The Latin Language-it's not dead, it's undead!

[Solumina]

Originally Posted by roserougesang

If you want to learn Latin, I recommend the Cambridge Latin Course books first. There's mostly made up of humorous stories that you translate with grammar pages scattered throughout and in the back. There's even a Latin-English dictionary with the words used in the book.
I'm using them for school, we're now up to the 4th one. Sadly, I'm not doing as well this year but I'm working on regarding former glory

I just wanted to say that I used one of those in 8th grade and I still remember it especialy the fact that half of the book was stories about the cook wanting to bang the slave girl.

[Crom Crauch]

Latin may be a "dead" language... but don't tell that to my Latin teacher... the guy can speak it very well... and he insists that whenever possible his students speak it too... since it's for a grade, I'm pretty cool with that... anyways, bibamus, moriendum est!

[roserougesang]

I don't seem to be doing as well in Latin this year as I did the last 2 years (nearly topped the class I did)
Because of the fact that Latin is not spoken anymore, it does seem that it is one of the harder 'languages' to learn. Italian is easy enough because the whole of Italy (obviously) speaks Italian, but you'll rarely see anyone speaking Latin (it would be rather amusing if someone did).
We're having a Latin performance for assembly next week. I get to be Mercury, god of holy ancient postal service (as I like to say)^^

[Grandieur]

well most people dont learn spoken latin, its similar to learning attic greek or homeric greek, you learn it as a written language.

[Nike]

I agree, it isn't about speaking at all. It is about gaining the ability to translate ancient texts.

As a spoken language,it is certainly dead, yet the text written in Latin and Greek are still of interest, and I prefer to translate them myself rather than rely on translations given by other. Many translated editions are quoite old, and in oreder to achieve the poetic effect of hexameters etc., not entirely correct in their meaning.

As I've mentioned before, Latin, Greek, and all other old/dead languages remain useful not only for those who are interested in history, but also philosophy, religions, law, arts history etc...

Latin and ancient Greek are also useful for many scientific disiplines, it certainly helps to understand the meaning of scientific terms as many of them origin in either ancient Greek or Latin. If you want to study medicine, law or a modern language in Austria for instance, you need the Latinum. Not without reason.

[angel011]

I had Latin for one year in high school. I forgot most of it by now, since it was 15 years ago, but I remember that learning Latin was a great pleasure for the mind.

[| BlackOps | couch]

*Edit*

Oxygen is not your friend.

[roserougesang]

BlackOps, what does Mr Bump have to do with Latin? Please post that somewhere more suitable..

[|BlackOps| Jeffinator]

wtf? bump ftw fools.

[horrorgirl]

I have always wanted to learn a little Latin. I am a huge ancient Rome nut, hence my longing.

[Deviant Kitten]

Originally Posted by Draconysius

One of my favorite quotes is "Tu Fui, Ego Eris", or "What you are, I was. What I am, you will become".

Woah - that's a very concentrated sentence! How do all those tenses fit into four words?! *Deviant's brain implodes*

Latin fascinates me. I have a friend who knows it very well, it'd be cool to learn it and have long conversations by email in Latin with her! I plan on learning lots of languages, probably starting with French as I already know a little from school. Plus I gather learning French grammar is a doddle compared to learning Latin grammar!

[Nocturne]

Originally Posted by Nike

As I've mentioned before, Latin, Greek, and all other old/dead languages remain useful not only for those who are interested in history, but also philosophy, religions, law, arts history etc...

You are very right. I studied history, with history of art as one of my minor subjects, and because I focused on the medieval period every major document I worked with was in Latin. And not only the original text, but annotations from the modern editors, too. Latin was the first foreign language I learned at school and I had classes for five years (I also had French and English). It was all hard work and no fun until we knew enough to read the inscriptions on the tombstones of our local church - they were hilarious! I am grateful that I could learn it. As a lot of other people already said, knowing Latin is very useful if you want to learn French, Italian, Spanish or another related language. You also get a feel for the grammatical elements of your own language, at least that was how I felt. We also had rhetorics as part of our Latin lessons and learned to analyse political speeches. I would not want to miss knowing how to do that, either.

By the way, there is a society devoted to maintaining Latin as a spoken language ... they must be on the internet somewhere. I tried finding them, but failed. Judging from the impressive result list from google for "Latinum Vivum" a lot of people seem to be using Latin.

[Niels]

Originally Posted by Deviant Kitten

Woah - that's a very concentrated sentence! How do all those tenses fit into four words?! *Deviant's brain implodes*

Well literally it is: You, I was. I, you will be.

The first (I) and second (You) person are already fit into the verb, and so is the time (as in, present time, future time etc...), that is what makes latin grammar so damn hard, but on the other hand you need very little words to say a lot of things...

My favorite latin quote is from Catullus: 'Vivemus atque amemus': 'Lets us live, and let us love.' It has been my motto for years now!

And of course the one in my signature: 'A wise man doesn't pee against the wind'. It's written on a building in Amsterdam.

