Preserve & Resurrect Latin

[Brandem]

Latin has played a major role in Western culture and has influenced hundreds of languages up to the present day. Fr. Folster said it is three quarters of Western Civilization. Rome had such a large influence on Europe. The idea of it as a dead useless language along with the lessening schools giving proper Latin education has led to its recent demise. What is at stake is the loss of its meaning and the several thousands of texts written in Latin by scientists, astronomers, historians and so forth. It would be a severe tragedy to lose such a vital part of our culture. One of the biggest barriers learning anything is the student themself. It has been perceived as a hard to learn language, but I say as Fr. Foster had said, “Every bum and prostitute in ancient Rome spoke Latin!” Much of the reason why learning it has been hard is due to how it was being taught. It should be taught as a living language, not dead. Imagine the vast majority of modern western society speaking Latin as a universal language. Not only would it provide historical value, yet serve as a bridge for millions of people.

I call upon the remaining expert Latinists to put forth an effort to bring it back to schools; however, let it not be taught as a dead language, but instead as a living creature with utter great importance. Those who wish to learn it nowadays have a limited amount of resources to choose from. We need modernized texts and programs that properly teach Latin to the masses. The internet can serve as a tool to promote and unite worldwide Latinists. It is simply not another language that we should let die away as we stand idly by. The future of Latin depends on you!

What do you think needs to be done to successfully achieve this objective? One thing I suggest is a well-written petition by Latinists.

 

[Imprecator]

I think a stripped-down version like latino sine flexione could be introduced over time as a common language in western Europe. Once you look past the grammatical differences, which synthetic languages like that more or less level, the Romance tongues (esp. Italian) aren't all that far from their common parent. French & Walloon speakers would have a somewhat harder time adjusting to the pronunciation, but I think a dialect with sound changes tailored for francophones would solve that issue. The result would be somewhat like the modern English-speaking world, with an artificial common language intelligible to all as well as the inevitable regional varieties, both on a national and local level, prevented from splintering apart, as they did in the distant past, by the force of shared media and culture.

Overall this would result in sort of diglossa, as the academic elite would have a greater incentive to learn classical latin, perhaps resulting in its use as an educated parlance. The greatest obstacle to the adaptation of such an ambitious plan would of course be the proud heritage and mutual animosity which characterises Europeans, the inevitable result of centuries of wars, religious disagreements, and linguistic/cultural separation.

 

[Lucius Aelius]

Rome had such a profane influence on Europe.

This word. I do not think it means what you think it means.


Anyhow, as a Latin student, I think the best way to do it would be to turn to the medium of television. Too often, tv shows portray Latin as a ridiculously boring class that students despise. This stereotype of Latin classrooms is completely untrue, at least at my school. Here, Latin is known as one of the "fun" classes. We have a project in which we wear togae to school, and that is accompanied by a mock Roman dinner party. We get to erupt vinegar and baking soda Vesuvius. Latin Club gets awesome t-shirts. In Latin III you get taught how to make wine (although, naturally, one is strongly encouraged not to do so until 21). In the videos on Roman culture I've seen more naked people (through statues and frescoes) than I've seen on even the internet! Surely if we got the word out there that this is what Latin classes are like, more teens would take them?
If more teens took them, then more people would learn the language. Also, I think a new push from the scientific and academic community is needed to make Latin once again the language of academia, of international relations. Heck, I'd someday like to see Latin rival English as the internet lingua franca. And we can do that, but I feel it needs to start in Latin classrooms.

 

[Brandem]

I suppose Rome may have had a profane influence as well. lol Thank you for pointing out that typo bud since I totally missed it. (^_^) I don't know too much about educating youth in public schools. It would be beneficial to add LAT courses to public schools... I doubt most would be willing to do it. Community colleges and universities would probably be a better place to start.

 

[plebs]

Well, I will have to argue a little with you. I think a dead language is like any other dead thing. When something is dead, it is dead. Death is a permanent state.

As far as the prostitutes and bums in ancient Rome speaking Latin--probably in some cases. However, apparently there were two different languages spoken in ancient Rome. There was Latin, and a related language, presumably with a less complex grammar, spoken by the lower classes. Maybe the majority of prostitutes and bums spoke that second language.

