Latin

[Crescentinus]

Latin is dead!? It's alive!

[chevalier]

Originally Posted by Crescentinus

Latin is dead!? It's alive!

You can hear it spoken if you google that Finnish radio station.

[byeway]

Well -- I will never believe that Caesar said "Waeni, weedi, weechi!"

[Yarb]

Originally Posted by Byrnwiga

Some universities (and more specifically, Classics departments) will have Latin reading groups.


-Byrnwiga

And courses.

[DLenshek]

For those who want a more systematic introduction to Latin, and benefit from the structure of a class, Catholic Distance University is offering Latin I at the graduate and undergraduate levels in the coming September term.

[ritthichai]

Originally Posted by Irish 13

I would like to learn Latin but since it is a dead language there arent many ways to learn it anymore, so does anyone know of a good website that is free where i can learn the Latin used by the Church?

Frogive me if this has already been suggested (I have not read the whole thread) but there is a great online course for beginners, and also an advanced course) at the National Archives in UK:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/beginners/

Hope this helps.

[Not Sure]

Originally Posted by chevalier

I think any bookshop near a university or college should have a good, modern book that you could use for self-learning.

As for grammar, actually wikipedia is a good enough source and I'm not kidding. It's entirely possible to find all the grammar rules you need on wiki. Find, print, memorise, practice. Do it the old way, just learn a portion a day, then take like 150 verbs or nouns from the respective group and practice the relevant declination/conjugation, then move on to the next. This is something I'd suggest as someone who's done some Latin teaching. Wikipedia is 100% free. Dictionaries aren't expensive, you'll need a paper one. It's worse with actual texts, but you can find a lot on the Internet, including texts that are actually prepared as study material, even with every word described as to its grammatical form. I'm only sorry but can't provide you with a specific link, it's been years. You'd need to google some. But it's entirely possible to learn Latin without paying a penny except for your Internet access fee. Although I still insist a paper dictionary will generally be more convenient than online dictionaries. And probably more exhaustive after all.

Good luck, have fun!



Have more details about the 1910 event? Generally, the Church followed late Roman pronunciation, as opposed to some modern scholars who decided that the late republic/early empire pronunciation was somehow more correct. As far as my unrequested opinion goes, there is no such thing as objectively correct Latin pronunciation, it's kinda all subjective.



I'm not sure what the American pronunciation is and how it differs from the British English pronunciation of Latin but the latter does contain some obvious influences of the English language that can't pretend to be a reconstruction of actual Latin pronunciation. E.g. look at the way the word "radii" is pronounced ("ray-dee-eye" more or less). It can't be claimed that the Romans ever pronounced the letter "i" as the "eye" sound, while this is also an obvious, unique, distinctive feature of English among European languages. So the traditional English ways of reading Latin aren't really very Latin, they're more English. This is not to say they're illegitimate etc., they're just not very historical and might fail to be understood by e.g. French folks (who can go as far as from the Latin "i" through the mediaeval Latin "j" to the French "j" like in "Juliette", for example).

I meant American pronunciation of English is no more wrong that the Church pronunciation of Latin.

[Janefromengland]

Originally Posted by Crescentinus

Latin is dead!? It's alive!

It certainly is! I remember my German teacher telling us that whe she was a schoolgirl she came to England to stay with her penfriend, and while she was here she developed dreadful toothache. Her friend's mum took her to their dentist, but she was so upset and in so much pain that she forgot all her English. So she and the dentist ended up conversing in Latin as it was their only common language.

[Crescentinus]

Originally Posted by Janefromengland

It certainly is! I remember my German teacher telling us that whe she was a schoolgirl she came to England to stay with her penfriend, and while she was here she developed dreadful toothache. Her friend's mum took her to their dentist, but she was so upset and in so much pain that she forgot all her English. So she and the dentist ended up conversing in Latin as it was their only common language.

Beautiful.

Is Latin the official language of the Vatican?

[Megan7]

Originally Posted by ritthichai

Frogive me if this has already been suggested (I have not read the whole thread) but there is a great online course for beginners, and also an advanced course) at the National Archives in UK:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/beginners/

Hope this helps.

Thanks!