Originally Posted by Crom Crauch

Latin may be a "dead" language... but don't tell that to my Latin teacher... the guy can speak it very well... and he insists that whenever possible his students speak it too... since it's for a grade, I'm pretty cool with that... anyways, bibamus, moriendum est!

With all due respect to your latin teacher, but since latin is a dead language, no one knows how to pronounce it properly, so what's the use of insisting the students to speak it...

[MrMaelstrom]

Originally Posted by Sobeh

Whatever connotations Latin has for people, it's called a 'dead' language for specific reasons, namely the fact that no living culture uses it anymore.

No living culture ever did, actually.
Romans spoke common roman and a wide variety of regional dialects (to this day).
Latin was used for politics and law. It was a scholars' language at the time, used by specific classes of citizens for specific purposes, much like today.

[Solumina]

can it be a dead language if it was never alive to begin with?

By the way its good to have you back mael

[TheKorovaMilkbar]

Funniest latin quote ever? "Semper Ubi, Sub Ubi"

Which is obviously nonesense (Because directly translated means "Always where, under where"), but sounds like "Always wear underwear" when spoken.

[Solumina]

that was my Latin club's motto (yes I know we are a bunch of dorks)

[Nocturne]

Originally Posted by MrMaelstrom

No living culture ever did, actually.
Romans spoke common roman and a wide variety of regional dialects (to this day).
Latin was used for politics and law. It was a scholars' language at the time, used by specific classes of citizens for specific purposes, much like today.

That's very interesting. I didn't think the Romans would not have spoken Latin as we know it today. I wonder if the use of Latin as lingua franca in the Catholic church today and as a kind of medieval Esperanto counts? It was the language of politics, the church, students and universities, but people also wrote poetry and personal letters in it. That is not classic Latin, however - so probably, the Latin I learned at school always has been dead.
Somehow this thread reminds me of a part of Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' - "Cum mortuis in lingua mortua." - "With the dead in a dead language".

I wonder if Latin will stay with us in the future - although it probably never was a living language, many people do use it even today.

[Niels]

Originally Posted by Nocturne

I wonder if Latin will stay with us in the future - although it probably never was a living language, many people do use it even today.

Well it probably will always stay with us because plants, animals and especially every single body part has a latin name, so either we chose to rename it all, or we'll just use the latin words untill eternity...

[Nocturne]

But will people still know what the names mean? If not, I guess the names for body parts, animals etc. will one day be like 'secret magic words' of science

[stitch.the.sky]

Originally Posted by emeraldlonewoulf

If Latin is a dead language because no living culture uses it, and the Vatican (Roman Catholic Church) uses Latin for all its' stuff, does that mean Vatican priests are the "undead"?

Is it sad that I actually laughed at that?

When I actually go to church (which would be...rarely), I always love it when they have a song in latin... I'll be sitting there trying to figure out what it says, even if it has the English version right below it. Unfortunately, it's never anything more interesting than a lot of "Dominus" and "Sanctus" and the like. Heh.

I took a year of Latin back in highschool and loved it. I remember our text book was called "Ecce Romani." What kind of title is "Look, Romans!!!" besides a rather humorous one? Though, honestly, I know very little off the top of my head. I can usually do loose translations, but other than that? Not much else. I envy anyone who's semi-fluent.

[WolfMoon]

Klingons are stupid.

[Iriacynthe]

I've studied Latin for six years in highschool and I do miss it now, I've already forgotten so much. Some of my friends study Latin on university-level and they learn so many interesting things, I'm jalous (although ancient Hebrew is pretty cool too, I'm learning that now).
My friends can actually speak Latin semi-fluently, it's not always grammatically correct, but they can understand each other. Until some years ago, university teachers gave their Latin lessons in Latin, and oral exams were in Latin too, but they don't do that anymore. Yesterday I went to one of my Latin-studying friends' birthday, and one of her classmates wrote a poem for her in Latin, and another one wrote a Greek poem for her, it's so cool when you can do that.
In Belgium there's a Latin-contest, where students from different highschools translate a text, and the best students win a price. My friend won the contest last year and she could go on a trip to Rome during a schoolweek, everybody envied her off course.

What are your favourite Latin writers? I'm especially fond of Catullus, his poems are naughty, funny and witty at the same time. Horatius has written some pretty cool stuff too, and I also enjoyed reading Plinius' text about the Vesuvius.

[Nike]

Originally Posted by Iriacynthe

What are your favourite Latin writers? I'm especially fond of Catullus, his poems are naughty, funny and witty at the same time. Horatius has written some pretty cool stuff too, and I also enjoyed reading Plinius' text about the Vesuvius.

I think my favourite Latin writer is Ovidius Publius Naso. I like Horatius, too. Catull partly.
Marcus Aurelius' meditations.
And Plinius the Elder's Naturalis Historia.
...I better stop now.

[Crom Crauch]

Juvenal's Satires
Catullus... all of 'em... though I translate everything on my own.