We don't need an international language. We already have one! It is called English. Perhaps some people don't think it merits being the international language, but it is, as they say in Latin, de facto, the common language of the world.

No, Latin is as dead as a door nail, but it lives on through its European descendants, including its bastardized descendant of English.

It would be good if Latin could be taught as a living language, but I don't suppose that is possible. It is dead, after all. For instance, Latin does not have the vocabulary we could use to talk about ordinary things in the modern world. As such, it would be difficult to teach it as a living language.

 

[Imprecator]

I had fun dissecting this one

Well, I will have to argue a little with you. I think a dead language is like any other dead thing. When something is dead, it is dead. Death is a permanent state.

Hebrew. Case in point.

As far as the prostitutes and bums in ancient Rome speaking Latin--probably in some cases. However, apparently there were two different languages spoken in ancient Rome. There was Latin, and a related language, presumably with a less complex grammar, spoken by the lower classes. Maybe the majority of prostitutes and bums spoke that second language.

What you're referring to is the vernacular language of the post-golden eras of Latin. That which we latinists learn and, in some cases, speak (N.B.) is the popular parlance of the golden age frozen and preserved from later developments, those which eventually resulted in French, Italian, &c. Granted, the coarseness of the common speech of this period was a far cry from the elegance and intricacy of that of, say, Cicero's, but nevertheless it was absolutely the same language. E.g. reading graffiti from Pompeii, which was buried during this era, is a simple matter once occasional spelling mistakes are accounted for.

We don't need an international language. We already have one! It is called English.

How delightfully anglo-centric! Yes, it just so happens that English is for better or for worse the current lingua franca. But that position is a fickle one indeed. Note what lingua franca literally means, and recall how French after centuries of dominating international communications faded into comparative obscurity in all but France and its former colonies proper. Mandarin Chinese and the major Indian dialects have the real potential to topple English in coming times.

No, Latin is as dead as a door nail, but it lives on through its European descendants, including its bastardized descendant of English.

There has been no second in European history from 753 BCE onwards in which some individual somewhere did not speak a language that could be called Latin, whether it be archaic or classical or ecclesiastical.

It would be good if Latin could be taught as a living language, but I don't suppose that is possible. It is dead, after all.

Haphazard logic there. What exactly would prevent it from being taught as a living language?

For instance, Latin does not have the vocabulary we could use to talk about ordinary things in the modern world. As such, it would be difficult to teach it as a living language.

That's just ridiculous. The vast majority of modern inventions/concepts have names derived directly from Gk. or L. roots (or some barbarous mixture of the two). How hard do you think it would be to talk about radioactiuitas or even teleuisiones? And we can always borrow a word directly, or find/construct a word (using Latin's huge lexicon) to match it.

 

[Quasus]

For instance, Latin does not have the vocabulary we could use to talk about ordinary things in the modern world.

Why on earth? Do you mean computer and internet? A few decades ago these words were not ordinary in any language, if at all existed. Nowadays they have Latin equivalents, namely computātrium and interrēte. Latin has been in use for quite a long while after Cicero and somehow it managed to find appropriate words throughout the whole history. Consult Du Cange if you are curious.

It would be good if Latin could be taught as a living language, but I don't suppose that is possible. It is dead, after all.

I suggest that we call a language dead if it undergoes no spontaneous changes. Then Latin is dead or nearly so (the latinists are averse to changes, but the vocabulary grows, after all). But what impedes making audiocouses or grammar drill books like Murphy? If you learn e.g. English, do you really care whether it undergoes spontaneous changes or not? Not until you are quite experienced, I believe.

