New life goal unlocked: live in a farm away from any computers and learn latin.
Reminds me this video on what Shakespeare's original pronunciation sounded like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s
The main thing we do not know is how regnum was pronounced. We know it was either of two options for interpreting gn and a third choice is that both were acceptable. People are also unsure how 4 of the short vowels sounded. Some say that they have slightly different sounds while others say that they are just short versions of the long vowels like the other two (A and Y). It is possible both variations co-existed.
We also know that western Romans often mispronounced Y as I since they had trouble rounding their lips for Y. Y had been introduced for transliteration of Greek loanwords, so it was not a native sound for the western Romans.
It sounds like something that should obviously have been done, but my naive googling isn't getting me anywhere so far.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams in Classical Latin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mip30YF1iuo
Gauss still wrote in Latin 1801, his Disquisitiones Arithmeticae are a marvel.
Up until a few years back my university would still have accepted PHD thesis in Latin, they ditched it after no one had done it for almost a century.
As an ESL speaker and scientific writer: why?
For people fluent in several languages, which of those languages is chosen to communicate makes little difference. I'd argue all (sufficiently mature) languages work equally well for transmitting information to other people fluent in that language.
So choosing the language most people you want to communicate with are fluent in makes sense.
If you favor Latin simply for aesthetic reasons, I recommend choosing a more widespread modern language, that has non-pidgin characteristics. French or German (the latter might require a puritan style guide to go with it) would work well.
Discussing with e.g people who are the product of English boarding schools, they always have the home field advantage.
It's the opposite: having a preferred "high language" for science means it's gatekept by people who have the means to learn it. Those people will have the home field advantage, much like it was for much of history.
Plus it's just a bad idea. Firstly, it'll take more time for young students to learn to read a scientific paper. Second, you significanly diminish the pool of thinkers and therefore scientists, you're basically making 99% of the population illiterate. Finally there will always be more people willing to communicate in the "vulgar" language and it's where all new vocabulary will be created, which is why every single high language has pretty much died off except in cerimonial contexts.
English is just the language du jour, before that it was French, German in some fields, Arabic, Latin, Greek, etc.
(I studied Latin for about a decade.)
If we conduct science in Latin, it gives all scientists first hand access to sources from classical works, a thousand years of papal edicts, the works of Duns Scotus, Isaac Newton and Erasmus; and extended to the future, future scientists will have the same access but access to what we produce today, without having to learn 21st century English or having to rely on 23rd century translations.
This is as much of an argument against Latin, given that there's no way to say "transistor" or "x-ray" without falling back on pidgin. Translation is part of the scientific process, insofar as science itself isn't static and can't be expressed throughout the ages with a single vocabulary.
(Besides, why stop there? How can we expect today's scientists to truly grasp Plotinus's the One without mastering Koine Greek?)
(I think even resistor may be OK Latin according to the etymology I'm looking at, but I don't have enough faith in my Latin grammar to say so.)
Carefully extending a dead language does have the strong benefit that you can keep it understandible across time. Even mid 19th century English is noticeably more difficult to read, and that's saying nothing about the 16th century English of Shakespeare.
Here's a microcosm of what a waste this is: Benjamin Jowett has translated the complete works of Plato to English, and they're public domain! Great! Free Plato for everyone! ... except this was written in the 19th century, and they're written in an archaic prose that contemporary readers struggle to read, so everyone who wants to read Plato still has to get a modern translation. We're still translating texts that have been readily accessible for half a milennium. Sure there may have been a new insight or a better phrasing here and there, but primarily it's to get it into a language that is accessible to the contemporary reader.
Sticking with English we're losing access to generational talents of the past because we can no longer understand what they're saying.
You perceive this because you read modern English; you don’t perceive similar differences in Latin because (I presume) you’re not fluent in Latin. I studied mostly Classical Latin, which yields pretty much the same experience when reading Ecclesiastical or Old Latin as modern English speakers have when reading Shakespearean English.
Or in other words: there are foundational shifts that only become legible once the language itself is legible. The fact that I could retcon “x-ray” into Latin today does not make the version of Latin that Livy spoke uniquely valuable to science.
