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Why learn a dead/artificial language?

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Posted By: i_forget
Subject: Why learn a dead/artificial language?
Date Posted: 11 April 2015 at 3:59pm

I have this question that I really want to ask. Why on earth would anyone want to learn a
dead language? It's dead, i.e. not spoken any more!

Why study/learn ancient Greek when you can learn modern Greek, which is also more
simplified? Why study/learn Latin when you can learn *and* speak Italian?

Why even bother out of all the possible things you can do in your free time?

BTW when i say study/learn I do refer to investing at least 30 minutes on it every day for a
period of at least 3-4 years. Thanks and no offense to anyone.

Replies:

Why on earth do people want to learn more than one programming language, why would you want to learn a living language if you already speak one? Why would anyone want to learn Klingon? Why do people do anything other than work, eat, and sleep?

Because it interests them.

Personally I cannot understand why anyone is interested in sports. I'd rather watch paint dry than American Football, or football (soccer), I think golf is a great walk ruined by stopping all the time and whacking a ball. Why even bother out of all the possible things you can do in your free time?

rdearman on 11 April 2015

I am studying an essentially dead language, Ladino. Why? It gives me access to five hundred years of literature, narratives, commentaries and an insight into a people who survived expulsion from Spain and Portugal to live in the Ottoman Empire. They preserved their 15th century medieval Spanish and added to it with Turkish, Hebrew, Greek, Italian and Arabic to make it their own language.

Pre- World War 2, Salonica, Greece was home to the largest community of Sephardim in the world and the majority language was Ladino. The holocaust killed most of them. The culture is fascinating. The stories of Djoha, the songs, the food, reading Rashi script from right to left and coming out with comprehensible Spanish is fascinating to me. Above all, it is an insight to a people and a culture very different than my own,yet at the same time similar in our humanity. Sure, I can read about what someone else says about Ladino Sephardic culture in English, but by learning the language I can develop my own insights. That makes it worthwhile to me.

That is why, I think, many learners are drawn to "dead" languages. While they may not be spoken anymore amongst a community of native-speakers, the written word still speaks to people this day in the original.

My high school English teacher, Ms Newton, taught me never to speak of literature in the past tense because though the times about which the book speaks may be long gone, the author and subjects dead; the literature is alive and speaking to you in the here and now. I admire and envy learners of "dead" languages who can discover for themselves their own perspective on the great, bygone, cultures and peoples of the world who still have much to teach us. Anyone who speaks a second language can tell you that a lot is, indeed, lost in translation. It's worth the effort.

It would be so cool to walk into a museum and be able to read and understand Egyptian hieroglyphics, to read the Bible in Biblical Hebrew and Greek, Homer, Plato and Socrates in Ancient Greek, Beowulf in Old English, Marcus Aurelius in Latin, the Popul Vuh in Mayan, the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit, etc. Learning a language can give you another world. Learning a dead language can bring a bygone world alive again, if you can understand it.
iguanamon on 11 April 2015

That's a rather naive question to ask on such a forum.
First of all, as it's been already said, it's about motivation, interests.
Next, at least in case of Latin, is science. One simply cannot deal with biology or medicine and dream of
getting a degree without Latin.
There could be a list of reasons, but isn't that enough already?
Via Diva on 11 April 2015

As iguanamon said, dead languages gives you a more direct access to history, not filtered through the mind of other people who translate or summarize it in your language. If living languages give you space, then dead languages give you time. I often find myself thinking that some people would benefit from knowing and understanding that attitudes, thoughts, prejudices and beliefs they are showing are essentially the same as those some people wrote about centuries or possibly millenia ago.

I think with many living languages you can find people who are willing to include you, to speak in a way you can understand, to bridge the gap between your cultures. Who will start building your knowledge by referring to things you both know about. With dead languages you have to do most of that yourself; you have to learn how to step out of your own cultural framework with your own effort.

As to why you would want to learn a constructed language. Now, for me creoles are languages in their own right. Pidgins arise naturally, and international auxiliary languages seem to me a way to create something that can do the same job as a pidgin or even creole does, but with the same kind of authority as the standard of a national language. Some of these are connected to ideologies or ... communities with specific values and ideas of how they want to shape their environment.
But for all I know English or rather Simplified English has become the biggest international auxiliary language and that is unlikely to change for some time.
Other constructed languages are created and learned mostly because people want to look at the constraints they can give a languages look at the different possibilities that gives them to select and represent information.
I personally think that is rather boring, I like that natural languages have been filtered through the minds of thousands to millions of people and were given their shape that way; I like that words and expressions change meaning, are made up or fall into disuse because of the constraints of people's memory and the reality of their daily life. But that doesn't devalue the interest of those people who enjoy constructed languages for linguistic or cultural purposes.
Bao on 11 April 2015

Latin, even though I only reached intermediate stage, enriched my life. Not only is it
necessary for a medicine student. It gives another insight into european languages and
not only the romance ones. It is something that immediately reveals lots of terms used
not only in science but as well in humanities. It is a huge part of our history as it
used to be the most important international language just a century or two ago.

And I sligtly regret not having the time and dedication to learn further (at least for
now) so that I could read some of the famous authors in original. Many learners prefer
to read books in a language than to speak to natives, a language is not just a tool to
speak with living people, the dead men tell tales too. :-) After all, the books in
original tend to be usually better than any tradution. And these days, the
international community of Latin users is, at least in some ways, trying to enjoy
their common hobby in ways similar to Esperanto (such as internet news in Latin or
even theatre plays). Hey, and who wouldn't want to laugh everytime a hollywood movie
uses Latin incorectly?

As to artificial languages. Even though I haven't pursued Esperanto for a long time, I
can still understand totally why it is so attractive for many. It is a tie for a great
community of people who want to communicate on a more neutral and less money dependent
base than English. An Esperanto based culture has already been emerging. Sure,
Esperanto is unlikely to fulfill the original dreams of making it The international
language but it is no worse intelectual activity than chess or playing an instrument.

And why is it worth it for some people to learn the Elvish languages, Klingon or
whatever purely fictional language? It is part of something they love and they enjoy
it. They can even speak it with other fans.

Learning a dead/artificial language doesn't necessarily mean missing out on better
things to spend free time on. Sometimes, it is the best thing to spend free time one.
With similar logic, you can ask: Why spend time on learning a language with less than
50 miliones speakers if you are not gonna live in the country? Or why learn another
language than English at all? Or why do many other things that aren't sure to earn you
more money? Wy read, why play an instrument if you aren't a professional, why dance if
you're never going to compete with others, why paint if you're never going to sell any
painting?
Cavesa on 11 April 2015

So... My point is more like "why learn dead language X when you can learn modern language
Y".

