that I stopped considering this being an important thing to do after some time or forgot the goal completely as something that I don't really care so much about anymore. I even almost relinquished this forum for good many times, without having any regrets for not having done something I had once wanted to do.

But since that I learnt at least that a chat and a forum don't compete. The live chat is so fundamentally different: the discussion is quick, but it never is comparable to a quality thread where people take time to make quality posts, make research, discuss things ad infinitum sometimes even for years. It is just too different.

And then some people seek a live conversation, and are content with less quality but quick answers. But over the years I sent countless people this way (to LatinD) anytime they wanted to have either too sophisticated discussion that requires time or if they wanted a translation of a phrase into Latin. That's why I think this is not a harmful or inappropriate thing for me to do.

This place was "unofficially" mentioned here several times already by various people and it never caused anything wrong, so this is the very first time that I dare to make an official post. Some forum members as Pixie already visited the place.

A) A live/real-time chat about Latin language (predominantly in English) for Latin learners and those who want to discuss Latin in a live instant conversation. An IRC channel for Latin. (Please read more in my spoiler-tag apology why I think this shouldn't be harmful both to the forum and the forum policy; morover the place has been mentioned already on several occasions unofficially).

How to get to us:

1) via web (not so much recommended):

2) via an IRC client of your own (recommended, set your own fonts, color, background):
server address: irc.freenode.net
channel: ##Latin
3) via a pre-set IRC client that works on MS Windows (the second recommended choice)
(tested for viruses: I personally vouch for this application)​
http://linguax.com/Latin_Netalk-IRC.zip (download it, unzip the folder, and launch the "Run NetTalk" file)​
_____________________________________

B) A purely Latin chat (real time), chatting in Latin, where all other languages but Latin are forbidden. But you won't be permitted to enter unless you are able to compose Latin sentences more or less correctly and wouldn't require to have every word you write corrected by somebody else + you should be willing to speak (that is, no "pure idling"). That is: enter only, if you feel confident in your working knowledge of the Latin grammar and morphology.

How to get there is described here: THREAD: irc-chat

Or here: http://latinitas.linguax.com

_____________________________________

We'll be waiting for you! :hat:
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

Why is the web link not recommended? Some of us turn slightly pale when the talk turns to IRC clients.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
Ah, well, it's simply that the web application is not so reliable and you can't customize the fonts, colors, background color (if you like e.g. black), but it's not so bad either. If you wish to use it, use it :)

It can work well in 95% of cases!
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
The first channel has right now around 50 people. Many just idle, but many others are interested in conversation or are learners of Latin. I encourage most of them to join this forum, since I think it can benefit them greatly.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Those who would like to use the IRC client (program) to join the chat, let me write some that I know work well under Windows and some that I have knowledge of working well on different OS:

Windows: mIRC, NetTalk, X-Chat, KVIrc

Linux: Irssi

Mac OS: Lime Chat

Pretty much all you need to do is to launch the program, set your nickname (if it's not in the use already), sed the server address to irc.freenode.net and the channel you want to enter to ##latin

There is surely an infinite amount of IRC clients for all the named platforms, but I don't know so much about them, so I haven't written them down.

The advantage of an IRC client over the web application:
  1. custom fonts: both type and size
  2. custom colors: both of fonts and the background
  3. stability (the web application could disconnect of freeze)
  4. some cool functions
  5. the ability to log (to save) all the conversations that happen
 

Rudis

Member

I just joined. Is it still active?
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

It's active in the way most IRC chat channels are active: A lot of people hang out there without ever saying anything.
 

Rudis

Member

It's active in the way most IRC chat channels are active: A lot of people hang out there without ever saying anything.
I noticed. Guess I'll have to search elsewhere for a email pal to chat to. I wanna start with simple greetings and work my way up to have a full blown Latin conversation *stares off into the distance*
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
It's active when I'm online, since I'm an especially chatty person (you could say a typomaniac), but if there is noone to chat to, I'm not online (or I just don't want to).... but I do still come there here and then, since I own the channels.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
However, this strategy, Rudis, may work only if you already have a good grasp of the Latin grammar and composition - then you can work up to a full blown conversation, but if you are like a tabula rasa, there is no Latin community in the world that could provide you with such an extensive immersion for you to work up to a "full blown conversation". I would also mention, that in Latin, having a full blown conversation is actually... the easier goal (some could say even "the wrong goal" a "distraction" nothing more): knowing the conversational phrases (or repeating something you composed as a conversational phrase often enough) and understanding other people is easy, because, as in any modern language, it will always speak about familiar stuff, familiar context and your talking partner will care that you understand. That is the "simple Latin", but however this is BY FAR NOT the Latin you ultimately want to know and want to learn. Ultimately, you want to be able to read fluently all Latin authors from Rome, through the middle-ages up to renaissance (sometimes even later) and especially the Roman literature (the "native" Latin literature) feels pretty much like talking to (ehm, reading) an alien civilization. Yes, they were humans, yes, they were westerners, but the things they talk about, the context they talk about, the way they phrase stuff, it's something you will never see in any other modern language, relatively to those languages it's all pretty much alien, strange and unpredictable, it adds an incredible amount of difficulty to the learning, it instantly makes it much more difficult than any modern language no matter how hard [from the second speakers' point of view] the grammar of that chosen modern language is. The thing is that when you read a newspapers article in some modern language, then even with an imperfect knowledge, you can like 50% predict what it talks about in which part (sometimes even in which sentence), because it's all exactly the same as you hear 24 hours days 365 days in a year, just with different words (and here and then different grammar, sometimes an idiom sneaks in), but this never works with Latin and while it seems as a non-issue to a beginner, it's actually a giant issue. A Roman sentence (unless you are superexperienced) is 90% unpredictable if you don't have a totally perfect knowledge of the grammar and haven't mastered yet some advanced strategies of reading the original literature (or haven't evolved the right mental instincts for it).