All in all, I’d give us a better chance of preserving the sum total of human knowledge, including all versions of Latin, in fastidiously translating them into today’s dominant languages. This will be true of English too, whenever English stops being the lingua franca.
(It also doesn't make it uniquely unsuitable: what makes it unsuitable is the fact that the only people who speak it are the pope, a handful of bishops, and a bunch of dorks.)
It did help to have an easier access to learn other languages. But in hindsight I would have loved to be able to talk in Latin.
Speaking latin of course takes it way further but I think the direction is the same: learn it as a living language not as as a dead one. Starting from declensions and cases gets you nowhere, judging from my friends who learned it in school for years with zero results. Instead, start using the language, if only for reading. Then you can return to grammar later if you ever want to become proficient.
I also recommend this guy [1] who not only shares the same approach but apparently have fully dedicated himself to it. He has books, ebooks, audiobooks, a mobile app and a youtube podcast, all in latin. I can't cease to be impressed by the effort and the quality of the content. In comparison the Duolingo latin course is a complete disappointment.
Caesar is not too difficult either. The biggest problem I had with Caesar was that he used indirect speech a lot and LLPSI doesn't really prepare you too well for that, but you get used to it.
Nice to see a old-fashioned webpage by the way.
W. Sidney Allen's old Vox Latina https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/vox-latina/0D460CEF06E5... is apparently still the standard starting reference for classical Latin pronunciation, at least for English-speakers. (Many nineteenth-century German philologists died to bring us this information, of course.) People such as Luke Ranieri on YouTube use a version of Allen's system, though a number of people including Ranieri claim that there should be five vowel qualities rather than the seven described by Allen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH8E5RKq31I .
Note that if you want to speak Latin that's roughly faithful to how it was spoken up to (but not necessarily including) late antiquity, pronunciation is actually less important than quantity: basically, using clearly distinguishable short and long vowels in the right places (plus not running together double consonants in some places). I suppose it's similarly important to get the stress right, but at least that's generally agreed to be pretty easy. Classical Latin quantity feels weird and unnatural to English-speakers, and to Romance-language speakers, German-speakers ... : words often include one or two or three unstressed long vowels before getting to the stressed syllable, which might or might not itself have a long vowel. Even people who advocate for (classically-)correct quantity often don't consistently get it right.
(And yes, Allen also did publish a Vox Graeca https://www.cambridge.org/ie/universitypress/subjects/classi... , too, but be careful: the pronunciation of Ancient Greek is a question that might actually get you into a fistfight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BybLbHPU7Qc&list=PLQQL5IeNgc... .)
There are of course regional variation where claiming one is more 'correct' than the other doesn't hold up well (north USA vs south USA), but even further I'm sure most would take offense at the idea that everyone in the US mispronounces words where they differ from British pronunciation. (I know, both languages evolved independently since the countries split, but you get my point).
In the rest of the article, they seem to prefer saying that certain pronunciations “should be avoided” or that the speaker should pay attention to a specific distinction (such as vowel lengths or syllable boundaries).
It doesn't strike me as elitist or gatekeeping. It's making an honest effort to communicate the information you need to sound as authentically Latin as possible and to avoid speaking with an English accent.
Who cares how it sits with you? There is a "correct" way in every aspect of language - accent, spelling, etc.
> Language is incredibly fluid, and typically when a certain pronunciation is deemed 'correct' it's related to people in power and how they pronounce(d) it.
Probably. But somebody has to set the standard.
> There are of course regional variation where claiming one is more 'correct' than the other doesn't hold up well (north USA vs south USA),
Bad example. There is most definitely a "correct" american pronunciation. It's why much of news/media has a neutral american accent. Most americans, from whatever region, can speak it to some degree or another.
> but even further I'm sure most would take offense at the idea that everyone in the US mispronounces words where they differ from British pronunciation.
Who would take offense? Not me. Not anybody I know. Especially since american english is the dominant form of english and probably will be the standard around the world.
> but you get my point).
You have no point. Just misinformed silly gripes. All languages standardize in some form or another whether it be accents, pronunciation, spelling, script, etc.