The main argument seems to be that you want to do it because it gives you access to the
writings/books 500 years old , or even older. It would take a huuuge amount of time to
actually read and understand the original Bible, or the original Plato or whatever. And
for what? Just so you don't miss out from a not 100% accurate modern translation? So what?
I'm sure you'll miss a lot more since you will not be fluent enough when reading the
original.

Basically, the amount of literature you can read from modern translations is 100s of books
more than the combination a) learn 1 dead language b) read books in that language. So you
can still go back in time just using your English.

How many people have read Homer's Iliad etc, did they miss out on anything?

> Why spend time on learning a language with less than 50 miliones speakers if you are not
gonna live in the country?
I can understand why you would want to do that. Because things are happening in that
country *at this moment*. Now. You can watch their news. Follow their Youtubers. Read
their newspapers. Speak with those people. Travel there. And of course to do all these,
you don't have to be fluent. To read an ancient book, that probably means you have to be
fluent to make the most of it.

i_forget on 11 April 2015

English would be a bad choice, in my opinion, a closer language would be more
appropriate to follow your line of thought. HOwever, it is still not same.

The main reason is not "because you can read those 100-2500 years old books in
original". The main reason is "because you enjoy it for any possible reason there is".

It is about the connection to the past people feel, about uncovering bits of the past.
To me, it felt as well as a bit of archaelogy I could do right in my room. It is very
often just a hobby just like vast majority of learner-language combinations on the
forum.What uses you have for any language, that depends always on your tastes, needs
and creativity. Really, do you ask the same about other possible hobbies people have?

To read an ancient book, you don't need to be any higher level than to read a modern
book in a living foreign language, why would it? It is probably just very different
for ancient languages less documented than Latin or Greek, such as Ancient Egyptian.

Really, no offence meant, but your argument really sounds very close to those "why
would anyone learn another language than English". After all, you can read about all
those other countries, their news and speak with many of the natives just in English.
It is just not the same.

And to Homer's Illiad: Yes, every one of us who read it in translation missed on the
original structure, the sounds, and so on. Literature is not just about the story that
is being narrated, even though it is usually the most important part. In my highschool
class, we learnt the theory about it, about the clever structure of Homer's poetry,
about the verses and so on. Yet, we couldn't experience it just out of the
translation. (If I could, I guess I would have found both the style description and
the story more interesting back then.) Most languages just aren't suited to fall into
the same structures as Ancient Greek. Saying you can experience it just the same from
the translation is like saying you can experience it from a half page long article
summing up the contents.
Cavesa on 11 April 2015

Saying that you can get the same feeling from reading literature in English
translation instead of the original language is saying that I can extract the same
travel enjoyment from going to Google Maps into Street View for Paris, Delft, Buenos
Aires, Stockholm, Prague, Montréal, or Moscow, and clicking forwards and backwards on
the streets instead of actually travelling there and walking around myself.

Mind you using English translations just makes no sense to me. Maybe it enhances the
English skills for those who are non-native Anglophones, but how can a native
Anglophone
get any pleasure or learn foreign languages by using English only? This sounds like
just
using English to push out all other languages that have no power to stop their
destruction, in other words, linguistic imperialism.
1e4e6 on 11 April 2015

I think there is no other reason other than enjoyment. As said before, people like to
do all sorts of things and there is no need to give reasons or try to justify them.
Clearly the OP doesn't see the point in learning dead languages, but others do. It's
like arguing about music taste: it leads nowhere.

But I have to admit that I also find some arguments for studying languages a bit
funny. Why not say, "I just like it"? For example "I only read in the original
language", as if all translations suck and/or miss a lot of details. I agree with the
OP in that one has to be quite good at a foreign language to catch all the nuances of
some literary work. If speaking purely on practical terms, there is seldom the need to
learn other languages at such a high level. But language enthusiasts (like the people
in this forum) don't need to find practical reasons to study languages. It suffices if
a language looks "cool" or is pleasant to the ear. I believe that people that see
languages as a means to and end often don't understand this, and I suspect the OP fits
this description.
caam_imt on 11 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

It would take a huuuge amount of time to actually read and understand the original Bible, or the original Plato or whatever.

This is a false assumption. I can't speak for, say, Biblical Hebrew but the parts of the Bible that are written in Greek are written in Koine, which is considered by some a "simplified" Greek compared to Classical Greek and from what I've read New Testament Koine uses a particularly simplified register. As for Plato, in my Classical (Attic) Greek class at university, we started reading Plato's Apology as a learning tool after half a semester with a text book.
eyðimörk on 11 April 2015

Well, most translations are really worse than the original, some even suck as you say.
I wouldn't say they miss details, you can usually find the whole story. They lack the
form, parts of the characters and differences between them, the style of the writer
and so on (someone better versed in humanities would probably give a longer list).
Many are just bad. I believe it is more often the case of modern, popular books that
the publishers need to get out cheaply and fast (before the readers learn the original
language, as that is what happened with Harry Potter for example), it is much less of
a trouble when it comes to classics, in my opinion. After all, translators have had
enough centuries to polish a Plato translation. So, I am really not saying "everyone
needs to learn Latin", no. Just that it can be a much different and enriching
experience.

I think the discussions like "why learn other languages than English at all" are
usually "funny" because people mix together two possible senses of need.
1."need" = something that will make me more money, give me social prestige etc.
Well, in that case natives of large languages, especially English, are wasting their
time on languages, especially dead ones, as they could use their free time to gather
other soft skills or something like that instead.
2."need" = something that will make my life richer, make me happier
All the other reasons fall into this, while some sound more "reasonable" than others.

I find it sad that most people these days find the second "needs" funny. Those "needs"
are more than just vain desires and stupidities as they simply make people happy,
which can't always be sad about the first category of "needs".

After all, the OP mentioned it right in the first post that this is a discussion about
dead languages as a way people spend their free time and we've been giving examples of
various uses of dead languages that can be very rewarding for some people. Not
convincing them to start learning Akkadian or claiming it to be a necessary skill for
everyone.

I had spent more than a decade fighting people claiming that I don't need French. Of
course I had been right and they had been just arrogant. And I have a friend who had
needed to learn Latin in a similar way despite studying an unrelated field later. i
see little difference even though one language is dead.
Cavesa on 11 April 2015

Surely one can live just doing all the "useful" things that they "think" is right, like
being a monolingual Anglophone and instead concentrating on what earns the most. In that
case, does that also mean that in addition to being a monolingual Anglophone, everyone
should stop arts because physics and chemistry pay more, and becuase arts do not extract
oil or utilise nuclear energy, which produce big profits? Then everyone would be in the
hard sciences. One can live that way, but it would be a fairly homogenous type of
lifestyle, and rather depressing to be honest.
1e4e6 on 11 April 2015

Of course you can read translations when they are available. Of course one would be foolish to assume that a translation is 100% accurate, and some are worse than others. But if you know enough of the original language, you can read a translation and in the translation see how the translator interpreted and sometimes misinterpreted the original text. It gives you access to the world behind the filter of the translator's comprehension (and sometimes their cultural bias.)