 

[Brandem]

The majority of English words have been borrowed from other languages up into the present day. Latin is a large portion of those words. Most languages have done that such as Spanish, Japanese and etc... We don't have to invent completely new vocabulary for Latin to be used in the modern world. Language has never been carved into stone. It is a living creature that is always evolving. Reply in Old English if you please? Latin was used as an international language before English ever came into the spotlight. History provides the answer why it no longer is. It had nothing do with it being hard to learn, yet English is not easy either. Esperanto is a constructed language being promoted to be used as a international auxiliary language. Unlike Esperanto, Latin is not a constructed language. The Hebrew language should be classified as dead too then by what you're saying.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L7VTH8ii_8[/youtube]

 

[plebs]

In regards the matter of two languages existing in Rome at the time the works of classical Latin were composed, I can only say that I have read that such was the case. I believe that Cicero is quoted as an authority in this matter. At some point Cicero talks about the two languages and also a third intermediate language that was used to communicate between those who used the two languages. Apparently some (or maybe most or all) the experts who study the development of the Romance languages believe that they developed from the language of the lower classes that existed in Rome at the time of Cicero, rather than from Latin of the time of Cicero. I have no idea whether this is correct or not. But it is an idea promoted by experts who have studied the matter.

When I said that what is dead, is dead, and can't be revived, I was joking more-or-less. However, I do think that there is a basic difference between a language which is currently being used as a primary language, and an ancient language preserved through the preservation of a small amount of the original literature that was written in that language. Well that is my opinion, but it is not so easy to prove that I am right.

In regards English being the international language, I think you do not understand my point of view. I don't say that English deserves to be the common language of the world, or that it doesn't deserve to be. I am not happy that it is such, nor any I unhappy about. I simply stated as a matter of fact that English is the modern lingua franca. And you can be sure that since English has obtained that role, no other language is going to take over that role any time soon. (And it is interesting to note that for the first time in human history a language that serves as a lingua franca has become a world-wide lingua franca)

 

[Nikolaos]

The spoken language of ancient Rome was vulgar Latin. The difference between vulgar and classical Latin is the difference between colloquial and formal English.

 

[Imprecator]

Paraphrased: "there were three latins- educated, intermediate, and low. Romance languages came from the last one. Idk, but experts say this"

Please, learn more if you want to fully discuss this. The spoken language, throughout Latin's history, has constantly changed and absorbed influences from new sources. Think of Classical Latin as the common tongue from roughly 100 BC to the turn of the millenium artificially preserved from further change. Of course, like in any language today, there were those who spoke in a more literate and learned style, and those who spoke coarsely and succinctly. Those of higher education continued to write in the classical way for centuries due to the momentum and prestige that golden age Latin had accrued. On the other hand, the everyday language continued evolving as the years passed; a process which was greatly accelerated by the increasing isolation which characterised late antiquity and the dark ages. Simply put: the educated preserved the famous language of Cicero (et al.) even as the spoken language continued to evolve over the centuries into today's Italian, Spanish, &c.

However, I do think that there is a basic difference between a language which is currently being used as a primary language, and an ancient language preserved through the preservation of a small amount of the original literature that was written in that language.

Quite an impressive corpus of Latin works has survived into the modern age, FYI. And you still haven't answered to Hebrew.

Well that is my opinion, but it is not so easy to prove that I am right.

There's a reason for that

Paraphrased: "it's just a fact- English is the world's lingua franca"

That may be, but it's got nothing to do with the topic at hand.

 

[Nooj]

What do you think needs to be done to successfully achieve this objective? One thing I suggest is a well-written petition by Latinists.

I also would like to see Latin being taught differently, not because it's important to Western civilisation, but because it'd help in learning it. Reading is important, writing is important (but not many people learn Latin composition nowadays) but most of all, speaking is the key to becoming competent in a language.

I really don't see the point in reviving Latin so that it retakes its role as an auxiliary European language. Probably better for everyone to be multilingual.

Also, if we should be reviving some languages, I hear your Native American languages are crying out for attention.

 

[Nikolaos]

Also, if we should be reviving some languages, I hear your Native American languages are crying out for attention.

I live just a few hours from the Cherokee capital (I have a little Cherokee blood myself, but I am mostly of European stock). The college there offers free classes for the language, and several roadsigns have Cherokee under the English. However, I think they're fighting a losing battle there

I suppose I'm pulling this off-topic, but everything else has already been commented on.

 

[Quasus]

‘Dead language’ is a vague term, and everyone understands it in his own way. What does it mean ‘to revive Latin’? To incite its further evolution? To make it the first language for some children? To restore its former status?

