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To: BlackElk

Thank you, BlackElk for the brief trip down memory lane.

It isn’t surprising to find that Latin is what they call a dead language, although it is still plenty useful, and I think the unusual sentence arrangement is what did it in.
Subject, object, predicate seems strange and was difficult for me. I admit I love the English language. For me, it has everything, if used properly.
Thanks again.
P.S. It wasn’t simple for me.


99 posted on 09/23/2015 7:51:38 PM PDT by Maris Crane
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To: Maris Crane
Latin is not quite as dead a language as many imagine. There is actually an official in the Vatican Curia (administration) whose job is to come up with new Latin terms for modern phenomena such as computer, television, video game and even pinball machine. I think that this reflects the fact that most internal communications within the hierarchy are conducted in Latin, letters, even arguments in the conclaves which elect our popes. It is the advantage of choosing one universal language for a universal Church.

IIRC, Latin actually has few hard and fast rules as to the order of subject, object and predicate. For examples: "Omnia Gallia est in tres partes divisa" places those in the order of simply subject, predicate with no direct object It would have been equally correct for Julius Caesar to have written it as "In tres partes est omnia Gallia divisa." "Arma virumque cano" (I sing of arms and the man) is the more familiar Latin order of direct objects, predicate (implied subject "I" contained in the verb form cano). English is generally more rigid in this respect.

When I attended a Jesuit prep school back when we were busy inventing the wheel, we used a series of four textbooks and a separate grammar book by Robert Henle, S.J., an introduction to Latin prose (I), Caesar's war in Gaul (II), Cicero's orations (III), and Virgil (we actually translated the entire Aeneid rather than using the text in senior year) (IV) and Latin Grammar. These are all still in print from Loyola University Press in Chicago. If you have children or grandchildren to whom you would like to teach Latin, it is a great set of books which uses very good methods to teach Latin.

God bless you and yours!

105 posted on 09/24/2015 10:10:45 AM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline: Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society/Rack 'em Danno!)
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