If you're not interested in that kind of thing you can read Donald Duck pocket books.
No, seriously, a number of the classics in Western literature were made into plots of those stories, easy to read, you get the essential message, and you don't have to read the original or a close translation.

But that doesn't teach you how to work out the message for yourself, how to think about the context out of which the message emerged, what it meant in that context and whether it is relevant to other contexts, like your own. It doesn't teach you to see your own experiences and those prevalent in your environment from a distance, and understand with some humility that some of our experiences are very universal.
Bao on 12 April 2015

eyðimörk wrote:

i_forget wrote:

It would take a huuuge amount of time to actually read and understand the original Bible, or the original Plato or whatever.

I agree with eyðimörk. I still consider the following one of the most interesting posts I've read on this forum (from a couple of years ago):

renaissancemedi wrote:

Theodisce wrote:

renaissancemedi wrote:

Greek: this might sound odd, but our native language deserves some care as well. Focus on the older styles of greek, mainly attic and hellenistic, and instead of doing crossword puzzles reading "unknown" texts. That is, passages from thematographiae books (I am not sure how you call them in English, but the phrase greek reader comes to mind). Just do it for fun. That's how it always works best.

I've always wondered how difficult Attic Greek is for Modern Greek speakers.

It depends on the writer. Thucidides is amazing, crystal clear and easy I dare say (I love him). Isocrates, Lycias etc. are a breeze. Plato is a nightmare, but it's Plato's fault. (My opinion on Plato, of course).
After some (little) study, you end up being given any attic text and reading it like modern greek. I know because i've done it, in high school, as many kids before and since my time. Please bear in mind, that in 2.500 years, rocks have changed more than the very conservative greek language. But of course it has changed.
I confess, there are some ancient writers I could strangle. If they weren't already dead that is.

Luso on 12 April 2015

The big difference for me is not really whether there are native speakers or not, except when I'm on holiday - and then minority languages or dialects which aren't spoken to tourists are in the same category as dead languages. But artificial or dead languages with sufficiently active communities of advanced second language learners may be relevant.

The criterion is whether there are enough dictionaries, grammars, text books and videos or TV programs to get started, and whether there are enough and sufficiently interesting materials to read or listen to later. And for Latin this is definitely the case: there are both classical, medieval and modern things to read, and there are enough spoken sources to keep me occupied, but of course not as many as in for instance Italian.

It is however unlikely that I'll ever have to speak Latin outside language conferences - I have to add that reservation because last year in Berlin there where actually one participant who was fluent in spoken Latin, so if my Latin had been in tip-top shape I would actually have had a chance to try it out in practice. And one of my teachers at the university in Århus in the 70s had actually taught himself to speak Ancient French, but none of the students followed his lead so he had no one to speak to. In other words: it is not totally excluded that you might find somebody to communicate with in a dead language - it is just not very likely.

Some people like to do things which are hard because they are hard. I don't share that philosophy. From my perspektive there is little chance of learning to speak or write or even read a predominantly spoken language unless you get the chance to live among its speakers, and my chances of learning a living language from a valley in New Guinea are probably smaller than my chances of learning to write poems in Sumerian. But as long as the second-language learners of Latin keep writing relevant things on Wikipedia and Ephemeridae I have both a reason and the means to keep in touch with that language - but not enough reason to spend all my spare time on the task.

There is little point in developing advanced speaking skills in languages unless you have a chance of finding somebody to speak to. But here in 2015 I have spoken as much Latin as Romanian: nothing at all. I have however read and written in both languages. The difference is that there are millions of living Romanians and Moldovans, and it is likely that I'll travel there once again some day. So it is more relevant to keep a certain level in spoken Romanian than in spoken Latin, but the difference is much less pronounced when it comes to the written versions of these two languages.

The same considerations are valid for artificial languages, and luckily there is a reasonable amount of good learning materials for Esperanto (and some, but not nearly as many for Klingon and Quenya). There is even a living community of second language learners plus a few native speakers, and that makes it not only possible, but also relevant to learn it as both a passive and an active language.

It is of course both easier and more important for me to keep a decent level in English than in Esperanto - NOT because one is a living language with millions of speakers and the other is an artificial language invented by one person, but because I can find more interesting stuff to read and listen to in English and more chances to write and speak it than I have with Esperanto. And keeping Esperanto at a functional level is both easier and more relevant for me than keeping Anglosaxon at that level.
Iversen on 12 April 2015

Quote:

In March of 1923, British mountain climber George Leigh Mallory was touring the United States to raise money for a expedition to Mount Everest planned for the following year. At that time no one had ever made it to the top of Everest — the highest mountain on the planet. In 1921 and 1922, Mallory was a member of the first two expeditions that tried to reach the summit of the mountain. Both had failed.

During his 1923 fund-raising tour, Mallory was often asked why he wanted to climb Everest. The question seemed somewhat inane to an adventurer like Mallory and eventually he came up with a standard answer. The answer became famous when it was quoted in a story in the March 18, 1923 issue of the New York Times. Mallory’s reply was included in the opening paragraph:

“Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?” This question was asked of George Leigh Mallory, who was with both expeditions toward the summit of the world’s highest mountain, in 1921 and 1922, and who is now in New York. He plans to go again in 1924, and he gave as the reason for persisting in these repeated attempts to reach the top, “Because it’s there.”

So perhaps that is your answer: Because they are there.

rdearman on 12 April 2015

The problem is that Mr. Mallory died on that very mountain. Was it worth the risk? Well, he thought it was and paid the price. I'm less keen on breaking my neck.
Iversen on 12 April 2015

The only point in this thread that I can understand is this:
> I think there is no other reason other than enjoyment.

All other reasons, such as reading books etc, they don't mean much to me, its certainly not
necessary to know the language in order to read. And it would be even counter productive if
you did know it and tried to read, because you would certainly not be fluent, at least for
the first maybe 3 years of your studies.
i_forget on 12 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

The only point in this thread that I can understand is this:
> I think there is no other reason other than enjoyment.

So, medicine, biology (which I've already mentioned), also law, linguistics and history are things, that are studied for enjoyment?

i_forget wrote:

And it would be even counter productive if
you did know it and tried to read, because you would certainly not be fluent, at least for
the first maybe 3 years of your studies.