The fact is that the majority of persons who contributed to the Latin patrimony did not had Latin as their mother tongue: from Andronicus (Greek) and Plautus (Umbr) to Erasm (Dutch) and Newton (English) and on. The mother tongue of a Latin author is of no account.

A literary language is not given at birth. A child naturally learns colloquial language with its peculiar grammar and vocabulary, and then at school and through reading books he acquires the knowledge of the literary version of his native language. Latin is nothing but a literary language. Of course, it can (and IMHO should) be used as a means of communication, but I see no point as teaching it as a mother tongue.

 

[Nooj]

Also, if we should be reviving some languages, I hear your Native American languages are crying out for attention.

I live just a few hours from the Cherokee capital (I have a little Cherokee blood myself, but I am mostly of European stock). The college there offers free classes for the language, and several roadsigns have Cherokee under the English. However, I think they're fighting a losing battle there

I suppose I'm pulling this off-topic, but everything else has already been commented on.

I love going off-topic, although if the OP wishes, we could make another thread. But it's sort of relevant I think.

Cherokee has native speakers. Despite a severe lack of written literature in comparison to Latin, it has the supreme advantage of being a spoken language. It is alive in a way that Latin isn't, people think and speak in it every day. It thus 'belongs' in the here and now in a way that Latin doesn't. If anything needs to be revived as a spoken and living language, it is Cherokee and the hundreds of languages indigenous to North America, Canada, Australia and elsewhere that are teetering on the edge of survival right now, not a language that no one has spoken as a child for centuries, if not longer.

 

[Nikolaos]

True, it has native speakers - I worked alongside one (according to him, he held the title "chief"). But, it seems that they aren't passing it on (the man's son, in his thirties, knew nothing of the language), and those that do learn it from youth learn English at the same time, and use it on a much more regular basis. As their culture assimilates with the national culture, the language becomes less and less significant. I wouldn't be surprised if the language ceases to be passed down within one or two generations.

I would be very interested in learning Cherokee, if it is offered at the university I hope to enroll in.

 

[Bitmap]

No, Latin is as dead as a door nail, but it lives on through its European descendants, including its bastardized descendant of English.

That's not a very qualified commentary because English is not a descendant of Latin. It borrowed a large number of words to be used in higher registers, but it's pronunciation and grammar as well as its core vocabulary are clearly Germanic.

What exactly would prevent it from being taught as a living language?

The curriculum and the difficulty although the former also influences the latter. In modern languages like English or, say, French the focus of speaking is on lower registers and the grammar is not overwhelmingly huge. You can (and should) even teach the grammar in the target language there. However, in Latin, the eventual goal is to read Caesar, Cicero or Vergil at some points, so the curriculum imposes massive amounts of grammar on you to be taught with 2-3 years. It's hard to think of ways to teach that in Latin, although it may certainly be doable. The least you can do is revise the grammar with a few games that requires the students to speak some Latin. You would also have to lower the standard for spoken Latin because there is no chance you get this ability anywhere near Ciceronian with the limited amount of time you have. And since the curriculum leaves little spare time for you, it's very hard to implement other spoken sequences.

In my opinion the curricula should implement more room to teach Latin at least partly as a living language. It's not really true that the lack of vocabulary for modern concepts is a real problem - after all, Latin deals with ancient Rome and concepts that were relevant for the Romans - and Latin has exactly the vocabulary to talk about that.
Then again, talking about modern concepts shouldn't be hard, either. You can just reborrow the words that were borrowed from Latin anyway (like the examples you provided).

Another impeding factor may be the limited skill of most teachers and prospective teachers I know, but I also know a number of people who are quite eager about this.
Teaching Latin as a living language, at least ex parte, would bring some diversification into the classroom making it a lot more motivating. It would also enable students to learn the language through more than just the optical channel (adding the auditive one) and help them internalise a lot of patterns (like the common position of an ablative absolute at the beginning of a sentence). The benefits of this method are known in the didactics of modern languages - I wonder why Latin doesn't take advantage of that, too.


