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Does Latin make you clever? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6503 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 42 15 February 2009 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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No, Latin doesn't make you clever. But when you already have learnt a few of the Romance language it is worth also spending some time with Latin in order to see the relationships between them more clearly. The only other valid reason for learning Latin would be an insatiable hunger for classical literature*. You might say that Latin could teach Anglophones how to deal with morphology-heavy languages, and yes it could, - but for that purpose German or Russian would be at least as relevant choices.
EDIT: * or later works formulated in Latin, for instance an insatiable hunger for medieval scholastic philosophy Edited by Iversen on 20 February 2009 at 12:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5699 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 10 of 42 15 February 2009 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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The perceived connection between Latin and intelligence might come from the fact that whereas people might learn other languages from any number of more trivial motives, from finding a mate to making money, one learns Latin primarily for academic, literary and scholarly—that is, intellectual—purposes.
This status of Latin is in my opinion somewhat unwarranted though, as there are a good number of other European languages that boast a richer and more significant intellectual repertoire. Let's not forget that even at the highest peak of the Roman Empire its elite still predominantly chose Greek as the vehicle of high expression. For the most part, Latin was the language of the law, government administration, rhetoric and politics, and the military. Edited by JuanM on 17 February 2009 at 4:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 11 of 42 16 February 2009 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||
Yes. Even the unknown individual who drew a picture of Christ as a donkey on the cross (the earliest surviving picture, although mocking) wrote an inscription underneath in Greek, not Latin, even though it was in Rome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito Edited by William Camden on 16 February 2009 at 7:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 12 of 42 16 February 2009 at 7:43am | IP Logged | ||
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Possum
I like this poem in macaronic verse. Part of the comic effect is the Latin vocabulary used, which gives it a feel of mock profundity. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6465 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 13 of 42 16 February 2009 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can't say whether it makes you more intelligent, but learning Latin is intellectually very rewarding in many ways. And it DOES make you more educated; even after studying only some basic Latin (and Latin literature), you'll become aware of how much of it is present in our "modern" culture.
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| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6465 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 14 of 42 16 February 2009 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||
... much of which is hard to understand if you ignore the ubiquitous allusions to Latin or Greek thought. Almost all European intellectuals up to the beginning of the 20th century had knowledge of Latin (and many also of Ancient Greek) and constantly drew on those classical sources when developing their own ideas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6956 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 15 of 42 16 February 2009 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | ||
If by "traditional" you mean snobbish Eurocentric intellectuals, then Latin (or even ancient Greek) will tend to be placed on a pedestal. However, I'm sure that traditional Indocentric or Iranocentric ones would place Sanskrit or Avestan respectively on a pedestal. A more suitable comparison would be to compare Latin with Ancient or Middle Chinese. Modern Chinese is associated with kung fu movies in Eurocentric minds for that is one of the main vehicles of transmitting Chinese culture or language to people brought up in Western European or Judaeo-Christian environments. "Popular perception" here is better described as "Western European" or "Judaeo-Christian" perception. This perception of a strong relationship between Chinese and kung-fu is hardly the "popular" one in China or in neighbouring areas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5699 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 16 of 42 17 February 2009 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
Greek is indeed one of the languages that I would consider more illustrious Latin. And while I agree that a background knowledge of Roman and Greek culture is generally important and desirable, to say that Cervantes, Galileo, Victor Hugo, Darwin, Kant or Dostoevsky are 'hard to understand' without mastery of Latin is unfounded. Roman culture was highly derivative of Greek culture, and its domain of innovation is comparatively, though by all means not entirely, restricted to the arts of government. In my opinion, Latin would be most valuable for direct access to the foundational thought of modern Europe as expressed between the Renaissance and the turn of the 18th century. Let me be clear though, I'm not arguing against the importance or value of Latin. Only that, all in all, its status as the preeminent language of erudition is in my opinion somewhat of an overestimation. Edited by JuanM on 17 February 2009 at 11:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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