Are you saying one shouldn't read before becoming fluent? If so, what can you say about Listening-Reading, for example?
Via Diva on 12 April 2015

It's a very interesting question to put - actually a set of questions. From one angle
if you speak English very few people need to learn any other language. An
argument can be made for some learning for cultural enrichment. If you work in another
country, teach the language, translate, like to visit one particular country or set of
countries, have family, friends or lovers of that language then learning a language
has a good rationale. English serves as a sort of lingua franca for many people and so
there is an argument for English on utilitarian grounds for those people.

At the individual level this is true. There aren't many reasons to learn foreign
languages out of just interest and certainly not to a high level. At this point one
could just concede the argument and that's that.

If you have no urgent utilitarian argument for learning a language then you are doing
it for pleasure - maybe that distinction has a real world impact on how you learn.
This is sort of the 'because it's there' and 'enjoyment' argument.

The point about reading in the original is very valid. You can read a number of
beautiful translations of the Iliad and judge on their own merits in the time you will
have to spend to read in the original. Same with Beowulf.

At the level of the individual that is true. At the level of humanity it's a sad
picture. I may not read Koine Greek but I do want some people to read the New
Testament in its original language (and not just translators and professors). These
old texts can be read in perfectly adequate and in some cases excellent translations
if that is the way you want to go. On another level it is a wonderful thing that,
should one wish to, one can read the original lines of the New Testament, the Iliad,
Beowulf and so on and catch the original cadences and rhythms.

Whilst it is hard to read another language it isn't as hard as you think and in some
cases much easier so I think it's a form of enjoyment out there for those that want
it.

As for dead languages, I don't think of them as dead, though some of them clearly are.
The old texts I cited earlier are part of our living culture. I think there is some
value in not losing our past including the languages that helped make us.

The motivation for constructed languages is perhaps different. Of course there is the
idea that Esperanto could one day be a lingua franca which puts all speakers on a
level footing. In theory this is a great idea. It could only happen if there were
enough speakers out there to make it viable. Plus there is the level of intellectual
curiosity and the idea that learning Esperanto can help you learn another language
afterwards because it is a lot easier than 'real' languages.

I think part of the answer to the question is to ask how weird it is to want to know
other languages and how easy is it to achieve? The polyglott community is probably
more skewed towards learning languages for non-pragmatic reasons. But it's a vision of
humanity that learning a number of languages is entirely possible for those who want
to or need to and an idea that we can be enriched by accessing other cultures.

(I should say this post affects me because I'm at some stage of learning Latin (not
very active), Esperanto (beginner) and would like to do some Old English, Old High
German, Koine Greek and Gothic). at some stage.
cpnlsn88 on 12 April 2015

> So, medicine, biology (which I've already mentioned), also law, linguistics and
history are things, that are studied for enjoyment?
Yes? I don't see why not. In fact studying any of the above in my free time other than
a dead language seems a lot more stimulating to me.

> Are you saying one shouldn't read before becoming fluent? If so, what can you say
about Listening-Reading, for example?
No it's part of becoming fluent... All of the above are. Let me repeat my point:
Learning ancient Greek because you want to read some ancient texts in the original
doesn't seem too bright to me. In fact it sounds like you are bound to fail with this
approach. However learning it because you actually enjoy it, for whatever reason, yes
you might succeed with that, but just because you enjoy it an you don't have a fixed
end-goal in your mind.
i_forget on 12 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

Learning ancient Greek because you want to read some ancient texts in the original doesn't seem too bright to me. In fact it sounds like you are bound to fail with this approach. However learning it because you actually enjoy it, for whatever reason, yes you might succeed with that, but just because you enjoy it an you don't have a fixed end-goal in your mind.

Well, colour me not too-bright and a failure in English with my anglophone diploma because I did not learn English because I enjoyed learning English. I learnt English because I wanted to understand television and computers. I developed my English because that was the language of the non-fiction literature that interested me.

Or is "you're unintelligent and will fail if you don't do it for the fun of it" something that only applies to dead languages? I suppose all of the Classical Archaeologists who have learn to sight-read Latin and Greek in order to go to graduate school because that's a requirement even if you're only going to work with material culture don't actually exist or are truly exceptional.
eyðimörk on 12 April 2015

Yes it's relatively hard to be good at something if you don't enjoy doing it...
i_forget on 12 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

In fact studying any of the above in my free time other than
a dead language seems a lot more stimulating to me.

And why do you assume that other people might not find studying dead languages just as stimulating?

That's the whole issue there, other people don't necessarily experience the same things as enriching and valuable as you do. The only reason why one would be stuck feeling "I don't understand why they would enjoy it because I wouldn't enjoy it" is that one doesn't accept that their experience is as valid as one's own.
As long as you approach the topic thinking like that you will never understand, no matter how much people try to explain it to you.
Yet, if you change you attitude to "I don't currently understand why they do that, but they are doing it so they must have a reason for it" you will find such reasons, maybe even without having to ask somebody else for an explanation.
Bao on 12 April 2015

Yeah we moved from that and pretty much agreed that they do it just because they like it,
for whatever reason.
i_forget on 12 April 2015

I spend time on living languages to hear the heart of living people; on dead languages, to
mine the minds of dead people; on an artificial language, to create a cult.

Elen silë omentiemman.
Paco on 12 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

Yeah we moved from that and pretty much agreed that they do it just because they like it, for whatever reason.

No, some actually need it. Plenty of future lawyers, doctors etc hate Latin but have to learn it anyway. It can also be a requirement for linguistics/philology, though this depends on the country. In Russia this is still very common, partly because in the USSR there was less need/acceptance for modern languages.
Serpent on 12 April 2015

Serpent wrote:

i_forget wrote:

Yeah we moved from that and pretty much agreed that they
do it just because they like it, for whatever reason.

No, some actually need it. Plenty of future lawyers, doctors etc hate Latin but have to
learn it anyway. It can also be a requirement for linguistics/philology, though this depends
on the country. In Russia this is still very common, partly because in the USSR there was
less need/acceptance for modern languages.

Yes but this thread refers to the people who willfully decide to study the ancient version
of the language instead of the modern.
i_forget on 12 April 2015

I note that you live in the UK, not only an Anglophone country but a major power, and
Anglophone countries, the others being the USA, Australia, NZ, and parts of Canada would
probably tell you lots of BS about how English is all you need, and that other (living)
languages are just there for no reason. Dead languages have an even lower reputation in
Anglophone countries, but why listen to them?

