Re: Latin a loglang? (was Re: Unambiguous languages (was: EU allumettes))

On Wednesday, May 12, 2004, at 07:45 AM, Philippe Caquant wrote:

> --- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
>>
>> So you doubt the existence of courses such as
>> Cambridge Latin Course?
>
> Never in my life ! I just said that Latin we learned
> was something different.
With respect, you did not say that. You said, and I quote: "I doubt that
Latin can be teached as a modern language"

> I also have a "Assimil" method ("Latin without toil")
> home. There you can find such dialogues as:
>
> - Ave Mauriti ! Quid agis hodie ?
[snip]

Right - so Latin can be taught in a similar way to any other language.

[snip]

> Chekhov or Pushkin don't scatter the words all around
> as Cicero or Virgilius do. The syntax is much closer
> to Western languages (the vocabulary may be
> difficult).
Again, I ask how much literary German you have read. I have read German
which could almost be translated word for word into Latin and be passed
off as Cicero at his oratorical best. German, I think, is a western
language.

As for Vergil - he was a _poet_. Poets in most - probably all - languages
have a habit of pushing their language to its limits and using, amongst
other things, unusual word orders. You might as well complain that
learners find Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot difficult and that, theefore, you
doubt English can be taught as a modern language.

But, of course, neither Cicero nor Vergil "scatter the words all around".
Cicro's sentences & periods are _very carefully_ constructed to obtain the
maximum effect as he was *speaking* them. It is worth remembering that
Classical Latin existed in a pre-printing milieu and that it was meant to
be _heard_. The literate Romans rarely read literature, as we do, but
either heard the original or had it a copy read aloud to them by a
literate (and therefore expensive) slave.

The Roman Senators listening to Cicero did not wait till Cicero got to the
end of a sentence and then "..have to lead a police investigation to
gather clues and try to put the words back together."  They understood him
as he went along, eagerly waiting for the climax to the carefully
constructed period. There was no 'scattering'.

Vergil was certainly written to be _heard_ declaimed and, again, would be
understood as his work was being recited. Actually recitation can make a
difference. I remember in my teens once of poem of G.M. Hopkins I found
difficult - but when i heard it properly declaimed on the radio, it made
perfect sense.

BTW - the processes of having "to lead a police investigation to gather
clues and try to put the words back together" is usually termed analysis
and synthesis. I have found it a very useful discipline to have learned
when confronted with 'complicated' sentences in a language with which I
have little familiarity. Yes, it is a useful _tool_ when first meeting
Cicero or Vergil - but a tool that should be used less & less and then not
needed. IMO if you have _learnt_ Latin you understand Cicero & Vergil as
you read them.

But then, I guess I'm a rara_avis who loves Latin, thinks Vergil was one
of the greatest of western poets & actually reads Vergil for pleasure.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com    (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk   (work)
===============================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

Reply