Re: Latin (was Language universal?)

On Thu, 8 Feb 2001, Raymond Brown wrote:

> At 7:47 am -0500 7/2/01, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> >On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, Raymond Brown wrote:
> >(and eventually prescriptions like not splitting
> >infinitives) from the Romans?
>
> But I think it's unfair to blame this piece of pedantry on the Romans; like
> "It is I", it derives from _misunderstanding_ Latin grammar.
Oh, definitely.  But then, I wonder if the Greeks were to blame for
Romans picking up their terminology.  :-p

> >(British order?  Oh dear.  I remember how screwed up I was in German
> >because I self-studied from a book that had Nominative, accusative,
> >genitive, dative; and the textbook in the classes I ended up taking
> >switched dative and genitive.)
>
> Yep - it's those differences again.  The Germans one used: Nom., Gen., Dat,
> Acc.  But they now tend to put them as we Brits have been doing for some
> time: Nom., Acc., Gen., Dat.
<laugh>  Makes sense--the grammar I self-studied from was a *British*
German grammar!

> >> Don't worry - take it from someone who's being doing Latin for some 50
> >> years, you're doing just fine!
> >
> >Wow--that's a lot of Latin!  =^)  I have a long way to go
>
> And I hope that one day you will get there  :)
Definitely working on it.  :-)

> >(I someday want
> >to read Vegetius' _De Re Militari_ and Caesar's Gallic Wars in something
> >resembling the originals).
>
> Why not, indeed?  Not sure about Vegetius, but Caesar writes quite
> accessible Latin.
>
> But stick with it.  Reading Catullus & Vergil in the original makes it all
> worth it.
I'm sure.  (OTOH, I have a friend who took three years of HS Latin and is
taking a year of college Latin, and she says she's sick of translating
Cicero...)

Vegetius I only know about because he's mentioned in _The Cambridge
Illustrated History of Warfare_ as a fairly large influence on medieval
strategists or somesuch and I went crazy trying to find a translation for
my IB extended essay, with no luck (I was in Korea).  :-p

Valete,
YHL