In bookstores I have looked at some English translations of Isabel Allende's books just
to see what it looks like. It is simply not the same as the Spanish version, despite
Spanish being accessible due to its being a living language. Likewise I read the stories
about the Greek gods like Έρμῆς and Ζεύς, but in English, because it was required reading
in primary and secondary school. Somehow it always never seemed right because it never
captured the real feeling of how it was were I to read it in ancient Greek.
1e4e6 on 12 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

Yes it's relatively hard to be good at something if you don't enjoy doing it...

So, now it's a matter of not being "good" at it if you don't enjoy it? In your last post you said doing something for a reason other than enjoyment was "not too bright" and "bound to fail", which makes it sound like you haven't met a student in a very very very long time (just one of the many types of people who frequently don't fail things they hate doing because their goal-setting and prioritising don't work the way you've outlined).
eyðimörk on 12 April 2015

1e4e6 wrote:

In bookstores I have looked at some English translations of Isabel Allende's books just
to see what it looks like. It is simply not the same as the Spanish version, despite
Spanish being accessible due to its being a living language.

You might be interested in reading what Isabel Allende thinks of her English translators, past and present: http://www.isabelallende.com/en/interview

She seems quite happy with them.

R.
==
hrhenry on 12 April 2015

eyðimörk I fail to see how you can be good (let's not even talk about fluency) in
ancient Greek or Latin if you don't enjoy studying it.
i_forget on 12 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

Let me repeat my point:
Learning ancient Greek because you want to read some ancient texts in the original
doesn't seem too bright to me. In fact it sounds like you are bound to fail with this
approach. However learning it because you actually enjoy it, for whatever reason, yes
you might succeed with that, but just because you enjoy it an you don't have a fixed
end-goal in your mind.

Often these two points aren't mutually exclusive.
Reading old literature in translation means you can only read the translators
interpretation.
Reading old literature in standardized original language means you can only read the
editor's
interpretation.
Reading old literature in diplomatic standardization (=use eg. Latin alphabet instead
of a
photocopy of the original hand writing) means you can only read the editor's
interpretation.
Reading one manuscript (the original is often lost) means you can only read the
transcriber's
interpretation.

The way to go is to read many manuscripts of the same text. Of course you would use an
annotated
compiled version if possible to help you out and point out the differences in the
different
manuscripts. You can also use translations to compare with and academic papers which
explain the
interpretation of certain expressions in context.
Unfortunately all of this is not easy and you start somewhere at the top of the list
and then
move down, and yes, you can of course use the same texts over and over in order to come
to a more
detailed understanding.
For some texts it's worth it. For others it isn't. But you can see that this is a lot
of fun,
right? :)

Studying scripture (ie. Bible) is practically the same thing and some seem to swear on
that. To
each their own.

edit:
Learning a dead language doesn't mean you can't learn the modern successor too. It's
not either - or, why not just learn both?
daegga on 13 April 2015

Of course you are not bound to fail if you learn a language to read books in it and if
you start reading way before being fluent. Actually, that is what many children and
teenagers did with the Harry Potter books in English less than a decade ago so that we
wouldn't have to wait months for the translations. And some of us, like me, hated
English and learned it just to use it, no enjoyment included. So, why should it be
impossible with Ancient Greek or Latin for someone whose passion happens to be
history, literature, mythology, philosophy and so on?

One more point I remembered. Some of the dead languages can be considered a useful
intelectual exercise. For exemple, I've heard it quite often that learning Latin is an
exercise in logic. It is systematic, the grammar is quite demanding (surely more than
that of its living descendants) and regular, the vocabulary is descriptive, rich and
flexible and so on. Learning Latin is considered a good way to train analytical
thinking, especially as it is still being taught mostly through the grammar-
translation way. When it comes to Latin, teachers are still not shy to tell you it's
gonna be hard work, which is the opposite of the approach to the living languages.

I really liked Iversen's post, thanks for that. The differece between a dead language
and a living language is often not that clear, I wholeheartedly agree.
Cavesa on 13 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

Serpent wrote:

i_forget wrote:

Yeah we moved from that and pretty much agreed that they do it just because they like it, for whatever reason.

No, some actually need it. Plenty of future lawyers, doctors etc hate Latin but have to
learn it anyway. It can also be a requirement for linguistics/philology, though this depends on the country. In Russia this is still very common, partly because in the USSR there was less need/acceptance for modern languages.

Yes but this thread refers to the people who willfully decide to study the ancient version of the language instead of the modern.

You keep adding more and more variables. Well, okay, let's ignore those who are forced to learn Latin. Many more are in the same boat with lots of English learners worldwide. They just accept that this language is needed and they learn it. If this helps them with biology/medicine/etc, they won't complain.

It's also rarely a choice between an old and modern version. First of all, Ancient Greek is a bit of an exception here, with having only one descendent. But if we attempt to replace Latin, Old Church Slavonic and Old Norse with modern equivalents, do we go for Italian, Bulgarian and Icelandic, the most direct descendents? Or do we include the option to study a more "useful" modern language, such as French/Spanish/Russian/Swedish? And where do we draw the line, anyway? Nobody writes like Dante anymore, and I'm finding my knowledge of Latin highly useful for reading him. Also, what do native speakers do? A Spaniard can already chat with an Italian, a Russian can chat with a Bulgarian. But they can't read the older form effortlessly. And often there's a stronger tradition associated with learning it - for cultural and religious reasons. There may well be less resources for the modern language (especially for Icelandic and Bulgarian). In particular, there are likely to be less resources focused on reading (and yes, some people learn modern languages just to read them!). For ancient languages, the resources don't really get outdated (apart from the source language itself); for modern ones they do. Those who prefer classes can also often find them more easily, perhaps even for free at some religious centre. Someone who speaks both Latin and Italian may find it easier to teach the former, with no pressure to get a C2 certificate and no competition with native speakers. The teaching of ancient languages is less commercialized and shiny; ironically, with no Rosetta Stone.

Also, an old form is arguably more useful for learning the descendents later, at least if you also enjoy it. And honestly, the lack of opportunities to speak can be relieving. I loved not having to write about the global warming or generation gap in Latin, not acting out dialogues, not worrying at all about my pronunciation. Artificial languages also have this appeal of equality, with all or most speakers being non-native. There's no agonizing choice between the British and American spelling, between trusting living native speakers in case of an ambiguity. "Biologists have an advantage over anthropologists - they can kill the object of the study or have it killed".

I won't deny that sometimes it has to do with xenophobia. People have very different associations with modern Greece, Egypt, India or even Italy (especially southern and Sicily), compared to the ancient civilizations. The bias also applies to Bulgaria, many don't even know where it is. Iceland is seen as a "small country where everyone speaks English anyway". Even if we ignore hypocritical bigots, the old and modern languages are simply studied by different kinds of people, or the same people having different reasons. It can also be a question of which form to study first, or which one to focus on (which may change with travel plans etc, or if you happen to be more fascinated by the old language).

