What Is a Dead Language Doing in the 21st Century?

e3mil.com ^ | 12/04/2004 | Sue Reilly

[185JHP]

And His enemies should be "mutus quam piscis."

[Sir Gawain]

Handy Latin Phrases

[pierrem15]

ROFLMAO!

[VOA]

thanks, that is a good, direct tutorial...

[A knight without armor]

I've always regretted not studying Latin. It was never offered in my high school or junior college and at the university I wouldn't have had the time.

I very much admire people that can use Latin. I really enjoy listening to singing in Latin.

[macbee]

Illegitimi Non Carborundum

You do know that is "fake Latin", don't you? It's cute and all (supposedly "don't let the bast**ds grind you down"), but it isn't Latin.

[stumpy]

I thought this was about the french.

[Citizen James]

Yeah, I know it's pseudo-latin...

But, It's all the latin I need...

[PzLdr]

Ave Imperatorum! Moritui te salutamus!

Omnia Gallia im partem tres divisa est

Veni, Vidi, Vici!

Oderint dum metuant.

Cartago delenda est!

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

[Quinotto]

It's about time that Latin is being thought again in schools. I was born and raised in Eastern Europe and received my basic education there and by age 14 I was speaking Latin fluently(along with other 2 foreign languages, as a mandatory requirement). I am now a health care professional and I cannot emphasize how those years of studying Latin were such a payoff and I was so thankful for it while watching my friends struggling to remember Latin terms. Latin is the basis for science terms, along with Greek, the 2 languages which are the base of the European culture and in turn of the American culture as well and if we keep going along with this idiotic PC phenomenon, our children will end up at the bottom of the international education scale.

[Quinotto]

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

[SamAdams76]

The Romans! What have the Romans ever done for us?

[It's me]

My daughter is majoring in Greek and Latin.

What she'll do with it, I do not know....

[sevry]

My daughter is majoring in Greek and Latin.

What she'll do with it, I do not know....

If every classic worth the read had been artfully and fairly translated, there might be less of an argument for learning these, it's true. She can use that knowledge in whatever vocation. It used to be called - a liberal arts eduction. And it's generally not done, any more. Because of that, she'd have quite an advantage, depending on what she read.

[Rastus]

What Is a Dead Language Doing in the 21st Century?

Last time I asked that in a bar, I got slapped! But, it's still my favorite pick-up line.

[Mike-o-Matic]

Damn, I got here too late.

[Syncro]

Holy incumberous britticus

[dk/coro]

When I entered Culver Military Academy as a young cadet in 1945, I was provided the choice of Greek or Latin. We could also take a romance language as well, but one or the other of the two classical languages was mandatory.

By the time I dogged my way through Cicero and Virgil, I found that English grammar and composition became ever so much easier and more enjoyable. My instructor was a gentleman of the old school; and he could impart historical references to our lessons that were most enlightening. There were only 10 to 12 cadets to a class, so skating through a session unprepared was out of the question.

I am most grateful for my early exposure to these treasures -- and for the dedication of the instructors who provided me that superb educational experience at such an early age.

[Mike Fieschko]

"When we are pressed and taunted upon our obstinacy in saying the Mass in a dead language, we are tempted to reply to our questioners by telling them that they are apparently not fit to be trusted with a living language." [G.K. Chesterton, in The Catholic Church and Conversion]

[broadsword]

Hic Est enim calix sanguinis mei, novi et aeterni testamenti: mysterium fidei, qui pro vobis effundetur in reminssionem peccatorum.

So very beautiful those words... Now for something completely different:

Flexilis sum. Gluten est. Me resilit. Ad te haeret!