In any case, the demise of the use of Latin in the church…
It’s much rarer to encounter the reformed Mass (missal of 1969-latest, i.e. reforms following Vatican II) offered in Latin, but it is done in some places. The communities offering the traditional Latin Mass use the 1962 edition or a 20th Century edition predating the changes to Holy Week in 1955.
there is no such thing as a "growing popularity" of the mass in latin.
because, surprise, the spells work just fine in any language. because, surprise again, Jesus spoke Aramaic. and the educated spoke Greek.
PP Francis is putting the whole misguided "Jesus sacrifice" liturgy and it's backwards thinking back to where it belongs: history books.
It is true that some in leadership presently, including Pope Francis, don't care for the movement and have been hampering it in various ways in recent years, but at this point its growth is unstoppable. Even if Francis dropped an even harder ban hammer (he won't for various reasons), it would just lead to immediate explosive growth of the SSPX because affected families and clergy-religious would never go back to the Novus Ordo Missae.
Anyway, we can have that discussion in another context if you wish. Mainly I wanted to point out that "Latin in the church" is alive and well and only more so in recent years.
> PP Francis is putting the whole misguided "Jesus sacrifice" liturgy and it's backwards thinking back to where it belongs: history books.
I'm not sure what information sources inform your thinking on this matter, but regardless it's an extremely distorted take on Catholic theology of the Eucharist. Again, that's getting far afield of the OP and my original comment, so can discuss elsewhere, but you can check the 1997 Catechism:
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P41.HTM
the key difference between the pre Vatican II and the current missal is that is a focus on sacrifice vs a focus of communion.
St Augustine so sweetly reminds us:
receive what you _are_: body of Christ
and
become what you have received: body of Christ
does your practice make you a more loving person? or a more righteous one? do you feel those not celebrating a specific rite are less Christian? less worthy? does it matter on judgement day if you went to tridentine mass? if you had a choice? do you look down to those not doing it?
that's what matters.
the Jesus chips are as magic in English as they are in latin.
much love ;-)
Actually, the one you linked to, the IntraText version on the Vatican’s website, seems to be the 1992 edition, which is out of date. The edition promulgated in 1997 is the definitive-official one, and that’s the edition that happens to be hosted by scborromeo, though the Vatican’s site might eventually get updated, after all it’s only been almost 30 years since the 1997 edition was published:
http://scborromeo.org/ccc/aposletr.htm
The 1997 edition is also available here:
https://usccb.cld.bz/Catechism-of-the-Catholic-Church
> the Jesus chips are as magic in English as they are in latin.
Characterizing the Eucharist as "Jesus chips" and "magic" is both offensive and sacrilegious, but hey, it's the Internet, so go figure.
Finally, the teachings in JP2's 1997 Catechism and the Catechism of Trent regarding the Eucharist are harmonious, in no way in contradiction with one another. Anyone who wishes can read and compare for themselves:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015038914233&vi...
Comparing the 1969+ liturgical reforms with the Tridentine Missal is another matter.
This will be my last reply in this HN thread, there are more appropriate forums to discuss these matters.
Most people I know who participate at Mass in Latin don't know the language and make little, if any, attempts to learn it. There is often a complete reliance on translations where prayers are recited in Latin but then still need to be read in the English side of the missal to be understood.
There is also an odd, yet quite outspoken (online), contingent of people who promote the Latin Mass while simultaneously downplaying the importance of learning Latin for having a fuller view of history and the science of theology.
I’ve not encountered the online contingent you mentioned so can’t really comment on them.
The long tradition in the Roman Rite is for laity and others not celebrating or in choir to cultivate mental prayer that is centered on the Eucharistic sacrifice and informed by the themes of the season and/or feast. It’s nice to have a hand missal/ette to review the day’s readings and prayers before or after Mass, but following along with the printed word can actually be a distraction from prayer during Mass. However, what’s most conducive to a spirit of prayer and interior participation can vary by person, i.e. there’s no “one best way”.
https://metacpan.org/dist/Lingua-Romana-Perligata/view/lib/L...