Let me also point out that the existence of living speakers doesn't automatically make a language more attractive. Plenty of monoglots are fine with staying so, and when choosing one to study people often dismiss millions of speakers, for example saying that Spanish is more useful than Portuguese (which is more useful than Finnish, and so on).
Serpent on 13 April 2015

I studied Latin and French concomitantly at school and knowledge of both languages has
reinforced my skills in active French, and later in Romanian, Italian and other languages
too. Part of the reason I adapt to learning Romance languages absurdly fast is because I
have studied Latin, even though nowadays I don't ever use Latin anymore. (I can't speak
it).

As for global warming, I think it's an interesting topic worth writing about in Latin ;)
tarvos on 13 April 2015

I certainly do want to read about not only global warming, but also other things which have been mentioned (or not) in this thread. And it is a simple fact that most of the new research about these topics concerning these topics is published in living languages - with English as the dominant vehicle. So in spite of laudable attempts by Wikipedia and Ephemeridae and given my preference for popular science materials the bulk of my reading will inevitably be in living languages.

I even have to confess that I haven't read the writings of neither Euclid nor Newton in the original languages (Greek resp. English), and that when I have read in the original version of a historical text I have done so as much for sheer language training as for the concrete information contained in the texts.

For instance I have read several Anglosaxon and Ancient Saxon and Old Norse annals to study grammatical constructions or simply to maintain my reading skills, but as pleasure reading they are definitely NOT very exciting, and if you want to grasp what really happened historically in the respective periods you will drown in details and miss out on the bird's eye perspective. At the very least such source texts should be read in parallel with modern works based on the original sources, but with more consideration for non-academic readers living now. I have the same attitude to archeology and paleontology - you won't find me kneedown in mud in a bog looking for pottery shards, but I'm very interested in history and paleontology, and I like visiting museums where I can study the collections and explanations provided by the professionals. But let them do the hard and boring field work first.

However a lot of literature and a few non fictional works of yore were written in a more reader friendly way, and for them the situation is different. Here the information content is not the main point - the writing style is the reason for reading these things. Here I concur totally with those who prefer reading the original versions rather than translations - even when you aren't as competent a reader in those languages. Reading a translation is like visiting Las Vegas to see the pyramids or Venetian waterways - it is simply not the same thing. But literature is low on my personal agenda so while I have read heavyweights like Beowulf in Anglosaxon, La mort le Roi in Old French and De Bellis Punicis in Latin I have read far more articles in weird languages on Wikipedia, just for the fun of it. And there it doesn't matter whether the language is dead or alive or invented by someone as long as I can learn to read it without too much fuss and there are enough interesting articles in it.
Iversen on 13 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

eyðimörk I fail to see how you can be good (let's not even talk about fluency) in ancient Greek or Latin if you don't enjoy studying it.

That much is apparent.

I'm out. Five pages of...

i_forget: I don't see why others do this.
others: This is why we do this.
i_forget: Nuh-uh! Your experience are null and void.
others: But these are our experiences.
i_forget: Nuh-uh!

... is more than enough for me.
eyðimörk on 13 April 2015

This just seems like a question of "why do people have different interests from mine?". Personally I'd also much rather spend my time on learning living languages that I can speak with people than on dead ones, because my main motivations are for socialising and travel. However, that's just my own interests, and I can understand the reasons that people have given based on theirs.

Almost every time I meet an Italian or French person, they ask me to justify my reasons for learning their language when there are more useful languages out there. It's similar logic at the end of the day. I don't go around judging people for how they spend their spare time so I find it a bit unfair when people do it to me. For example, I have no interest in video games and to me they seem like a waste of time, but I appreciate that many people get enjoyment and stimulation from them. So when I meet a gamer, I don't immediately start questioning their motivations and telling them they should use their time more productively, in the way that people often do when they find out that I study their "useless" language.
garyb on 13 April 2015

One more factor are the misconceptions people have about learning several languages. English and Latin are generally seen as a safer option than English and Italian, and Latin can actually help you with advanced English. Those who want to learn both Italian and Latin may also feel pressured to choose one instead of doing both. Or they may genuinely lack the time to do both, and then Latin again feels like a safer alternative because it's waited for a couple of thousand years and it can wait more if you take a break. With modern languages, the usefulness is often seen as temporary and transient, directly related to economics.
Serpent on 13 April 2015

i_forget wrote:

eyðimörk I fail to see how you can be good (let's not even talk about
fluency) in
ancient Greek or Latin if you don't enjoy studying it.

I never really enjoyed studying German and I speak that language pretty well. It's about
the discipline to put up with what you have to know so you can get to what you want to
know.
tarvos on 13 April 2015

I might be the only person in this thread to sympathize with the OP's concerns. I learned enough Latin and Greek to
read Vergil and Homer in the original, and in retrospect--speaking for myself--I'm not sure it was worth the effort.
Yes, it was thrilling to sweep through the entire Aeneid in Latin, and yes, reading or listening to Homer recited in
pitch accent is captivating. But doing so involved losing hundreds upon hundreds of hours that I could've used for
other activities I value just as much or more than reading old literature. There's definitely an enormous sacrifice
involved. I now realize now that a single, heartfelt conversation with my wife on an ordinary afternoon carries far
more value for me than any work of literature. Again, speaking for myself only, all the lofty literature and philosophy
I've ever read has had far less transformative power than even a single conversation with a loved one in which we
render ourselves vulnerable. Far harder to do so with an ancient language than a living one!
Goindol on 13 April 2015

While I agree with the sentiment Goindol has just expressed, on the other side, I can say that thoughts, ideas, and writings of the ancients do provide fodder for discussions with my wife. No reason I couldn't do that with just English, but ...
luke on 13 April 2015

I'm studying to be an engineer, and considering a dead language, but don't know if Greek or Latin would be more beneficial, I've kind of been forced to learn the Greek letters because of math, so I was just considering that since I already know the alphabet...
Tyrion101 on 13 April 2015

Would you learn Vietnamese or Hungarian because you already know the alphabet?

Also, nobody said that learning a dead language is worth it for everyone, or even every literature lover etc.
Serpent on 13 April 2015

It's kinda funny how the heading states "dead/artificial language". Old manuscripts feel
a lot less artificial to me than many a modern standard language.
Why learn standard German, rikssvenska etc. if you could spend the time with dialects
that are actually spoken? (that's a sarcastic rhetorical question of course)
daegga on 13 April 2015

Tyrion101 wrote:

While I personally would choose Greek for a variety of reasons, I don't think knowing the standardised Greek alphabet gives you any advantage at all given that it's the one thing about learning Homeric/Classical/Koine Greek that requires essentially nothing from the learner (Day one in Classical Greek class we had an introduction to the course layout and were given our first homework: learn the alphabet for tomorrow's class, because tomorrow we start reading and writing).
eyðimörk on 13 April 2015

I can understand how my question can be annoying :) It would be hard to explain why one does
it when they genuinely like it. It would be hard to give a concrete reason. I genuinely
enjoy Spanish and when people ask me this question about Spanish I just give a random reason
to avoid the question. "I had a girlfriend". "I studied at college". Of course, bullshit. So
if you tell me "to read books" I can not sympathize, I can only say "read a translation".