I love the rest of what you wrote

 

[plebs]

Some one said that the difference between sermo urbanus and sermo vulgaris was equivalent to the difference between literary English and conversational English. However, apparently the difference between the two was much greater than that. According to an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia there existed a third intermediate language that was used to communicate between those who spoke sermo urbanus and sermo vulgaris. The difference was so great that they obviously had trouble communicating with each other. If any one would like to check out that article, the url is: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09019a.htm

 

[Imprecator]

^ Did you read anything that I wrote?

 

[Gregorius]

A large part of why I take great pride in my efforts to render modern Disney and pop songs into Latin is because I am contributing to a small but stable if not growing body of contemporary Latin writing, not to mention the fact that Latin lyrics set to today's hit singles might be an excellent way to make the language more relatable/accessible and even fun for children and teenagers. It would, I believe, prove to them that Latin doesn't necessarily have to be restricted to arcane orations that make them want to either fall asleep or shoot themselves. I've said it once, I'll say it again: Lingua latina mortua est solum si permittimus ut sic sit.

Allow me to put in my two cents on the major points being made here:

If we define "dead" to mean that there are no more native speakers left in the world, then Latin is indeed quite dead. A dead language, however, is only marginally analogous to a dead person. We cannot revive the latter however much we may want to, but we can revive the former quite easily if we so choose. While political correctness obliges me to acknowledge that Cherokee has just as much intrinsic richness and therefore right to survival as Latin, the hard fact of history is that Latin's legacy is so indelible in the modern world that to abandon it would be a far greater loss than the extinction of Cherokee (which I hope does not come to pass). To reduce what was once a living language to a static cipher for decrypting ancient texts is, I believe, the first step on a slippery slope that leads to the complete extinction of the tongue.

Yes, the global position of English remains strong, and I hope it stays that way. Yet I cannot help but feel that, unless we finally reform our spelling, the worldwide populace will jump at the chance to adopt a more logically-spelled lingua franca as soon as such an alternative gains enough global clout. I doubt Mandarin, with its thousands of more-or-less abstract ideograms, will be that language, but no one can predict what other alphabetic language may eventually burst onto the world stage. If it turns out to be a language similar to Spanish (not in its use of the Roman alphabet, mind you, but rather in its regular and consistent application of whatever alphabet it does use), English does not stand a chance. We Anglophones have clung stubbornly (dare I say, even stupidly) to a spelling system intended to logically reflect pronunciation as it was in the days of Chaucer (roughly speaking, at least); hardly ideal for sustaining a role as a global common tongue.

Some one said that the difference between sermo urbanus and sermo vulgaris was equivalent to the difference between literary English and conversational English. However, apparently the difference between the two was much greater than that. According to an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia there existed a third intermediate language that was used to communicate between those who spoke sermo urbanus and sermo vulgaris. The difference was so great that they obviously had trouble communicating with each other. If any one would like to check out that article, the url is: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09019a.htm

I am still a tad unclear as to precisely how great the difference was between classical and colloquial Latin, but if it was indeed greater than that which we see in English and other modern tongues, I suspect that this was only due to technology. Diglossia (the technical term for this sort of literary/poetic/academic-colloquial/rustic divergence) is comparatively mild in English. Why? Because we have modern telecommunications and the infrastructural means to provide near-universal education, both of which inevitably reduce both the difference between rustic and polished speech and the geographical variation of dialects from each other.

The other fact you have to consider is that Vulgar Latin was not a single form of speech, but instead a collection of dialects with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility Classical Latin, then, in addition to serving as a literary standard in opposition to rustic speech in general would have also been a miniature lingua franca among those dialects within the Roman world itself.

The point is, what we know as "classical" Latin, although it was somewhat affected, was still very much the same language as the Proto-Romance spoken on the streets. The best way to illustrate approximately the distinction between the two is to make an analogy with "classical" and "vulgar" English.

CLASSICAL: I do not have any books. / I have no books.
MIDDLE: I don't have any books. (contractions are fence-straddlers)
VULGAR: I don't have no books. / I got no books. / I don't got any/no books. / I ain't got any/no books.