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

On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, at 11:41 AM, Philippe Caquant wrote:

> I doubt that Latin can be teached as a modern
> language,
So you doubt the existence of courses such as Cambridge Latin Course?

This is silly - the above course has been around for a few decades now;
once upon a time I taught it to schoolkids.

Besides, what's the problem? Russian, e.g., has just as 'complicated
grammar' as Latin, but no one denies that it's a modern language and books
teaching Russian don't feel compelled to present it as an "algebraic
puzzle".

I really do not comprehend your doubt.

> or rather, the problem is: the texts we
> studied were literary texts, not everyday spoken
> Latin, of course. So, reading Cicero as if it were a
> today article in the Sun seems a little bit difficult
For goodness sake! Do we give Racine to those learning French? Goethe to
those learning German? Shakespeare to those learning English? Do we start
people off in Russian with Tolstoy, or Dostoyesky or any of the other
Russian classics?

Of course not! So no one in their right mind is going to use Cicero when
_learning_ Latin.

> Latin literary sentences usually look as if a horse
> had kicked into them and scattered the words all over.
> You have to lead a police investigation to gather
> clues and try to put the words back together.
Try reading literary German!! I did research several years back on
pre-Greek speech in the Aegean area. Some of texts I had to read were in
German, and some authors were not easy. Sentences were just you described,
  the *long* Ciceronian periods were worthy of Cicero himself.

But I've never heard any one say "I doubt that German can be taught as a
modern language" - yet by your logic, they should do.

> I bet
> this was not the case when a Roman told his wife,
> well, you again forgot to tell the slave to wash my
> toga, guess you were gossiping with the senator's
> wife, huh ?
Of course not - which is precisely why the more enlightened don't start
people of with Cicero and do teach Latin in the same sort of way as modern
languages are taught.

We even here have a course aimed at young children. It's called 'Minimus'
and I'm told it features a family living in Vindolanda up by Hadrian's
Wall in Britain and includes besides human characters a cat and the
eponymous mouse 'Mini-mus"   :)

Ray
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"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

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