I can also see that quite a few people have misinterpreted things I've said, even from my
initial opening post. It would be nice if people stated reasons why NOT to study
ancient/artificial languages before going on and saying why to do so.
i_forget on 13 April 2015

Heh but why should you need to defend your ways to spend the free time? You like Spanish,
awesome! And from those annoying questions, you surely understand that others just may
have whatever reason to learn Latin or Ancient Egyptian or Classical Chinese and find it
totally sufficient. So, why can't you sympathize? Do you as well have trouble
sympathizing with people that can't give you enough reasons as to why they run a few km
every day or why they learn to play guitar?

"It would be nice if people stated..." what the hell? Obviously, most of us interpreted
your post the same way: we gave you examples of our reasons why to learn and why not to
learn Latin. Were you just looking for a group of people disliking the same things as you
dislike, no reasons needed?
Cavesa on 13 April 2015

I studied Latin for a few years. It was a waste of time, but a waste of time like pretty
much anything else I would have done in my free time.

To answer your question, I think very few people actually study dead languages seriously,
and the majority of those that do either study it for a specific academic reason or as a
linguistic exercise because they see these languages as somehow being more pure or
syntactically perfect or however they describe it.

Asking why people study dead languages is like asking why people do field linguistics.
You're talking about a very, very small group of people with a specific interest.
vell on 13 April 2015

You asked "why learn?" not "why not to learn?", or in a more appropriate way, "what are the downsides of learning a dead language?"
Serpent on 14 April 2015

@i_forget :

There is no reason NOT to study something you are interested in. There is no reason TO study something you aren't interested in.

I could give you a million and one reasons not to study a language, but if that is what you want to do, my million and one reasons are all mute points. The converse is also true. I don't understand why you need reasons NOT to study something you are clearly NOT interested in?

rdearman on 14 April 2015

The purpose of this thread? To troll. How successfully? Very.
basica on 14 April 2015

Basica is correct. Reason to post in the troll thread: procrastination from
pathophysiology. How successfully? Quite. ;-)
Cavesa on 14 April 2015

Serpent wrote:

Would you learn Vietnamese or Hungarian because you already know the
alphabet?

The Vietnamese and Hungarian alphabets may use Latin characters, but their alphabets
aren't the same as the English (or Latin) one as they definitely add/subtract
characters.
The only alphabet I know of that is exactly the same as English is Dutch (tremas and
accents are not considered separate letters in Dutch).

By contrast, Greek has two variants... Modern Greek and Ancient Greek.
tarvos on 14 April 2015

basica wrote:

The purpose of this thread? To troll. How successfully? Very.

Depends on what you define as successful trolling.

I personally would define 'successful trolling' to mean something like "I made people waste their time on something they did not want to spend their time and energy on by eliciting negative emotional reactions they didn't want to have, that hurt them" rather than "I just wasted my time pretending to be more ignorant than I am and getting people try to help me deal with my ignorance, haha those nice fools I made them do what they already wanted to do, I am such a great manipulator!"
Especially when while pretending to be ignorant you display some basic assumptions that show the true depth of your ignorance.
Bao on 14 April 2015

People can have all sorts of reasons for NOT wanting to learn a specific language or group of languages (or any languages at all). However a question like "Why learn a dead/artificial language?" is likely to elicit reasons for learning such languages rather than the opposite. Did the OP expect this? I don't know, but I can see why some learners would avoid dead or invented languages when they could have studied living languages with lot of speakers. And apparently the OP is just one of these learners.

I also wonder why people spend their time reading or watch movies about nasty people that don't even exist, but to each hsi or her own. Some like reading about fictive love stories, some delight in watching splatter films and I spend my time reading about dead animals and lifeless celestial objects.

We have had real trolls here (and as a moderator I have seen some appalling ones), but this thread doesn't strike me as deliberately inflammatory.

Iversen on 14 April 2015

The only thing trollish about the OP was the tone, saying things like "why on earth" instead of simply "why."

vell wrote:

I think very few people actually study dead languages seriously,
and the majority of those that do either study it for a specific academic reason or as a
linguistic exercise because they see these languages as somehow being more pure or
syntactically perfect or however they describe it.

I mostly agree with this but with a few more types:

1. For school. I think it's reasonable to offer Latin classes in schools because a lot of scholarly culture is still
somehow tied to Latin, and, with the exception of English, most children learning foreign languages in schools
don't end up really using their skills much. The benefit is often more in being exposed to how a foreign language
works, which is good for children's intellectual development. I would still offer living languages before Latin, but
Latin as one option out of three or four seems reasonable to me. Sometimes the classes are so bad/boring that
they don't achieve these goals at all, but that is the idea at least.

2. For a specific academic reason. Many historians, archeologists, linguists, religious scholars, etc. are required
to learn one or more dead languages for their profession, either because they use it in their work, or because
their community considers it fundamental knowledge for members of the discipline. Some non-professionals also
acquire this knowledge as a hobby or for their own intellectual/spiritual development.

3. For deeper understanding of other related languages. In my case, I study Latin because it gives me a better
view of the relationships among the four other Romance languages that I speak. I don't think it would've been
possible to get the same holistic understanding of the language family without studying Latin. It also helped me
understand the origin of many English words.

4. For enjoyment. Some people like really old stuff. They find the language fascinating and fun to study. They
would rather spend 10x the time to read Plato in the original. This is no more useless than sports, movies, or
games.

5. For thoroughness/variety, in the case of super-polyglots. If I have a hit-list of 30 languages, it makes sense to
include at least one classical language and at least one artificial language, if the goal is not only to learn useful
languages but also to explore as much as possible of the range of phenomena that is human language.

6. To troll people who are gonna waste a bunch of time figuring out why the hell they would study dead
languages.

robarb on 14 April 2015

robarb wrote:

For deeper understanding of other related languages. In my case, I study Latin because it gives me a better
view of the relationships among the four other Romance languages that I speak. I don't think it would've been
possible to get the same holistic understanding of the language family without studying Latin. It also helped me
understand the origin of many English words.

