Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,473PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,473
Miami, FL USA
How many of you here studied it in school or college?
This video has some really excellent examples of spoken Classical Latin as well as Latin cursive writing. One of these days I’ll read “The Gallic Wars” in Latin.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Growing up, we had in our library a book on the ancient Greek language. More than once I read through the introductory pages, on the history and flow of the Greek language through the centuries. Later years I knew a woman who did read and speak Homeric Greek. She reads as much of the ancient classics in Greek as she can manage, and does recitations of the Iliad in Greek.
While always fascinating, going back even to my childhood, I never did study an ancient language.
WARNING: This post contains opinions produced in a facility which also occasionally processes fact products.
Did it for 4 years at high school in the late ‘60s, in the Scottish education system it was compulsory at our level. We all felt it was a real grind, and questioned its relevance in the modern world. Right after my last Latin exam (1970), I went out into the backyard and burned my books.
But 50 years later I’m glad we did it. Quite apart from opening a window into the classical world, it taught us intellectual discipline, gave us a grounding to help with learning the “romance” languages, (Italian, Spanish, French etc), and introduced us to logical language structure (in later years that helped me with Chinese).
On a lighter note, our Latin teacher Mrs M (also house mistress for my school “house”), looked and sounded just like Hogwarts’ Professor McGonagall, except that she didn’t wear the pointy hat ( but we _knew_ she was a witch!)
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,473PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,473
Miami, FL USA
Thanks for sharing that wonderful story Mike!
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
"Panzer goes to sleep tonite dreaming of his vision of Rome,
He try's to wake up when the corrupt Rome patrols start accusing him of being an escaped slave!"
Too late, Panzer can't escape.
I'll let Panzer's imagination and knowledge of Rome take it from here.
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The spoken bit in the video sounds l a bit like high valerian to me.
English and French in high school was compulsory. Latin, German and Spanish were options in high school
There was only 16 squadrons of RAF fighters that used 100 octane during the BoB. The Fw190A could not fly with the outer cannon removed. There was no Fw190A-8s flying with the JGs in 1945.
I am old enough to remember when to be a Catholic alter boy you had to learn Latin at a very young age. I grew up in a very strict Catholic environment (hope there are no Catholic haters here).
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,473PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,473
Miami, FL USA
Originally Posted by LB4LB
I am old enough to remember when to be a Catholic alter boy you had to learn Latin at a very young age. I grew up in a very strict Catholic environment (hope there are no Catholic haters here).
Of course the Ecclesiastical Latin is very much a different animal from Classical Latin.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
I had to endure taking Latin,around '73 I reckon. I was pretty terrible at languages. I can't remember anything if I'm honest. I also took French and very briefly,German (1 lesson!).
Did 5 years latin at school ...it started to become pretty difficult inthe last year with the study of poetry like De Natura Rerum or Aeneis (only some extracts of course), but I remember being very very impressed to be able to study some texts from Caesar or Cicero very quickly ...of course studying classic latin gives for the whole life an incomparable cultural background , at least for a French...too bad I did not learn classic Greek.
"Anyone can shoot you down if you don't see him coming but it takes a wonderfully good Hun to bag a Camel if you're expecting him." Tom Cundall.
Joined: Apr 2001 Posts: 121,473PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,473
Miami, FL USA
Great post kaa!
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”