Hi Joel,
To your point, I read an article on German grammar (same as Yiddish) to
figure out the difference between "mir" and "mich".
It turns out that one is dative and the other is accusative. Without
learning Latin (more than 50 years ago), this article would've been a
lot harder to read.
Regards,
David
On 2022-09-18 10:31, Joel C. Ewing wrote:
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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