That's my main reason. Without Latin (and reading about comparative Romance philology, materials that assume a knowledge of Latin too), I would probably know Portuguese better through spending more time on it, and I'd have started Italian maybe 2-3 years ago (I started 6 years ago). I have no clue where my Spanish would be, let alone Romanian or Catalan. I'd not be able to use French-based Assimil (without actually learning some French).
Serpent on 14 April 2015

Looking back, having learned Latin in the driest, most old-fashioned, dead language way,
taught as "calisthenics for the mind", turned out to be excellent preparation for learning
arbitrary artificial computer languages.

People pay you to know those.
tangleweeds on 15 April 2015

This thread reminds me of the poor guy on "Jeopardy!" the other day. For most of you who are not in the US, a contestant on this show (where questions are asked and you must "buzz in" with the answer before your opponents), buzzed-in first to answer the question:

http://www.examiner.com/article/jeopardy-contestant-answer-s hock-by-common-law-12-year-old-girls-can-have-sex

Thousands of people immediately went on a bent basically calling the guy a pedophile in all but name.

It didn't occur to any of them to think that perhaps this guy was just trying to beat the others and said the first thing that popped up as a plausible answer. You know, we all have those in our inner thoughts, no one hears them, but we all think "strange things without even wanting to.

People just refuse to offer the benefit of the doubt anymore, they just jump to conclusions, ironically performing the same "thoughtless" leap without ratiotination that got this person in hot water.

In this era of "Instant Indignation", many people need to re-learn the basic human skill of patience.

I'm not condemning anyone here in particular, just this thread reminded me yet again of this cyber-age phenomenon: people have no skin!
outcast on 15 April 2015

outcast wrote:

I'm not condemning anyone here in particular, just this thread reminded me yet again of
this cyber-age phenomenon: people have no skin!

Well played sir, well played.
tarvos on 15 April 2015

robarb wrote:

The only thing trollish about the OP was the tone, saying things like "why on earth" instead of simply "why."

Adding emotion or even trying to be purposefully controversial is not the same as "being a troll". The perfect troll will make a carefully designed, short, contentious remark with the purpose of minimizing the troll's effort while maximizing the effort of the opposing parties to expend vast amounts of energy in a "discussion" that ultimately leads nowhere. This is distinct from a normal debate or even a flame war; in a flame war both sides tend to know the discussion has reached a state of pointlessness but at least both sides are still contributing more or less equally to the "discussion". It's also possible, for example, to "derail a discussion" by talking (say) about trolling instead of the original topic (learning a dead language), but derailing a discussion is not in itself troll-like.

As for the reason for learning a dead language, I think the real question comes down to human knowledge. It seems that there's a tendency for people to think of human languages as being more or less the equivalent of a kind of "encoding format" -- a language is merely a convenient pattern we use to transmit or store information. In some sense, this is true. For example, to get the knowledge out of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, you don't need to know English. Reading a translation of this work into your own language is just fine. Some people will occasionally complain about missing nuances or whatever, but honestly I think you lose much more simply from the "translate these naturally spoken words into ink blots on a page" process than from the "translate these ink blots in pattern A to these other ink blots in pattern B" process. Good translators can also translate nuances and make good use of word borrowing to maintain the flavor of the original text.

But it needs to be said that the language itself is a form of knowledge. We know this because we regularly talk about all our languages using language itself. It is clearly knowledge and is therefore just as worthy for something to be studied as any other topic.

Asking "Why learn Latin when everything is written in English nowadays?" carries just as much weight as the question "Why learn arithmetic when you can do that on a pocket calculator?" or "Why learn how to handwrite when you can do it much faster on a computer keyboard?"

chaotic_thought on 15 April 2015

I wasn't going to contribute to this thread, because you never know when you're wasting your time replying to a 14-year-old who had a bad day at school, or whatever. I'm sorry if this isn't the case, even more so if it is.

Anyway, there's been a lot of significant contributions so far. I've seen robarb's contribution (59th post) and thought I could add an item.

7. Aging people wanting to keep disease at bay.

In fact, this can be a game changer for language learning as a sector: research seems to show that people who speak more languages are less susceptible to fall prey of degenerative diseases. I'm sure this is not new to people participating in these fora*, but it's a force to be reckoned with.

And why a dead language? I'm sure a lot of people, when choosing a language as a retirement hobby, can (and will) legitimately choose Latin (or Greek, or...). After all, many will have used one or two "useful" languages during their productive life, and may be curious about the "classic" ones.

* fora = plural of forum => Latin can be useful. ;)
Luso on 15 April 2015

I wasn't going to contribute to this thread either, but I just read the following article and it made me think of it: http://blogs.transparent.com/esperanto/is-your-hobby-a-waste -of-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign= languageblog&utm_content=Esperanto - Is your hobby a waste of time? :)
Radioclare on 15 April 2015

For me language learning in general is a hobby, and having hobbies is extremely important. I already know enough Danish, English, German etc. to survive, and I have a job where I don't need to know other languages than Danish and English. So basically everything I do now about language learning is for fun.

If I one bright day in the future decides that learning Gothic or Ancient Greek might be fun too (AND feasible) then it is just as relevant as learning a modern language. And way more relevant than watching X-factor or soccer on the telly. You just have to know the conditions first: do you crave human contact with native speakers then those two languages may not be the obvious choice. But Esperanto would definitely be relevant - and probably a better choice than Malayalam, even though millions of human beings speak the latter.
Iversen on 16 April 2015

Responding from mobile, and this site sucks in mobile.

The primary reason to learn any language for me is always about communication. But part of
that communication is internal, the ideas that I think with, the Lego bricks of thought- and
outward expression is a secondary factor with these. this explains my study of German and
Russian, which is well known to my friends for the lack of utility, but which nonetheless
helps to populate my brain with the ideas from these languages which I can then use to make
distinctions not typically available in English or the other languages I speak better than
these.

Or, put another way, I don't learn languages to talk, I learn them to think. I learn them for
the larger sets of ideas they let my mind use, and performing the cultural noises is a nice
way to test this, but not necessary for the languages to have utility.
Choscura on 22 April 2015

I admit I haven't read every post but I think one good reason has been missed out: there's no pressure to be fluent or to have conversations. There's not necessarily any need for active skills in a dead language at all. You can learn a dead language just to read it, and ignore speaking, listening and writing. So it can be a more personal experience, without worry of falling down in the presence of a native speaker. I've just started studying Sanskrit, and it's actually excited me that I can take my time and work through the course slowly and just enjoy the process. I have no trip, no test, nothing else to do but read when I want to.
Jeffers on 27 April 2015

I've mentioned this part too :) I definitely find this relieving.
edit: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=40317&PN=0&TPN=5#533482 - in this long post :)
Serpent on 28 April 2015