In the 1960's Latin was still highly recommended in the U.S. for anyone
expecting to attend college. If you started in 9th grade, you could
even take 4 years of Latin by graduation from high school, although many
college-bound students elected only 2 and took either some French or
Spanish. So many words in English and in many European languages have
their roots in Latin that a knowledge of Latin gave you an edge in
building vocabulary in multiple languages. For English-only speakers,
it served as an introduction to language concepts that barely exist in
English: of noun gender and declension causing the base forms of written
and spoken words to change based on context. About the only examples of
this in English are the subjective and objective forms of personal
pronouns (I/me, he/him, she/her. they/them); and the flagrant misuse and
abuse of these forms by public & TV speakers, who ought to know better,
shows even this limited use of declension in English is obviously not
understood by many.
One could argue that a knowledge of the basics of Latin could serve as a
bridge to understanding other languages (including English) in the same
way that knowing the basics of one procedural programming language
serves as a bridge to understanding other programming languages.
Joel C. Ewing
On 9/18/22 08:17, Bob Bridges wrote:
"Emmanuel", indeed :).
I never took Latin (and I was astonished when I learned that my youngest daughter was
taking it in high school; I thought it had long disappeared entirely from the public
schools, but apparently not), and my upbringing was Episcopal not Catholic, so I never
experienced the liturgy in Latin. And I'm not sorry that so many old Christmas carols
have been translated to English. But NO ONE sings "Adeste, fideles" any more!
I do miss that.
---
Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313
/* Back in the old days, most families were close-knit. Grown children and
their parents continued to live together, under the same roof, sometimes in the
same small, crowded room, year in and year out, until they died, frequently by
strangulation. -Dave Barry */
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tom
Brennan
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2022 00:59
Uh oh, maybe that's my problem :) I never learned any Latin other than the
little bit I heard in church as a kid, right before they decided to switch to
English. Dominus vobiscum.
--- On 9/17/2022 9:25 PM, Brian Westerman wrote:
I had to take Latin as well, and while I never used it directly trying to
communicate with anyone, it has been a great help over the years. Plus, it
makes me not sound as dumb as I really am.
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Joel C. Ewing
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