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Latin and the Romance language Family | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6131 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes  22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 36 20 September 2009 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Historically, a knowledge of Latin has been considered very important for mastery of the Romance Language family. However, I think many people who are interested in this family no longer feel it important and see their time better spent learning another modern language in the family versus learning Latin. Personally, I am more interested in learning Latin as a companion to Koine Greek as these two are parallel languages, the languages of the Roman Empire. As an aid to mastery of the Romance family, I don't necessarily see it as critical (I voted "Somewhat Important" in the poll).
What are your thoughts? (Admin-I tried to get this in the "Specific Languages" section of the forum but I could not figure out how to do a poll there--please move if appropriate). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rggg Heptaglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6334 days ago 373 posts - 426 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Malay Studies: Romanian, Catalan, Greek, German, Swedish | Message 2 of 36 20 September 2009 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It says: You can not vote in this poll.
Why? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6712 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 3 of 36 20 September 2009 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have moved the poll as requested.
I think that knowledge of Latin is nice to have when you already know several Romance languages fairly well because Latin can explain many of their features. It is worth learning for its own sake, but learning Latin won't help you much to learn any modern Romance language, - certainly not to the extent that it can justify the time spent. Learning another modern Romance language would be more relevant in that respect. --- EDIT I just saw rggg's post above. Because it may be a result of moving the poll I now move it back where it came from. Then please try again Edited by Iversen on 20 September 2009 at 11:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 4 of 36 20 September 2009 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I also voted "somewhat important" in the poll. As JW has already said, a knowledge of Latin has traditionally been deemed necessary in order to master the Romance languages. However, I am of the opinion that we should only learn the Latin language because we are interested in Latin for what it is in itself, and not because it is supposed to be nice shortcut to learning the other Romance languages. As a potential parallel thought, would any of you consider learning Old Church Slavonic before learning Russian or Ukrainian, for example? I imagine not, somehow - I love Russian, and I wouldn't even consider this. I chose to learn Latin for a number of reasons, but none of them were because I thought that it would make French or Italian any easier for me. The most notable of those reasons were because I love the Latin language itself, for its sounds, its morphology (of all things) and because, like JW, I think of it as a partner to Ancient Greek, which I intend to learn thoroughly one day. I learned French for five years in school (and so very ineffectively) before I even attempted to learn any Latin at all through the wonderful Lingua Latina per se illustrata. I found that my knowledge of English has actually helped more with my French through cognates than the Latin has. In terms of whether Latin itself is important with regards to the other languages resulting from it, for example French, I think its importance is overrated. As a side note, is there a specific term for this? The parent language is Latin... is there a term for a language resulting from it? Thanks.
Jack 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5775 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 36 20 September 2009 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Definitely yes, or rather: At the same time. But then again my main objective is comprehension, not communication. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 6 of 36 20 September 2009 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
In this case, Bao, I can see why you would do that. However, I don't believe in learning a parent language in order to quicken my pace when learning the languages which stem from it. If you want to learn French, I would say that you don't go and learn Latin first; you jump the gun and learn French right from the start. Any other route, unless you're aiming mainly for comprehension as you say you would, would be a waste of time. Would you truly learn a parent language solely to help with comprehension? I believe that you would at least have some interest in the parent language for what it is in itself, and therefore would not just be using it as a tool to advance your learning quicker. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6918 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 36 20 September 2009 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I also voted "somewhat important", but I haven't spent any decent time on it (just a couple of conscious hours in my whole life). However, I have plenty of material which I will have a closer look at the day I "finish" some of my current languages.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5775 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 36 21 September 2009 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||
It only makes sense when you want to learn more of the languages of a family anyways, and when you want to understand century- or millenia-old sources as well. When I mentioned my objective of comprehension I did mean global comprehension. And for somebody who doesn't have an immediate interest in the 'parent language' it would be mindbogglingly stupid to learn it first in order to learn a language of real interest afterwards. Basically I chose to learn Latin in school because I had a interest in it as well as in the Romance language family in general and Spanish in particular (which wasn't an option), and because I thought that it would be easier to learn it as an interested teenager rather than later in life. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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