And all of this is absent in the neo-latin. Yes, a good speaker will (or may) phrase his sentences in a pretty convoluted way, but at the end, it won't be different than reading any modern language, because neither you neither him have been sent 2000 years back in time into a different world with different concepts, different kind of civilization, it's all very familiar stuff...

Anyway, I'm ranting :)

(But this is pretty much what I tell anybody who starts putting learning some foreign challenging languages on par with Latin: unless you picked another dead language, there is NO comparison, nothing is ever as difficult!)
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
On the other hand, having a good active ability of the language makes you possibly a more efficient passive user (if you have in your head an infallible superfast inflection machine...) ;) (or you can contribute to the world Latin literature by writing something extraordinary = which was a big reason in the past), so I'm still advocating "active" Latin, but one should realize what it is and where it is really getting him.
 

Mafalda

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Paulopolis
You know, I have always thought that you do not need Latin if your interests are not beyond your everyday needs. It is an immortal language and as such is for discussing eternal things, things that are important, not for describing what you have had for breakfast today. Neither do I understand all that fuss about neo-Latin and the necessity of inventing new words. Luigi Miraglia's approach is the right one: if you want to speak about Coca-cola, use the love-making English.
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
I do active Latin a few times a week, but my tutor's approach is very sensible. We talk about Latin in Latin. Sometimes we have to use a few neologisms to stay in the language if I have computer problems - he never does, only me... But that's it.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
I must say that I have had in the past some issues with Luigi's argumentation on this matter in his Latin talks because it seemed to me he might be a bit hypocritical as a leader of an academy where you are banned since the day two to talk about cookies and washing dishes in other language than Latin, on the other hand, I suppose it's for him a mean to end. Although then some neo-Latin contributions - if they aren't a mean to an end (such as Harrius Potter which he thinks is unfit for Latin - the "wrong" goal) are in my opinion a "contribution to the immortal literature" (because one needs just one language to read everything that has been written in the past 2000-2500 years). Hard to say, but I'm probably much more sympathetic to the core of the idea he wants to say than I was in the past : ) I suppose, after what I wrote yesterday*, we are ultimately on the same boat. There is "Latin" and "Latin" today in the learning circles ;)
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
I do certainly have problems with certain online active Latin [chat] communities (and I say that as once [or still] a head of one) where often beginners feel as though they are mastering the language by treating it SOLELY as a modern language (exchanging conversational pleasantries, phrases with some friends) - they feel as though Latin is really nothing else but just another 'conversational' language they can acquire just from their friends. But while this was true 2000 years ago (and let's say 20-50% true at the peak of the middle-ages), it surely isn't the whole truth now and I think it creates a quite dangerous self-fallacy of 'mastering Latin' on their side, I don't like that approach, there must be some golden middle way. (like in the middle ages or even some time later)
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Anyway, when speaking about a full blown Latin conversations, one ultimately wants to have a full blown Latin conversations in his head with the native speakers as you read them. At one point of my Latin chatting, many years ago, I felt as though I was stagnating. My talking partners wouldn't have a habit of reading the Latin literature, it seemed to me I wasn't learning anything new anymore, I stopped seeing the utility in it I saw at the beginning where everything felt new. But after reading some Cicero, I felt I was so "full of the rich & new language" as if I indeed had had a conversation with him :) I think active Latin acts as a good tool to exercise what has just been read in the original literature but there must be always a good balance between reading & talking and by reading I mean especially Roman literature (although the medieval and later stuff from some authors has quite high qualities too... I mean, if you read, I don't know, Erasmus, it's just as good ;p)
 
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