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How did people learn Latin in Europe? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5833 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 9 of 36 26 February 2011 at 1:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Monks and scholars were not illiterate, they were generally the only section of society who could read. Monasteries were centres of learning which held libraries of books handwritten by the monks, the majority of which would be in Latin. I suppose some of those books would be Latin grammars. The nobility and merchant classes sent their sons to be educated at these monasteries. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6121 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 10 of 36 26 February 2011 at 2:01am | IP Logged | |||||
Monks were regular people in the sense that they spoke vernacular languages. Nobody spoke latin natively. They had to learn latin too - and "literacy" meant reading latin.
This is what I'm getting at.There weren't any books in most of the vernacular languages. How would a Latin grammar, written in latin, aid someone who speaks a vernacular language(everybody)? If you want to learn a dead language, you have to learn it from a book, and if there are no books in your language...then what? Edited by tritone on 26 February 2011 at 2:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mr_chinnery Senior Member England Joined 5758 days ago 202 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 11 of 36 26 February 2011 at 2:18am | IP Logged | |||||
This might help, second paragraph. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucas Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5168 days ago 85 posts - 130 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Italian, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 36 26 February 2011 at 3:50am | IP Logged | |||||
The only written language was latin, so the rare people who were learning to read were learning latin while learning to read. They didn't need somebody to explain them grammar in their native language, it was complete immersion, they weren't learning latin like we did in school...it wasn't a dead language at the time! When I teach french to chinese beginners I don't need to explain them grammar (a good thing because I could't explain french grammar in chinese), they understand it while practising. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5592 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 13 of 36 26 February 2011 at 4:46am | IP Logged | |||||
They were "illiterate" in that they could not read or write their own language or any other. The definition of illiterate has varied. At some points, if one could simply read and write his own name name, one was considered to be literate.Most people, however, would subscribe to a much more rigorous criteria to define literacy. The monasteries preserved not only Latin but also books.Many believe that during the so-called Dark Ages, it was the monks who kept knowledge alive in Europe. Edited by psy88 on 26 February 2011 at 4:55am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| CS Groupie United States Joined 5129 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Latin, French | Message 14 of 36 26 February 2011 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There was probably an unbroken chain of transmission. That is, although nobody had classical Latin as their
mother tongue in the Middle Ages, there was a chain of speakers each of whom had been taught the language at some point, going back to someone whose mother tongue was relatively similar to the classical norm. It's somewhat similar to the way in which Manx has been revived (although there are probably native Manx speakers by now.) Also, I agree with everyone who has said that medieval students didn't need books to learn the basics of Latin since there were plenty of people who knew Latin and the vernacular. Once a student had the basics of Latin though, there was a lot of reading to improve the student's command of Latin including Latin grammars, the Bible, and approved classical literature like the Aeneid. Edited by CS on 26 February 2011 at 3:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| RogerK Triglot Groupie Austria Joined 5076 days ago 92 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian Studies: Portuguese | Message 15 of 36 26 February 2011 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Did they need books to learn Latin?
A child learns his or her mother tongue before they begin to read and write. If you go to a bazaar in Egypt, Tunisia or one of the many other tourist destinations around the world you will be addressed in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and other languages until you react. Many of the people there speak many languages other than their own and I doubt they can read or write in all of these languages and possibly have never even opened a language study book. People are more than capable of picking up a language just by ear. It was probably similar with Latin many years ago. And perhaps because their ears were better trained they possibly picked up their languages easier than we do. We tend to tie ourselves down in theory. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 16 of 36 26 February 2011 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We actually have the benefit of a video clip of a Latin lesson, though it pre-dates the
middle ages: Brian gets schooled Edited by Spanky on 26 February 2011 at 7:19pm 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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