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Learning ’dead’ languages... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Gollum87 Diglot Newbie Yugoslavia Joined 3938 days ago 31 posts - 46 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 11 03 May 2014 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have always loved Latin... I had it as a subject in my high school, and it was my
favorite school - subject then (We learn it in Serbia, for 2 years in high schools)... 10 years passed, and now I feel like I want to learn it.. and I still remember many many things I've learned, declinations and coniugations rules are still fresh in my memory. People here always say that learning a 'dead' language is pointless and I should focus on learning things I can use in my life (computer programs or any 'alive' foreign language)... I still want to learn Latin so much... But sometimes I really feel that I will enjoy learning it, but how to use that knowledge then ? I won't speak it with anybody... still I can focus on French or Spanish (I really love Roman languages) and improove my Italian... Maybe some people have right when they say it is better to focus on things I will need in life, and not spend my time (I don't have it enough for everything) with learning Latin... Do you have the same or similar problem, and have you ever wanted to learn a "dead" language ??? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 5187 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 2 of 11 04 May 2014 at 12:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Of course learning Latin isn't pointless. If you feel that it will enrich your life,
that's enough! Some other reasons to study Latin: -Improve your English. Many English words have Latin roots, particularly some of the more advanced words(basic words are more often Germanic.) Even beyond vocabulary, it can improve your spelling when you recognize which words come from Latin roots. You'll also understand some of the English grammar "rules," which were based off Latin(and why, often, they don't actually apply to English but that's a different topic entirely.) -General grammar. The more languages you know the more you can understand and compare different grammatical features, if you're interested in that. -Have a head start if you want to learn a Romance language. -Read literature in the original. -I'm sure there are many more good reasons to learn Latin, but I've never studied it so somebody else will have to supply those. I do have an interest in other dead languages. Egyptian, Old English, Middle English, and Sanskrit are all languages I'd like to dabble in someday, and there are others that I might one day develop an interest in. In the end, do what makes you happy. You probably won't regret learning Latin, but you might regret not learning it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 11 04 May 2014 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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The best thing about Latin and to lesser extent Ancient Greek (unlike the rest of the dead languages) is your choice concerning how dead they are. I stopped learning Latin but it has certainly enriched my life and here are a few things you can do with Latin:
-lots of literature, nearly all of it is available for free. There is as well some modern literature in Latin, such as translation of the Hobbit. -the adventure to discover word roots and grammar ties between various european languages. Based on how many such ties I found between Latin and Czech, you might be surprised by the relevance to Serbian. -there is actually a lot of living Latin going on and the internet has once again proved to be an awesome tool. Latin lovers have a newspaper, can chat in Latin and so on. -music! musicians of several genres like to use Latin lyrics -not only it will be kind of a headstart for romance languages. After Latin, the living ones won't appear hard at all :-D I think you should choose your hobbies for yourself. Of course there are always those pragmatic people with advice like "don't learn Latin, learn a living language", "don't read books, do a sport instead" or whatever else (including advice about choice of your boyfriend/girlfriend of the same kind). If you let them, they'll speak into every aspect of your life. I'd advise you only to consider Latin from all the angles you need and make your choice. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5240 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 11 04 May 2014 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I loved Latin, too, as high school student, and find myself still drawn to it 30 years later! I can remember some
songs & present & future conjugations. There is a free course at the library that I think I will join. I have resisted because, like you, I have limited time & can always improve my French/Spanish, which would be more "useful." But it's OK to pursue what you're interested in! I remind myself that just because I start to learn it doesn't mean that I have to become as proficient in Latin as I strive to be in my other languages. I can do it for fun. I love to compare how French and Spanish are similar, how they're different, how vocab has changed. Studying Latin will only provide another level of comparison, this time with the original! Recently, my little girl was looking at some summer language camps and asked me which one she should choose. I asked her which one she'd be more successful in. "French," she replied, "because I already speak some to you?" I told her no, the one she's most INTERESTED in is the one she'll have the most success in! Follow your bliss! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4335 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 5 of 11 04 May 2014 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Don't let other people's opinions of what's useful and what isn't influence your decisions. I have never studied Latin so I can't actually tell you what benefits it will bring you later on, but I for one know that many people in this forum have studied or are actively studying it, and everyone has their reasons to do it, in spite of the lack of opportunities to use it actively (which doesn't mean you never will, though).
In your case, you have the best and strongest sort of motivation there is: you love it! Doing anything you love is the best call you can make for yourself, since in the end, you're deciding to do something for yourself, not for the benefit of others. Even if for a short time, do it; then you can decide for itself how much studying Latin is worth to you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| holly heels Groupie United States Joined 3887 days ago 47 posts - 107 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 04 May 2014 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Regarding Latin, I know a Spanish woman, married to a Croatian, who says that when she visits his relatives in Croatia, she understands about half of what she hears because of the Latin cognates.
That is amazing, because there would seem to be a lot of daylight between Spanish and Croatian, but apparently not in the case of this woman. Sanskrit is not quite dead because it still has a few thousand native speakers. I think that dead or dying languages have an aura of mystery about them that living languages often do not. It was Navajo, not French or Spanish, that got me interested in languages in the first place. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 11 04 May 2014 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that having been inseparable from education and science in the past, religion still plays a role here. So in predominantly Orthodox countries/regions like Russia, Serbia, Eastern and Central Ukraine, there are fewer loans from Latin in use than in Czech Republic, Croatia, Western Ukraine or especially Poland. Instead we have more loans from Greek and Old Church Slavonic/Bulgarian. Edited by Serpent on 04 May 2014 at 11:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 8 of 11 05 May 2014 at 12:12am | IP Logged | ||
It's funny that you say this because I recently noticed something similar. I was making Serbian wordlists using an Italian dictionary, and then it struck me that there were a whole series of words in Serbian which almost looked like the Danish translations, whereas the Italian words were noticeably different. You can't always predict where the cognates are. And loanwords can also sometimes surprise. For instance Russian has a large number of German loanwords, and in Romanian there are a fair number of French ones. And most of the words belonging to 'Doctor's Latin' are actually Greek because the Romans to a large extent employed Greek doctors. Edited by Iversen on 05 May 2014 at 12:14am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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