Learning Latin the wrong way, an argument against ignorance.

2022-01-29 / latin

I’m doing some of the Duolingo Latin course. Who knew you could shop, converse and joke in Latin? Certainly not the classics professors I learned from. Quid pudor est.

There is no reason why learners should be made to treat every Latin text as puzzle to be deciphered into translation, rather than a specimen of normal human communication to be understood as such.

http://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/argumentum-ad-ignorantiam.html?m=1

A longer quote from the article:

The fact that there aren’t any Romans to chat with anymore didn’t stop people like Erasmus from using it as a conversational language with other educated people. Even though there is little practical need for spoken proficiency in Latin anymore, there is no reason why learners of Latin today should be railroaded into the kind of semi-literacy that academic classicists often acquire. There is no reason why learners should be made to treat every Latin text as puzzle to be deciphered into translation, rather than a specimen of normal human communication to be understood as such.

There’s a lot more. Very cogent. Makes me sad I (halfway) learned Latin the way I did. Duolingo is good.

Lingua latina vere vivit.

—George Jones